An article loaded with important facts and figures.

 

A Better Suggestion For Illegal Alien Farm Workers

By Anony Mee www.americanthinker.com

Let me just state this right up front. Farmers in America, particularly ones that employ several to more than a hundred workers, are not unsophisticated country bumpkins. There will be no whining in this essay along the lines of “Oh, the poor farmer! He does not know how to fill out online federal forms for income tax withholding, immigration, etc.” That’s farm animal excrement! Farmers EFT their own quarterly income tax payments, so they can certainly make payments for their workers’ withholding.

President Trump has listened to the sad stories of loving employers and their willing wage workers providing our food in harmony for years together. In his desire not to disrupt agricultural commerce, he has listened to descriptions of fields full of rotting produce. But sad stories aside, it’s a bad idea to exempt a small segment of the economy from the rules, and it’s entirely unnecessary. Let’s look at some statistics to see if we can’t acquire a better-informed perspective than random anecdotes have provided.

 

Image by ChatGPT.

The latest Census of Agriculture reports that, in 2022, we had 1,900,487 farms in America on 880,100,848 acres producing $543 billion in market value of agricultural products sold. Eighty-five percent were owned by families or individuals, 7% by partnerships, and 7% by corporations. Of this number, only 1.5% of farms—28,464—hired migrant workers. Half of those employing migrants sold $1 million or more (market value) of agricultural products.

There were 3,693,391 farm workers, 41% of them unpaid (i.e., owners and their families). Of the paid farm workers, 32% were native-born Americans, 7% foreign-born US citizens, 19% authorized foreign-born workers (immigrants and temporary nonimmigrants), and 42% (917,487) were illegal aliens. Only 25% of all farm workers are illegal aliens.

What do we know about them? Almost all of them (86%) are from Mexico, so home is close by. California has more of them than any other state. Estimates are that California has between 375,000 and 500,000 undocumented agricultural workers. Florida has about 300,000. That’s almost all the undocumented right there in only two states.

To recap: Only 1.5% of all farms, half of whom sold $1 million or more in product, employ migrant workers.

• Half of the migrant workers are illegal.
• California and Florida together account for between 74% and 87% of all illegal agricultural workers.

Washington State’s cherry harvest lasts two months, pears a month, and apples about 10 weeks. In Florida, the sugar cane and orange harvests run about six months long. Planting and harvesting fresh produce is a year-round job in California.

The H2A temporary agricultural worker visa program has certain requirements that must be met. Employers petitioning for farm workers must provide transportation to and from the workers’ home countries. They must provide housing and either a food preparation area or access to prepared food. The employer must provide full-time work and wages in accordance with standard wages for American farm workers. The workplace must meet all federal and state safety, hygiene, and environmental mandates.

The employer, including any consortium of employers who together offer full-time employment, must file a petition with the Department of Labor to show the need for migrant labor. The employer must then file a petition with the US Citizenship and Immigration Services for the alien worker. There are companies that handle all of this for a fee.

The potential worker must be eligible for an H2A agricultural worker nonimmigrant (temporary) visa and must not be otherwise ineligible. The worker cannot work for employers other than the petitioner(s) without prior permission from USCIS, and is limited to no more than three years in the US before the worker must take a break of at least 60 days outside of the US.

If President Trump were to allow illegal farm workers to continue their work, that would promote continued criminality on the part of both the worker and the employer. It unbalances the marketplace when criminal activities result in profits greater than those who follow the law earn. Without enforcement, we dispense with the rule of law and subject ourselves to violations of the Equal Protection Clause.

Moreover, rewarding lawlessness erodes the nation’s conscience. Some of these workers were trafficked, some have criminal histories, and others are using false or stolen identities. Many are not receiving their rightful benefits or legal wages; some face unsafe and environmentally hazardous working conditions. For us to wink at this in the name of cheaper strawberries pollutes our own souls.

What should we do? Balance justice and mercy. Put the country on notice that the government will no longer tolerate exploiting migrant agricultural workers, just as the administration has declared that all illegals face deportation. Then provide a grace period so that employers can bring their working conditions, wages, and benefits into compliance with the law and send their workers home to get proper work visas. The grace period will allow the workers to obtain documentation (passports, etc.) under their valid identities. Mexican Consulates in the United States should be prepared to undertake this volume of work.

States that depend on migrant workers for their ag sector should jump in to assist with verifying the need for foreign workers. The Department of Labor, the US Citizenship and Immigration Service, and the Department of State need to streamline the petitioning and visa application processes. This would be the perfect task for D.O.G.E. to undertake.

A migrant worker who has lived here illegally will raise questions regarding the requirement that he has a home outside of America to which he intends to return after the job is finished. That, however, can be addressed through the interview process at a US consulate or embassy abroad.

This can all be accomplished with minor changes to existing procedures. No new laws have to be passed. That lets Congress off the hook on this issue.

And let it be known that after the grace period, those not in compliance will face ICE raids, OSHA inspections, EPA investigations, and IRS audits. We freed the slaves 162 years ago. It’s time to obliterate the last vestiges of those practices. And to those crying, “Who will pick my blueberries?” I say shame on you. Do better. Maybe even think about growing or picking your own.

 

"so that the benevolent light of religion may keep us good enough to remain free..."!

 

How to keep the Republic this 4th of July

By Lathan Watts www.americanthinker.com

Birthdays typically prompt us to look back on our lives and take stock of how far we have come, where we stand, and what we would like to do with the time we have left.  As the 249th birthday of our nation approaches, Americans would do well to do the same, remembering the rich religious heritage and ideals upon which our nation was founded and considering how our future might be shaped if that heritage is revived — or forgotten.

President Donald Trump’s campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again,” has become more than an applause line in a stump speech.  It has become a political movement and policy agenda.  But making that meme an enduring reality requires a deep understanding of and commitment to what made our nation great in the first place.

Many pundits, media personalities, preachers, and politicians now espouse the dangerously misguided view that religious pluralism equates to relativism...and therefore subjective morality and public policy are incompatible.  This approach is not only constitutionally apocryphal, but biblically illiterate — and, frankly, the source of many of our nation’s troubles.  Too many of our fellow citizens have forgotten the foundational idea of our republic, which was informed by faith and the belief that men must be good to be free.

Our Founders understood that freedom and morality are inextricably linked.  If you have freedom but no morality, and each man is free to do what is right in his own eyes, the strong will inevitably oppress the weak.  The rich will take advantage of the poor.  The well connected will use their advantage over the powerless.  The governing will play by an entirely different set of rules from the governed.  The proper role of religion in a free, civil society is to restrain the fallen nature of man.

Three common misconceptions have contributed to many Americans’ rejection of our religious heritage and the role of religion in a free society: Thomas Jefferson’s “wall of separation between church and state,” our “Godless Constitution,” and the folly of “legislating morality.”

Jefferson’s Wall

The perception of a wall of separation between church and state comes from a phrase in a letter President Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1802 to the Danbury Baptist Association of Connecticut.  In answering their concerns that a state-sponsored church would infringe upon their religious liberty, he wrote, “Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with solemn reverence that act of the whole American people which declared their legislature should ‘make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between church and state.”

Seen in context, this wall exists to protect the church and the individual’s conscience from interference by the state, not to protect the state from being influenced by people of faith or to scrub all vestiges of public life from anything that could be considered religious.

Our “Godless” Constitution

Although it is true that the name of God is not written in our Constitution, when secular humanists speak haughtily of our “Godless Constitution,” they reveal how little they know of God or the Constitution.  The Constitution must be considered in the context of the Declaration of Independence (many of the same men signed both); the latter mentions God four times.  Its final paragraph submits the entire document as a prayer appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world and relying on the protection of Divine Providence.

In a study published in the American Political Science Review, Donald Lutz surveyed the political literature of the American founding, looking to see whom Americans were citing in these documents.  He reported that the Bible was cited more frequently than any European writer or even any European school of thought, such as Enlightenment liberalism.  The Book of Deuteronomy alone was the most frequently cited work, followed by Montesquieu’s The Spirit of the Laws.  Deuteronomy — which includes, among other things, instructions for governing a nation “under God” — was referenced nearly twice as often as John Locke.  The Apostle Paul was mentioned about as frequently as Montesquieu and Blackstone, the two most cited secular theorists.

The Founders considered the entire purpose of government to be the protection of God-given liberty. They understood that the power to protect liberty can be abused by those entrusted with it to oppress those from whom their power was justified by consent.  The fundamental features of the American constitutional design — covenantal relationships among free men and between men and God, limited government, separation of powers, checks and balances, the rule of law, due process and equality under the law, and consent of the governed — are deeply rooted in biblical principles.  Some may refer to these ideas as principles of the Enlightenment era, but they were enlightened precisely because they were biblical.

And finally, the text of the preamble states the purposes of the Constitution, including “to form a more perfect union.”  Not perfect, but more perfect than what Americans had enjoyed under the Articles of Confederation.  The Founders did not succumb to the utopian delusion that, given enough power, a government could create a perfect society.  Instead, owing to their knowledge of man’s nature, they humbly set about to improve upon their previous efforts “to secure the Blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity.”

Some say seeing is believing, but some things must be believed to be seen.  God’s name may not be seen in the text of our Constitution, but His truth enlightened the times, His word inspired the authors, and His blessing of liberty has been successfully secured by the government formed and bound by the document.  The very success of our Constitution defies any claim that it is Godless.  As the Psalmist said, “unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain.”

Legislating Morality

It is also true that passing a law does not make people moral, but the law establishes the guardrails for how free men live among free men.  The law is the collective expression of what society accepts and rejects, of what one can and cannot do, of what differentiates right and wrong.  All laws, then, reflect morality.

In 1924, President Calvin Coolidge stated in a speech on authority and religious liberty, “Men do not make laws.  They do but discover them.”  He went on to say, “Laws must be justified by something more than the will of the majority.  They must rest on the eternal foundation of righteousness. ” Coolidge was familiar with the concept of Natural Law, which says that just as there is a natural physical order to the universe, there is a natural moral order to the universe.  An inherent notion of morality is present in humanity as image-bearers of God.  But with free will, men may choose to defy what they instinctively know to be true.

Just as the physical laws of the universe, like gravity, were not written by men, but discovered, the moral order of the universe is not written by men.  And morality, like gravity, cannot be defied for long without dire consequences.  Do today’s lawmakers understand the difference between an attempt to create laws and to discover them?  Do they understand that any law enacted will primarily impact law-abiding citizens, for those with no respect for the rule of law will not obey it?

America’s policy, legislation, and regulatory environment should make it easier — not more difficult — for those attempting to live peaceful, morally upright lives.  Our law should reflect the Founders’ vision of ordered liberty: I should be unencumbered to do as I should rather than (in the Ron Swanson notion of freedom) what I want.  That view is more in line with the French Revolution than the American.

Edmund Burke, in writing his observations on the revolution in France, stated, “Men are qualified for civil liberty, in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their appetites. ... Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere, and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without.  It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free.  Their passions form their fetters.”

A quick look at headlines or a walk around downtown in any major city will reveal all too many Americans whose passions have become their fetters.

“Our constitution was written for a moral and religious people,” John Adams famously wrote.  “It is wholly inadequate to the governing of any other.”  The challenge our nation faces today is a constitution, written for a moral and religious people, whose ideals and intentions are being strained by the effort to govern those who are not.

How to remedy that?  Pastors, rabbis, and leaders of faith must lead the way in qualifying men for liberty by teaching them to place moral chains on their appetites — or else forfeit their freedoms while government places those restraints for them.  For, as President Ronald Reagan said, “when government expands, liberty contracts.”

Lawmakers, in turn, must protect the innocent, establishing justice and the rule of law in a way that respects the First Amendment right of free speech and enables the influence of religion and morality to make men good enough to remain free.

In his second inaugural address, Reagan said, “I recognize we must be cautious in claiming that God is on our side, but I think it’s all right to keep asking if we’re on His side.”

As we celebrate the birth of our republic, there is no better time to revisit Reagan’s question and act accordingly, so that the benevolent light of religion may keep us good enough to remain free...and the light of the great city on a hill may burn brightly into the future.

 

A very important article about statements/questions pertaining to 'Left Wing Lunacy'!

 

Left-wing lunacy

By J.A. Frascino www.americanthinker.com

The left’s rhetoric on social and political issues is a study in hypocrisy and unprincipled inconsistencies.

- If America is systemically racist, why should we open our border to Hispanics, Asians, and Africans?

- Why should we downsize our military but not Iran’s?

- If capitalism leaves many behind, and communism leaves everyone behind, why is communism better?

- If permissive parenting is preferable to authoritarian, why are today’s youth anxious, depressed, gender-confused, isolated, drug-dependent, and suicidal?

- EVs are essential to going green, unless they are marketed by a Trump staffer?

- If Trump is Hitler, was Biden Nero?

- If we don’t want to make America great again, what do we want to do with it?

- If we must have DEI, is it to make America mediocre?

- If the Jews are illegal aliens in Palestine, should the left not be convincing the Palestinians to accept them as we must accept illegals here?

- What’s the difference between ranked choice voting and gerrymandering?

- If we can forgive college (i.e., indoctrination) debt, why can’t we forgive mortgage, credit card, and the national debt?

- If the Democrats choose to debase the Constitution as an obsolete document framed by slave owners, how can they hold it up and cry “Constitutional crises!” in response to Trump’s policies?

- Will AI improve outcomes, or be utilized by Silicon Valley ideologues to replace critical thinking with partisan mandate?

- Why are the Democrats adamantly opposed to proposed Medicaid cuts in the “big beautiful bill” when such would affect primarily rural, red state MAGA voters, whom they define as deplorable garbage?

Finding logic and reason in liberal/leftist/Democrat rantings and talking points would challenge Socrates.

Lurking behind the left’s unprincipled inconsistencies, hypocrisy, and hollow virtue-signaling, however, one finds the left’s true raison d’être: a relentless, vengeful attack on “oppressive,” “patriarchal,” capitalistic white supremacy and its willful “oppression” of minorities, deviants, and people of color. The Palestinians cannot welcome Jews as immigrants because Jews are white oppressors, and Palestinians are oppressed people of color. Conversely, Americans must accept immigrant oppressed people of color because Americans are white oppressors. (…And we need more Democrat voters and menials). The left has no stance on immigration. The focus is on racism, the oppressors, and the oppressed.

TDS exacerbates the left’s inanity.  Trump is a capitalist who wants to shrink government and promote meritocracy. They are socialists who want to expand government and promote equity. Never the twain shall meet. If Trump were to conquer cancer and attain world peace, the left would find his process unconstitutional and grounds for impeachment.