Do Immigrants Take Jobs Away From Americans: A View From The Fields

Stoop Labor

10 hours a day

6 days a week

Alan: Back in the early '90s when I opened the "Migrant Education Department" for Orange County Schools, I spent hundreds of hours on North Carolina dairy and tobacco farms. 

Conservative farmer friends made a point of telling me that without latino laborers their farms would have "gone under" long ago. 

Here is a pertinent excerpt from a 2010 "Voice of America" article: "With U.S. unemployment near 10 percent, many believe illegal immigrants are taking jobs from Americans. But when the United Farm Workers union launched a campaign offering to connect unemployed people to farm jobs, only three people accepted -- out of thousands of inquiries." http://www.voanews.com/a/us-farmers-depend-on-illegal-immigrants-100541644/162082.html 

A final note... 

A North Carolina judge friend, whose family has worked the land since the 1600s, confided: "The next time there's an economic boom in the United States, we will BEG Hispanic laborers to come back - and the economic powers that be will not care if they're legal or illegal."