Will California be going the way of Georgia, which recently passed a get-tough law against illegal immigrants only to discover crops were rotting in the fields? Georgia seemed to be well-intended in driving undocumented workers out of the state only to find – get ready for this shocker – that was exactly what happened. Farm workers vanished from the state, and the state was short 11,000 agricultural jobs.
In a truly desperate move, Georgia decided to hire unemployed criminals who are on probation to pick the crops.
“If you’re strong enough to do this work, you’re good, as long as you don’t show up stoned or drunk or pregnant,” said the president of their Agricultural Council perhaps unmindful that workers need to have experience and be ready for extremely strenuous work.
I’m guessing that city dwellers on probation for marijuana might not make the best of farm workers. Not surprisingly, most of the probationers gave up quickly and were much less productive than skilled farm workers. By the way, peaches are the worst crop to pick says an ex-farm worker friend. The fuzz makes you itch and gets in your eyes. Georgia has lots of peaches.
Could this same type of fiasco happen in California too? While we certainly don’t have immigration laws as Draconian as Georgia, controls at the border have gotten much stricter with the result being fewer illegal immigrants crossing over into the States.
