I don't buy the premise of your question, does anyone else?

The dogs bark, but the caravan moves on.

- Arabian Proverb

Pay someone a decent wage and Americans will work for it.  Pay them a couple of bucks an hour and they won't.  But the illegal alien will.  Unless you advocate paying Americans the same wages as the illegals?  That's the only way your question is valid.

Dutch

Thomas5...."who is going to work in the agricultural industry in california?" but conservatives... "

Oh, can the "but conservatives," here.

Here's the left's battle cry."All we need to do is enforce the laws and stop the corporations (this has to include all business, to be fair) from hiring the illegal's - fine the businesses that hire them."

OK, I say. Fine. Of course tomorrow, if the government actually did that, some 10-12 million illegals would be out a job. Do the liberals actually want to fire all of the illegals?

About the only thing I liked about the Immigration bill was the documented worker program. I'd liked to see it tweaked so that the number of documented workers was forced to be smaller and smaller over time, so that more folks here would be forced by economic pressures to take the jobs.

Secondly, I have no qualms about using prison labor to do these jobs. Pay them minimum wage. Put it in an interest bearing account. A prisoner getting out of jail working full time for minimum wage ($7 in CA +/-), after 10 years (at 5% growth) could have someting like $185,000 in the bank - to start over with.

For the record, the staunch views on immigration reform (reduction of legal immigration + strong border control + ending illegal immigration) is not limited to the conservative party. It has strong roots in the Democrat party, as well. It is the MSM which does it's damn best to keep this out of the debate.

You could start with Harry Reid's views back in 1993. The father of Earth Day, the late Gaylord Nelson, Barbara Jordan (Clinton's chair for his immigration reform commission), Former Democrat Gov. of CO - Dick Lamn, JFK, etc.

If produce prices skyrocket, then more and more people will start to grow their own food. And that is part of the Liberal's Tree-Hugger Dream isn't it? No more produce being shipped all over the country dumping 'carbon' into the atmosphere. Don't you see, this would be an environmentalist dream come true if produce was too expensive to buy.

However, the fact remains that the U.S. already has plenty of legal citizens to shoulder the work-load. It would be a great way for some kids to save up some cash to put themselves through college and avoid getting student loans. We just need to stop allowing our teens to be lazy and expecting that everything be given to them. Put them to work.

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." --Thomas Jefferson

there is nothing keeping americans from doing it now.

Sure there is; the fact that the employers hire the illegals and pay them next to nothing.  As I said in a post above, pay Americans a decent wage, and they'll work for it.  Pay them pennies and they won't.  Not sure why you don't see that.

Oh, and yes, I know it may drive the cost of products up, but I'm much more willing to pay for for my produce if I know my taxes aren't going to educate, incarcerate, feed, clothe, and provide medical care for illegals.  We'll save MUCH MORE in the long run doing this.

Dutch

Thomas, you are in luck!  I will pick your food (I charge $4/lb for raspberries and $2 for strawberries).   I grow strawberries, raspberries, pears, plums, peaches, cherries, apricots, and apples.  I actually get quite a few people who want to pick their own food, it is a family affair.  I was actually thinking of adding "picked by and American" to my advertising this year.

I also grow many vegis, raise chickens, turkeys, duck, and eggs.  All you have to do is shop at your local farmer's market.  The more people buy from them, they more growers there will be.  The food is better there too.  Grocery stores might need some pressure to force them to buy from local growers.  The huge growers in California who use illegals to do their picking actually take away from local growers.  I live in the midwest, we grow great produce here, but most stores will not take food from local growers, they would rather ship crap from California (not that their produce is bad, but in order for it to ship without bruising it mst be picked prematurely).  It does not really affect me, I sell all I grow, but I know plenty of people who are upset by this.

Oh, and I signed up for the Army National Guard, served 8 years and married a man who currently has served 24.  My brother also served after he finished school at USMA. 

So this is your research thomas? Is this article telling us only criminal migrants will do this work? They lie. I spent many a summer vacation picking cotton and harvesting wheat and barley. This story dosent add up. It is a work fiction by a bleeding heart liberal.

Save a SeAL, club a liberal!!

"Now with the collapse last week of the immigration bill in the U.S. Senate,
some farmers say they have become angry and are weary of waiting for
help from Washington."

Solution:  Hire legal workers.... no worries.

When I was a youngster in my last year of high school (and in the in-between to college) there was a very wonderful pastor in my town (a Southern capital) that shepherded the youth of his flock (I was a friend of one of them) to learn about the Earth and its bounty and to learn about commerce, literally, from the ground up. He encouraged the youth of his church to, with their parents' permission, head to the fields of California and the orchards of Washington State.

Each summer (before and after) there were hundreds of us that would make the exciting and adventurous trek West to pick lettuce, onions, garlic, strawberries, and apples. That was our summer job. We didn't do the high-falootin' trek to Europe or seek out an apprenticeship with a big company. We used our backs to assist in the feeding of America and those beyond our borders. There was a kind of "Peace Corps" feeling to it all, you know, ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.

We lived in the camps, we slept in the bunks, we gratefully accepted our meager earnings (ten percent tithed back to the pastor's church willingly) and we endured the difficulties (physical and meteorological) just as our forefathers had done for hundreds of years before. There is an appreciation gained in this kind of work; for your health and abilities, for your country, for the forefathers, for the sheer history of it all. And we had loads of fun on top of it all.

Why don't American kids "give back" anymore? Why do American kids believe this is "beneath them" or that "you can pay someone else to do it"? When did this kind of thinking become pervasive on our society?