Deportations will backfire on US grocery shoppers

The coming deportations will hurt, but not just the immigrants uprooted from their lives in the United States. Anyone who likes to eat will pay for this short-sighted policy.

At first, ICE will deport people with criminal records or recent arrests. There won’t be much pushback against these actions. But the Trump administration has promised more workplace raids. If ICE agents arrest thousands of immigrants who labor on farms and food processing plants, guess what will happen to our food supply? Do you think US citizens will milk cows, clean poultry coops, harvest vegetables in the heat, or work the assembly line at a slaughterhouse?

Less food coming to your grocery stores = higher prices. This is a loss for almost everyone. But there is one group in America rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of mass arrests: private prisons. News outlets report that stock prices for CoreCivic and the Geo Group jumped when Trump won the election in November.

Instead of performing essential jobs, unlucky immigrants without the right documents could be yanked away from their families to await their fate in dusty detention camps. Many have minor children who attend school with US citizen kids. One could be a man who repaired your roof or another a woman who served you tasty tacos from a food cart. 

These folks are not a threat. They help form the backbone of our labor force and pay income and Social Security taxes. How can jailing and deporting our neighbors in the midst of a labor shortage Make America Great Again?