‘What price would we pay for food?’: Donald Trump conveniently dodged this important question about undocumented immigrants
For all his complaints of immigrants “stealing jobs,” former President Donald Trump doesn’t seem to have a plan to replace the labor he intends to displace.
Trump tried to win Latino voters over at the Univision town hall. A Latino farmer, who had been “picking strawberries and cutting broccoli,” explained that farming is a laborious job. The man also claimed that it was work that is largely fulfilled by undocumented immigrants. He asked, “If you deport these people, who would do that job, and what price would we pay for food?”
The former president’s response saw him saying that he was the “best thing that happened to farmers” and then proceeding to draw a distinction between those who entered the country legally under his administration and the “murderers, drug dealers, and terrorists” that he claims are now coming in. He continued to assert that he was better for farmers than the Biden administration, but essentially, Trump just painted a picture of undocumented people as criminals with unfounded statistics. This isn’t the first time he’s said something similar about immigrants.
All this talk was merely a non-answer to the original question posed by the farmer. Several in the Spanish-speaking audience caught Trump’s lack of response, as seen in the comment section of the Univision town hall. One commenter even wrote, “Much respect for this man, who asked Trump a simple question he couldn’t respond to.”
Did farmers have it better under Trump? Simple answer: no.
Trump failed to connect how mass deportation would affect food costs. He also didn’t explain who would fill these jobs that are currently occupied by undocumented people. Instead, Trump chose to lie about farmers having it “better” during his administration. During the latter half of Trump’s administration, farmers suffered the fallout of his trade war with China. In retaliation to Trump’s policies, China placed a tariff on several US agricultural products. Meanwhile, farm incomes rose under President Biden’s administration.
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