UP / Thumb of Michigan | mac4440 - 10/20/2025 11:04
How do you know which ones are illegal?
I thought that was a pretty big paint brush when the OP claimed that the news media says all migrant labor is illegally working.
We hired a couple families for many years who came to Michigan to either hoe, or pick pickles. One family started in the southern states and worked on planting veggies on the way up. When they were done here, they either went to the west side to pick fruit, or followed their path back to pick veggies they'd planted on the way up. One family was from south Texas (born and raised they said) and one from Mexico. Both families had a business in their hometown. One was a concrete contractor; one owned some trucks. It was cooler in Michigan in July than it was in Texas or Mexico. One didn't like to pour concrete in the heat, and the other had nothing to haul in the summer.
We also hired other families occasionally. All I know for sure was that they showed up with the correct documentation. I have no idea if it was authentic or not.
Freind and I raised some produce on a very small scale. It was more than we could do alone, however, we both were working full time. Tried getting local kids to help pick. Couldn't afford them. Needed 5, so we hired 10. Hoping 3 or 4 would show up every day. Couldn't remember to do very basic stuff like leaving unripe tomatoes or take the stems off so it didn't ruin a bunch of tomato's. Hired the migrants to come in, they did 3 times the work correctly in half the time. For the same wages. That was many years ago, and from what people who do rely on hand labor tell me, it hasn't improved. |
Why can’t we pick our own vegetables?
