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Open border, a functioning economy, a robust welfare state. Pick two, and the welfare state is functionally non-negotiable. This version of the progressive take is simply a lie. They manifestly don't care if Jose works, and would rather shut down the government than accept a limitation on their ability to give him taxpayer money.
Or that it could just be automated, and that it's insane to import tens of millions of farm workers right as we're looking at an AI/robotics era-defining revolution.
Ah yes, how could I forget all the wonderful government benefits that illegals most definitely qualify for. The rest is quite frankly a parody of how other people think and what motivates them.
A, if they could be easily automated they already would be. B, Honestly the entire farm industry sounds like a mess to me with smaller farmers being pushed out of the market or being beholden to shitty John Deere's locked-down repair practices. I'm not as anti-AI as your average lefty, but I don't think this is coming in the next let's say 10 years and I don't think it'll be all that great when it arrives.
They explicitly do in blue states. I tangentially interact with the process on a daily basis. And deeper than that, there's a thriving market in fraud and fake SSNs. Things like "free healthcare for illegals" are fucking budget items in California. NY and other states spent billions on free housing, free benefits and free money for illegal immigrants. This was widely covered. The relentless playing stupid about this is honestly kind of breathtaking and intellectually damning.
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