Washington, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) pressed Brooke Rollins, President Trump’s pick to serve as Secretary of Agriculture, on the impact Trump’s mass deportation plans would have on farmworkers and families across the country.
Watch the full clip HERE
Key Excerpts:
On the impact of mass deportations on increasing grocery prices:
Schiff: […] If we deport a large percentage of our farm workforce, farm labor is going to be scarce. Isn’t that inevitably going to push up food prices? And if so, isn’t that in sharp contrast with what the President said he wanted to do to bring down egg prices and food prices and everything else.
Rollins: I think, well, first of all, we’re speaking in hypotheticals, but certainly these are hypotheticals we do need to be thinking through and I think it’s a very fair point. The President has made food inflation and the cost of food one of his top priorities. I have worked alongside him. I have been part of his team for many years now. I believe in his vision and his commitment to America and to his promises. And in so doing I believe that we will be able to find in our tool kit what we need to do to solve for any hypothetical issues that end up turning out to be real, moving forward over the coming months and years.
On undocumented farmworkers and Trump’s threats of mass deportation:
Schiff: […] Ms. Rollins, right now, farmworkers in Ventura County are picking strawberries in a brown haze smoke from the fires. It’s a surreal scene to look at images of working in those conditions. These are just some of the difficult conditions that farmworkers are often in. They’re working in 100 degree heat. They’re working in the cold. They’re some of the hardest working people I’ve ever met. And I want to raise the issue of the impact that mass deportations would have on them. First and foremost, on people who are working so hard to put food on our table, and just the, to me, grave injustice of deporting people who are doing such vital work to feed us. There’s also the impact on their families. Many of them have children who are U.S. citizens and will be U.S. citizens. And so it would have the effect of splitting up their families. And even if we set that aside, which we shouldn’t, it’s estimated that perhaps half of California’s farm workforce is undocumented. So, my question is how are you supposed to farm? How are farmers in California supposed to survive if there are truly mass deportations in which half of the workforce is sent out of the country. Americans don’t want to do that work. It’s, frankly, just too back-breaking. So, who’s going to work the farms?
Rollins: Senator, I know we talked about this in your office and had a productive, perhaps agree to disagree, but still productive conversation and I so appreciate that. We’ve talked about this within this committee in the last three or four hours as well. President Trump ran and was overwhelmingly elected on the priority of border security and mass deportation. He is and his team are, I’m assuming, currently putting in place the plans to begin that process, of course, first with those who have committed criminal offenses once they have been here, the American people have asked for a secure border and a system where they do not have to be concerned with the millions and millions that crossed here illegally and brought a lot of strife and unsafe communities to America. And I know this is not the committee where we discuss this —
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— And I know you probably the last thing you want to do is get into a debate right now over it, because I sure don’t want to. But let me answer your question. I will work around the clock with our new labor secretary if she’s confirmed, Lori Chavez-DeRemer. There is obviously, I think everyone would agree, H-2A important changes that need to be made to recognize within the agriculture community the importance of a strong labor force.
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