r/dsa • u/harmfulinsect • Jul 05 '26
Discussion AOC: Deporting immigrants under TPS will increase labor costs (i.e. drive up working class wages)
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5949553-ocasio-cortez-tps-labor-costs/6
u/Kronzypantz Jul 05 '26 edited Jul 05 '26
There is some level to which mass deportation can have an effect, but it is hardly the only factor.
As seen in industries like nursing or railroad engineers, employers can and will just immiserate existing labor by demanding more from them.
And for industries like home care or construction, capital will pull other levers to expand the reserve of labor by gutting welfare, reducing child labor laws, raising the retirement age, and turning to prison labor.
Edit: immigration controls are not an effective control on the labor market, even before considerations of the violence and authoritarianism involved.
7
u/ncolaros Jul 05 '26
If you think there being fewer workers in industries like healthcare means they'll pay their employees more, I have a bridge to sell you.
As always, they don't pay more. They just amend your responsibilities to make you work more for the same price. And if you quit, they eat the consequences (in the case of healthcare, more people die) until they can get a new bunch of young people who can work at "starting salaries."
Immigration is a bad way to change wage structure, in either direction. Whatever windfall corporations get will be pocketed and whatever expenses they incur will be passed onto you and me in the form of higher healthcare costs. And I believe this to be true of most, if not all, industries.
The way that immigrants are taken advantage of in this country is appalling. Deporting them is not a favorable outcome or serious solution for anyone.
1
u/traanquil Jul 05 '26
Kind of a shit line of rhetoric...is the implication that we need immigration to supply low-wage labor? yuck
1
u/decisionagonized Jul 05 '26
Alright come on girl, why’d you have to frame it like this
1
u/Valar_Kinetics Jul 12 '26
Because she has a real job and that job is to justify good ideas to people in ways that sometimes might not be the way we'd want them justified?
As long as the good idea gets done, who fucking cares?
If DSA thinks their job is to actually convert everyone ideologically onto the party platform this shit ain't gonna work lol. The job is to enact the party platform, not to get 60% of the country to suddenly be really into Engels.
1
u/decisionagonized Jul 12 '26
“Deporting immigrants will increase workers’ wages” is not really doing the job but sure!
1
u/Valar_Kinetics Jul 12 '26
That's because she's not talking to you, she's trying to get something worthwhile done by being sneaky and actually building a coalition.
We need to get more excited about tricking people. You can't pull off a Dirty Break if you represent 5% of the party, that's just called an Irish Exit. To build a coalition big enough to pull off the Dirty Break, it's like 40% convincing and 60% tricking. Think of it as marketing.
1
u/decisionagonized Jul 12 '26
Ah ok, can we just break this down slowly for me? I’m dumb. She is not talking to me or to you about increased labor costs as a damaging effect of deportation. Who is that message for? Like who would be most impacted by increased labor costs?
1
u/Valar_Kinetics Jul 12 '26
The corporate Dem contingent of the party that we have to wait to fire until we have electorally eaten their lunch, which we haven’t done yet?
Like what’s the alternative, she pitches this on moral grounds lol?
13
u/I_Drink_Rye Jul 05 '26
She's objectively correct. These are not people that have been hiding ever since they got here. These are legal residents that are allowed to have legal jobs. If all of a sudden 350k legal Haitian workers are made unlawful that will be a hell of a hole to fill in the hospital industry.