Well, certainly not in this case.

Keith Eckel used to have one of the largest tomato farms in the Northeast. This year because of all the crackdowns on local, state, and federal level, he can no longer find enough laborers to run his farm. Mr. Eckel’s labor contractor said he could only hire 75 of the 120 men who had been working for him in the past. A lot of these men had been working for his farm for decades, but had either been deported or were too scared to return.

So Mr. Eckel decided not to take the risk and will not grow any tomatoes this year.

For years Mr. Eckel went along. “But in the current political climate,” he said, “I just can’t take the risk of planting two million tomato plants and watching them rot in the field.”

“Over the last couple of growing seasons, farmers have been feeling a tremendous amount of stress over the way this issue has been playing out,” said Gary Swann, governmental relations director for the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau. “And if people think all we have to do is raise wages and hire local workers, they are simply mistaken.”

Local workers will not do the job, Mr. Swann said.

These immigration crackdowns have done nothing to help American workers. It has not created more jobs for Americans. Local workers – Americans – won’t do the job, so farmers like Mr. Eckel are forced to close down their farms. The jobs disappear as the farms close, and the farm owners lose their source of income as well. This in turn will also cause an increase in the price of tomatoes and other crops all over the United States, as less crop yield is being produced. 

So is anyone benefiting from these immigration crackdowns? Not as far as I can see. 

The entire article from the New York Times can be read here.