Illegal immigration crackdown impacts harvests

(CBS News) 

WRAY, Ga., - One of the toughest laws yet to fight illegal immigration went into effect today in Georgia. A federal judge has temporarily blocked the most controversial provision - requiring police to check the immigration status of suspects who don't have proper identification.

But it is now a felony to use false documentation to apply for a job. CBS News correspondent Mark Strassmann says Georgia farmers have been anticipating this day, and the law is already having a big effect.

In south Georgia, it's a banner year for blackberries - but a bad year for berry farmer Gary Paulk.

"There's a lot of what appear to be good berries," Paulk said. "If we had the workers."

On one corner of this family farm, twenty acres of blackberries rot away.

"This is a healthy field. And it should have been picked," Paulk said. "But there's nobody here."

Despite economy, Americans don't want farm work

Too many Mexican and Guatemalan pickers this year stayed away. They're scared away by Georgia's new crackdown on illegal immigration.

Paulk said "they're scared they will be raided on the field."

Ignacia Martinez is here illegally. She stayed, but her husband left to work farms in Washington state. They wanted to avoid any chance they'd both get arrested.

"Please leave us here," she said. "Please have some consideration with us. We're not here to harm anybody."

She's one of 200 workers picking Paulk's berries. He needs 100 more.

Money doesn't grow on trees, but it does fall from these bushes. Unpicked blackberries - for this farm, is a loss of $10,000 an acre - $200,000 in all.

Supporters of Georgia's new immigration law argued legal workers should be easy to find in a state where the unemployment rate's almost ten percent. But farmers like Paulk know most Americans want no part of picking blackberries. It's hot, back-breaking work, for $12 an hour.

Becky Musgrove started picking two weeks ago. "Sometimes I'm lazy when it's real, real hot, I don't come back in the afternoons. And that's bad to say."

"It's hard labor. And the work force is not here in America. So where's it gonna come from?" Paulk asks. "My grand-parents and my great-great-parents are buried just on that hill, a few miles from here. And I'd hate for Gary Paulk to be the one who buried the farm."

Paulk's farm faces a bigger crisis: too few hands to pick 600 acres of grapes ready for harvest next month.

We wanted to know more about how Georgia's immigration law came about. The governor's office told us today the state had to impose the law in its own defense. The state estimates illegal immigrants cost Georgia taxpayers more than $2 billion a year. Most of that to pay for the schooling and medical bills of their children.

[xebob]

Here in North Florida they have All-you-can-Pick strawberry fields. You pick as much as you want, then pay the farmer a reasonable amount for them. Why couldn't the farmers do this with blackberries and other crops? If you can not bring the crops to the customers, why not bring the customers to the crops?

[JPinNY24]

Hey Mr. Georgia farmer, you should have been employing legal help for the last 20 years, I hope you go out of business now so someone who obeys my country's laws can take your place. Tell the illegals to go back and fix their country instead of coming here and turning mine into a cesspool.

[mqsawyer]

I love the logic here. We hate immigrants/Latinos. But we need their labor. There are labor shortages, so what do we do? We need to restore poor blacks and whites to third world poverty in order to force them back into the fields. The minimum welfare state we have is too much if it keeps those folks from working for poverty wages.

The next part is even better. If that fails, we essentially should use "chain gang" labor. That's right prisoners or people who are not free should be forced to harvest the crops at poverty wages while we maintain them. Sound familiar? We once had a system where such people were maintained and did work to essentially pay for their maintenance. It was called slavery.

It is now clear that anti-immigrant folks don't like Latinos and their "cultural" influence. And they dream of the day gone by when black folks and poor whites knew their place and lived in third world like poverty. Systems like slavery, Jim Crow, Black Codes, vagrancy laws etc. were necessary to keep those people in the fields. You guys want that system back. I love when the mask comes off. Let's just say it bring back slavery and/or Jim Crow, cut the welfare state to zero and lazy N-words will pick our crops for us again!! I love it.

[jackzero99]

Last I heard, there are 13 million illegal immigrants still in the US

[lazylorenzo]

lies all lies my grandparents came west in the 1950s my dad drove tractor my mom packed celery in the packing sheds all of us kids picked green beans during the summer harvest to earn spending money.inf farming industry was employing portugese,italians,greek mostly southerners,there were NO illegals. the illegal came when the farmers found they could pay no ss.work comp,and pay very little cash the hispanics would accept it and live in overcrowded housing slave conditions without any recourse, they had a new SLAVE route.in the good ol days we had the border patrol checking the fields to make sure, and chasing illegals down on foot.stop the slavery and slum conditions , pay real living wages and americans can afford to work on farms and support a family.we can save trillions on the illegal free education free healthcare food stampIs, imprisoning illegals,we should have as many soldiers on our border as we have on the north Korian boarer.i have been told can be replaced for 7.00 per hr.cash rent alone here in cal is 1000.00 per mo. it seems 20 people per home eating beans and rice and diabetes is in all of our futures,santa maria ca. is a santuary city for illegals they all have at least 5 kids each and get 1000s in aid .id rather pay a little more for veggies.than this ********

[economystic]

$10,000 an acre? and I get $12 an hour? how about splitting the $10,000 with me and I'll do it.

[economystic]

In south Georgia, it's a banner year for blackberries - but a bad year for berry farmer Gary Paulk.
"There's a lot of what appear to be good berries," Paulk said. "If we had the workers."

Dude, you beena farmer all your life and you say teh berries "appear" to be ready

[hmpierson]

A really misleading diversion.

Only 3% of illegal immigrants work in agriculture.

Pay enough money, and you'll find Americans willing to do it. There were plenty of white sharecroppers at one time, as well as black sharecroppers.

People who insist that only Hispanics are willing or capable of picking crops are racists, and against paying a decent wage to Americans.

[tiredofit11]

The farmers will pay what the market dictates the wage should be. If they can't find labor, they will go out of business or use the land for something else. You wanted this and you got it.

[jdude2000]

when you take away the competitor, govt WELFARE, then their won't be enough jobs that Americans will do!!!

[jdude2000]

take away their welfare, they'll work then!!!!

[tiredofit11]

Or they'll steal.

[jackzero99]

So either we pay them welfare or they kill us? Sounds like extortion and terrorism to me