NEW PARIS, Penn. - What is the biggest competition for an apple orchard owner in rural Pennsylvania?
Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin thought she knew the answer when talking to Matthew Boyer of Boyer Orchards.
“So is your competition imports from China?” Palin asked Boyer, as she stood in a barn in front of bushels of all different kinds of freshly picked apples at the family-owned orchard.
Not quite.
While it’s true that China is a huge apple producer and the United States’ share of world exports continues to decline, competition from China wasn’t Boyer’s biggest concern.
Boyer told Palin he was more worried about apples from Washington state, which produces some 60 percent of the apples grown in the United States.
In fact, the issue on Boyer’s mind was immigration.
Boyer employs migrants to pick his apples, and it is becoming harder to find people willing and able to do the work.
“We need workers. We can’t get any local person for it. It’s hard work,” he said.
“It’s increasingly difficult to find legal help. People don’t understand this immigration issue.”
Palin quickly turned the conversation to one of her preferred topics — the need to cut taxes, especially for small business owners.
Front Row Washington
Tracking U.S. politics
Palin’s apple picking lesson: It’s about immigration, not China
Posted by: Deborah Charles
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I don’t know why other Americans wouldn’t want the job of picking apples, unless it’s the toxic agricultural chemicals sprayed on apples.
But, if immigrants are willing to pick the apples, the least they should be able to get is health care, because the agricultural petrochemical pesticides make both them and their children seriously ill. There are basic needs that farm workers need, which farm bosses aren’t necessarily willing to give.
This is not an easy issue to discuss. But the least Palin could have done is listened to the voter’s side of the story without changing the subject, and then said, she’d think over what he had said.
Instead, Palin wants to control what is being said and heard by others. That’s not always what people want to hear and that’s why I’ll never vote for Palin.
- Posted by Susan SnowHiring illegal immigrants to your work is illegal in the United States. Just for your information. Question how many people would know about apple orchards to begin with unless you work in that field. I think there should be a wall put up all the way around the whole United States.
- Posted by trishYUP! My family are immigrants but they came here legally, learned to speak English, became U.S. Citizens. They did not take one penney in any form welfare. They did not have dual countries. They were Americans! No hyphinated allegences such as Mexican-American, African-American, Greek-American, Italian-American, etc. They were completely United States of America, Americans.
They did not demand signage or ballots or anything else in their native language. Their allegance was to the United States.
For those bleeding hearts for illegals you apparantly have no interest in your country, your history, your heritage and you subscribe to the “ONE WORLD” THEORY.
I guess your next demand be that we change our currency to something akin to the Euro. Maybe an Amero or something like it.
You care not about our constitution nor our laws. You seem to be more in the anarchist group.
- Posted by Steve