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Some Amazon Warehouses are Losing Hundreds of Workers After Changes in Legal Status (seattletimes.com) 152

Posted by EditorDavid from the stopping-a-job dept.
At an Amazon warehouse that employs 3,700 people, hundreds of workers recently lost their job, reports the New York Times.

"They are among thousands of foreign workers across the country who have been swept up in a quiet purge, pushed out of jobs in places where their labor was in high demand and at times won high praise." While raids to nab workers in the country without legal permission in fields and Home Depot parking lots have grabbed attention, the job dismissals at the Amazon warehouse are part of the Trump administration's effort to thin the ranks of immigrants who had legal authorization to work... Such dismissals are happening at many of Amazon's more than 1,000 facilities around the country, including in Massachusetts and the warehouse in Staten Island that fills orders for millions of New Yorkers. At one fulfillment center in Florida, hundreds were let go, a person familiar with the site said... "We're supporting employees impacted by the government's recent changes in immigration policy," Richard Rocha, an Amazon spokesperson, said in a statement. The company has pointed workers to various resources, including outside free or low-cost legal services...

The dismissals came with remarkable speed. On May 30, the Supreme Court granted temporary approval for the Trump administration to revoke a program known as "humanitarian parole," which had allowed more than 500,000 migrants feeling political turmoil in Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to quickly get work permits if they had a fiscal sponsor... On June 12, the Department of Homeland Security said it had begun notifying enrollees that the program was ending, saying the immigrants had been poorly vetted and undercut American workers...

On June 22, Amazon told managers around the country in an email, which was obtained by The New York Times, that it had "received the first list from D.H.S. identifying impacted Amazon employees" from the parole program, as well as "some employees outside of this specific program whose work authorization is similarly affected." Amazon let the managers know that the next day, the affected workers would receive push notifications in the employee app about the change. Unless the workers could provide alternate work authorization documents in the next five days, they would be suspended without pay and ultimately dismissed.

Some Amazon Warehouses are Losing Hundreds of Workers After Changes in Legal Status More | Reply

Some Amazon Warehouses are Losing Hundreds of Workers After Changes in Legal Status

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  • Trump has expanded the high skill work visas (Score:3, Insightful)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Sunday July 13, 2025 @07:53PM (#65518124)
    Most notably the h1b. So if you make good money you can expect that none of this is going to have any effect on you. We are rounding up a whole bunch of Mexicans and Hispanics, honestly mostly Hispanics Mexico's median income has been going up, who work in low tier shit jobs but we are still bringing in a fuck ton people to take middle class jobs.

    Also Trump is already working on figuring out how to bring in more people on little skill work visas without pissing off his base. The bill he passed that cuts somewhere around 15 million people off Medicaid is extremely unpopular, so he waited until after the midterms. But the fact that he passed it anyway indicates that he's not going to need any votes in 2028. And no that's not because it's his second term. We will be seeing a third term of trump unless he happens to die.

    The only thing I find hilarious, and it's going to get me down modded into pulp, is that in case you were wondering why all these numbskulls voted to get rid of the workers they needed for their farms it's because they're kind of racist and they thought that the black people would come back to the plantations as it were.

    • There's YT videos saying effectively the same thing. Not that blacks will. All of them can go out of business, and big ag can buy them up.

    • I wouldn't be surprised if we'll see a name change in a few years, USA becomes United Republican States of America.

      • Your optimism amuses me, that you think there's gonna be a United States of anything. The MAGAdiots and their Republican enablers have been crying "Democrats this" and "the left that". There is no "left" in this country. There is far-right and less right. The ACTUAL leftists in this country are biding their time. The anarchists, the communists, the revolutionaries. You know, the ones that will BURN IT TO THE GROUND and bring out the cake detectors. You know, the things they use to check if rich people are m

        • Re: Trump has expanded the high skill work visas (Score:4, Insightful)

          by OrangeTide ( 124937 ) on Sunday July 13, 2025 @09:06PM (#65518262) Homepage Journal

          There's a step inbetween. Fascists are incompentent and disloyal. When on fascist regime secures power, another faction is planning a violent takeover. Thst's just how these guys are. When it is time to hand the keys to the country over to J.D. Vance, someone close to Trump is going to be like: "No! It's MY time. I am the one that DESERVES to rule."

          After a cycle of lunatics off each other, and America is in tatters. Then maybe some of my family members will agree that we shouldn't have put these dopes in power. By then it will gave been too late of course.

          In the end, tge American people will stand by waiting for a way out that doesn't come at much personal cost or personal risk. We want a democratic republic with recognition of inalienable individual freedoms. But we also don't want to maintain the one we have or fight to create a new one from scratch.

          • Lunatics is right. https://www.tmz.com/2025/07/10... [tmz.com] "A deranged Pennsylvania man says he executed and beheaded his own dad -- and then posted the grisly aftermath online -- all 'cause, according to him, his dad was standing in the way of his dream to become the next Donald Trump."

    • Re:Trump has expanded the high skill work visas (Score:5, Informative)

      by m00sh ( 2538182 ) on Sunday July 13, 2025 @08:13PM (#65518146)

      H1B hasn't changed. I don't know what you mean by "Trump has expanded the high skill work visas". He hasn't.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by kqs ( 1038910 )

      Do you have a reference for that? All I've seen is visas for the ultra-rich.

      Besides, since trump has been happy to cancel student and work visas for people who say things he doesn't like, more visas would not help.

      • To me that is the big issue with trying to manage immigration; isolationism doesn't work, but now you are making it completely undesirable for people to immigrate given the potential treatment at the whims of the government.

        I will be curious how long this can be sustained... by the administration, businesses, and communities alike. As I look back on my career it is interesting to imagine just how many great engineers I worked with would never bother with the US if they had to tolerate this type of treatmen

        • To add to your point, appreciate how hard it is for the manager at a store where a bunch of people lose their jobs. As a manager of that store it is your responsibility to open and close that store if you don't have anyone to do it. A store manager can easily end up working open to close if their staffing levels change too quickly to find new hires.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          More than that, people are actually leaving.

          It takes a lot to make people leave. Usually it's an idle threat to avoid being taxed, but once you start really messing with people - taking away their healthcare, deporting members of their families, destroying their research, that sort of thing - you start to see people with the skills and the motivation actually doing it.

    • Re:Trump has expanded the high skill work visas (Score:4, Insightful)

      by MacMann ( 7518492 ) on Sunday July 13, 2025 @08:59PM (#65518240)

      But the fact that he passed it anyway indicates that he's not going to need any votes in 2028. And no that's not because it's his second term. We will be seeing a third term of trump unless he happens to die.

      I'm old enough to remember this same BS on how Trump would refuse to leave the White House at the end of his term. What happened? Did Trump block the doors to the Oval Office, knock over the desk as cover, then yell out, "You are not taking me out of here alive!" No, that did not happen. Has anything changed to expect anything other than another peaceful transition of power?

      What I am seeing is Trump surrounding himself with people he expects to take his place for the next few decades, people often half his age given positions of authority so as to build experience to carry some semblance of his legacy after his term is over. This is quite different than we've seen from Democrats where they appear to keep the same people in the same positions, which means in a few years they will all be dead or senile with nobody trained up to take their legacy to the next generation.

      Can anyone name a dozen or so competent Democrats that could be expected to the POTUS, VPOTUS, or in the Cabinet in 10 or 20 years? There's a deep bench of Republicans that appear to have enough public support to get to be POTUS or some spot in the Cabinet, and young enough to hold the position for 4 to 8 years after 2028.

      I'm loving how the TDS runs so deep. Trump is living rent free in the minds of so many on the political left, and it is because they allow Trump to live there. Certainly Trump's behavior adds to this but TDS is a choice, they choose to live in this fantasy that Trump expect to be president-for-life in spite of his leaving office without a fight the last time.

      Is it that the Democrats want Trump in the White House for another term?

      • Re:Trump has expanded the high skill work visas (Score:5, Informative)

        by SoftwareArtist ( 1472499 ) on Sunday July 13, 2025 @09:08PM (#65518264)

        Are you not living in the same world as me? Trump tried really hard [wikipedia.org] to stage a coup and remain in power through illegal means. The fact that he failed doesn't mean he didn't try. More shocking, the Republicans in congress shielded him from any legal consequences for his criminal behavior, leaving him free to try again.

        Since he tried last time, do you have any reason to think he won't try again this time?

        • Re:Trump has expanded the high skill work visas (Score:4, Insightful)

          by caseih ( 160668 ) on Sunday July 13, 2025 @10:14PM (#65518358)

          Add to that he's still talking about how the 2020 election was stolen. I see no evidence he will walk away peacefully at the end of this term. He's looking more and more like Putin all the time, as he has started to use the DOJ to prosecute his political opponents, often for simply doing their jobs. He hasn't resorted to pushing people off of balconies yet. He pardoned all the Jan 6 insurrectionists, and they are now waiting for his command. But most troubling, he has a complete disregard for the constitution, and his GOP enablers are right there with him. I don't see how any lover of the constitution could rationalize this so-called unitary executive theory. Combine that with the GOP's long-standing efforts to manipulate the vote through gerrymandering and voter suppression laws, things don't look so good for democracy. I'm really not at all sure what's going to happen at the mid terms, as far as trump is concerned. The fact that it's so uncertain, or that there's even a question of uncertainty is alarming.

        • Sane washing (Score:2, Informative)

          by rsilvergun ( 571051 )
          It's entirely possible the person you're replying to really isn't living in the same world as you. There's a phenomenon from last year called sane washing where the entire news media protects Donald Trump and the Republican party at all costs and anyone who threatens them gets fired immediately.

          I watched dozens of journalists fired last year for trying to call Donald Trump to task on the things he's said and done

        • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Pretty funny you think someone actually tried to stage any kind of coup with an unarmed crowd...

          Unlike, say, ICE protestors.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by MacMann ( 7518492 )

          Since he tried last time, do you have any reason to think he won't try again this time?

          I can think of something like three dozen reasons why he won't try again. Or at least why he'd be unsuccessful in trying again. Those three dozen reasons would be members of the Cabinet, popular Republican Senators, and at least a half dozen Republican state governors, all of which would be looking to push Trump aside to get to be POTUS.

          Trump can't expect to hold on to the office without some very strong support from people in high places. That should put an end to the speculation on Trump staying as POT

          • The House and the Senate haven't stopped him from policy changes that end support for millions of people who are using it to live. Don't see why they would find democracy or the Constitution more important than that.

          • It is probably safe to assume the next Republican ticket to have Vance as POTUS and Rubio as VPOTUS

            I think the 2028 dream ticket would be Vance and Byron Donalds out of FL....

            That guy is just as cool and a great speaker publically as Vance is...

            I don't think the Dems could put up anyone that could touch them in debates, etc.

            They both handle the press like champs....

            And it wouldn't hurt the minority vote the Reps need either....

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by jythie ( 914043 )
            This will all depend on how he consolidates power over the next couple of years. Enough purges, prosecutions, and installation of loyalists can change that equation.

      • That weak little bitch BEGGED Vice President Pence to throw out the electors.

      • Can anyone name a dozen or so competent Democrats that could be expected to the POTUS, VPOTUS, or in the Cabinet in 10 or 20 years?

        I can't even name a competent republican to be POTUS today.

        One thing is clear: Competence has nothing to do with it. It's a popularity contest and there's no consequence for being really bad at your job. Forget about locally, the USA has had its reputation utterly devastated globally and everyone seems to agree is currently run by an absolute moron. They just put on a smiling face to him, while they actively distance themselves from America behind the president's back.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by leptons ( 891340 )
        >I'm loving how the TDS runs so deep.

        People that claim others have "trump derangement syndrome" are invariably the ones themselves who are deranged by their idolatry of trump.

        Have you lost your fucking mind??? Trump incited a fucking INSURRECTION to try to hold on to power. But in your trump-sycophantic derangement you have conveniently forgotten about all of that, or just excused it the same way you excused him admitting to grabbing women by the pussy as "locker room talk".

        You an your ilk are bey

    • Re:Trump has expanded the high skill work visas (Score:5, Interesting)

      by jason4jas ( 10468937 ) on Sunday July 13, 2025 @09:01PM (#65518246)
      H1B visa requirements should raise the minimum amount of pay to $500k a year. Currently it is a minimum of $60k with a difference in cost of living. This is why you see a lot of H1B workers in lower CoL areas.

      If you can't find a person in the United States that can do a job then the non-American person(s) taking that work must be top-talent and/or have skills nobody possesses.

      • Great idea... and that'll offset everything so much that everything has to go up in price.
        How about the unemployed American's get those jobs? Is that such a bad thing?
        Oh, wait... I can go back to school and get in tons of debt (even though my credit is crap because I've never done anything with it, and no bank this side of the universe would even talk to me about school loans), of course, after I decide on what I should spend the the rest of my life doing before "AI" takes that whole job class over... oh,

        • So the reason they hire immigrants for any job in the first place is because there aren't enough Americans that will willfully do the job at the wages they are paying. So when the company has to now raise wages to attract Americans to work for them.. you think it won't raise prices?
          • So just F the people that don't have the skills for better jobs?

            • ^Exactly my point! (and, exactly, modecx)^

              This generation has become so used to sitting around and been taught that the only way to make it anywhere in life is by having an MBA and wearing a suit every day.
              I'd have no problem working on a farm (if I could get there), or in a warehouse driving forklift or working in a factory (those are becoming few and far between), or building computers from a box of parts (they'll want job experience of ten+ years or an expensive piece of paper that says you know how to)

            • It's not my choice, but yes that is what corporations have been demonstrating for 20 years now.

          • I know... minimum wage here is $11.13... I could live comfortably with that.

            And, as for Amazon losing workers because of immigration changes... that's because they paid some guy so they could hide in his truck, and had someone waiting with forged papers or fake papers or something, which is the very definition of 'illegal'.
            If they had come here totally legally and properly, they'd be fine. I've got no problem with someone who came here through the proper channels.
            There's not enough American's who would wil

            • Or maybe it's the fact that very few people go anywhere from those jobs that they are dead end jobs? Or the fact that you are lucky to get a 50 cent increase a year, or the fact that your bathroom breaks are carefully tracked? I mean why would they think of it as a dead end job? It sounds glorious!

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Cyberax ( 705495 )

      We are rounding up a whole bunch of Mexicans and Hispanics

      We actually are not. Trump's ICE raids might look tough to some, but the number of deported people hasn't significantly increased. There are about 15k deportations per month, and at this rate it'll take a _decade_ to make a dent in the overall illegal immigrant population.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by TheSync ( 5291 )

      No, the H1-B program has not changed this year under Trump. The number of new visas issued annually remains capped at 65,000, plus an additional 20,000 for people with a masterâ(TM)s degree or higher.

      Under Trump's first term, there was increased scrutiny and stricter enforcement on H1-B, leading to higher denial rates (24% vs. 6%) and more requests for evidence. Much of that was overturned in the courts, and the denial rate is back to normal.

      Prior to 2004, H1-B numbers were legislatively higher (195,00

    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Ritz_Just_Ritz ( 883997 )

      There is still a LEGAL temporary guest worker program. Folks are also free to jump through the hoops to enter the country legally. I think a lot of people have zero issue with immigrants as a whole, but are sick and tired of the free-for-all at the border. In most countries, if you hop the border and get caught, you wind up in jail and then get deported.

      • Re:Trump has expanded the high skill work visas (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 13, 2025 @11:24PM (#65518466)

        You should read the SUMMARY - these people were here legally, and legally employed.

        Trump changed their status, arbitrarily.

        • YOU should probably try reading the summary, they were not here legally, but were given forbearance because of supposed hardships where they came from - but no one really vetted the claims they made. They could still apply for legal immigration.

          • Re:Trump has expanded the high skill work visas (Score:5, Informative)

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 13, 2025 @11:53PM (#65518504)

            From the summary: "immigrants who had legal authorization to work"

            That means they were here legally. It's unambiguous.

            Many of these people were applying for a more permanent status, and possibly for citizenship. The Trump administration has been changing people's status when they have been showing up for for hearings that were part of the byzantine mess that is that process, and deporting them from there. So people that were following the rules, and providing testimony for their asylum claims, have been summarily yanked out of the US.

            In theory, they could continue the process from their deportation location (which might not even be their home country, or a country they've even heard of ). But the reality is that the Trump administration will only allow applications from white people to proceed (see: South Africa).

      • In most countries, if you hop the border and get caught, you wind up in jail and then get deported.

        In most countries (at least western ones) the processes and policies are the same as the USA. Just because you hopped over the boarder doesn't mean you're there illegally. Asylum seeking isn't illegal, it's a defined legal process and not crossing at a registered point of entry doesn't invalidate that process. Likewise elsewhere if you're caught somewhere illegally you are deported. If you were being processed through the immigration system your status was "legal" until such a time as the process concludes.

  • Workaround? (Score:5, Funny)

    by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Sunday July 13, 2025 @08:18PM (#65518158)

    Amazon should reclassify their warehouses as package farms and their employees as package pickers -- might? help?. /s

    (Trump said he'll exclude farm workers from ICE raids... then Stephen Miller (guy who *wishes* he was Voldemort) said they wouldn't... then ...)

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by m00sh ( 2538182 )

      They had "work permits" or "humanitarian parole" or whatever.

      They just got their permits revoked.

      So, nothing to do with ICE raids.

      • Re:Workaround? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by organgtool ( 966989 ) on Sunday July 13, 2025 @08:54PM (#65518226)
        Their immigration status just went from legal to illegal as a direct result of this policy change. Now that these people are considered illegal immigrants, and jobless at that, do you really think that ICE is just going to stand around and not pursue them? ICE is already having trouble meeting their quotas and now they have a ton of new people to target.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by rsilvergun ( 571051 )
          Stephen Miller wants them arresting 3,000 people a day when they're barely doing that in a month. It's why they keep pulling actual US citizens off the streets.

          Seriously if you have a tan you could easily find yourself locked up for two or three weeks. Let alone if you are actually Latino or Hispanic. And they could care less if you are a US citizen.

          Also the whole thing is really there to get us used to having a heavily militarized police just kind of walking around. We are gradually being condition

          • = a lot of noise and pain with nothing of importance gained (unless you are a white supremist).

            Other examples of boondoggles: F-35*, "War on drugs", CyberTruck, Afghanistan war, CA Speed Train, Vietnam war...

            * Yes, it's starting to work good-enough, but took too damned long to get there.

  • Wonder if it's targeted (Score:3, Insightful)

    by cusco ( 717999 ) <{moc.liamg} {ta} {ybxib.nairb}> on Sunday July 13, 2025 @08:19PM (#65518160)

    I wonder if enforcement is targeted at Amazon workers. I wouldn't be surprised to find it were true, since Rump is jealous of anyone more successful than he is. Even worse, Bezos got to be the richest person in the world by his own hard work and competence, he didn't inherit it like Rump's clique did.

  • Morons (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 13, 2025 @08:29PM (#65518182)

    Between firing hard workers and the stupid tariff insanity, Trump is trying really hard to crash the US economy.
    And I'm not even talking about the science or health or anything else that Trump touches.
    They are rounding up non-citizen, but don't worry citizens, they're trying hard to come for you too, are you really a citizen ? Do you deserve to be a citizen, especially if you are being unpatriotic in calling out the lack of clothes on the emperor ? Does it even matter if you are a citizen if you are kidnapped and wake up in a foreign gulag with no access to help ? Do you have tattoos, you must a in a gang, which are conveniently considered terrorists, so you have no right, enjoy.
    America Land of the Stupid.

    • Re:Morons (Score:4, Interesting)

      by owlaf ( 5251737 ) on Sunday July 13, 2025 @08:54PM (#65518224)
      Seems to be the Elon approach. Wreck then you can control it, what he learned with twitter. Then used that idea for the govt cuts to keep the govt away from Tesla. Trump wants far more ICE, which will be his SS. Look how they can just yank anyone off the street. Concerned there will come a point they are yanking native born citizens because they don't like them for whatever reason

    • Re:Morons (Score:4, Informative)

      by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Sunday July 13, 2025 @11:08PM (#65518430)

      Do you deserve to be a citizen, especially if you are being unpatriotic in calling out the lack of clothes on the emperor?

      Or simple be someone he doesn't like ... Trump says he’s considering revoking Rosie O’Donnell’s citizenship [cnn.com] -- noting that she was born in New York, and her parents were U.S. citizens. I mean, *maybe* he thinks saying mean things about him could be considered "treason" (a reason born citizenship could be revoked) but I doubt that would fly even with this SCOTUS.

    • Simply put the additional debt with out tax increases that goes straight to the 1% is going to spook the bond market.

      The government can borrow as much money as it wants as long as it's pouring it right back into the economy because it comes right back out.

      The trouble with Trump is that he's going to borrow $5 trillion dollars and just hand it to the top 1%, who will use it too by a competitors and jack up prices.

      The bond market rightfully understands that's a recipe for disaster so they will in

  • The Slope Keeps Getting More Slippery (Score:5, Insightful)

    by organgtool ( 966989 ) on Sunday July 13, 2025 @09:04PM (#65518254)
    So did they finish rounding up all of the immigrant criminals and gang members or did they just completely lose focus on them to chase quotas? Trump isn't shy about celebrating accomplishments and I haven't heard anything about all of the criminals being caught, so I'm assuming it's the latter. And in this case, these people were here legally but Trump altered the deal, which changed their status to illegal.

    Every dictator-wannabe needs a group of people to vilify and subjugate so that they can normalize the terrible treatment of a specific group of people. Once that is normalized, they can shift that behavior to their ideological opponents and begin suppressing opposition. It's so weird watching this in real-time and seeing people who are either willfully ignorant or actually support dictatorship (since it's their guy).

    • Re:The Slope Keeps Getting More Slippery (Score:5, Informative)

      by migos ( 10321981 ) on Sunday July 13, 2025 @09:36PM (#65518306)
      Apparently only 6% of undocumented convicted murderers have been detained. Too much work or too dangerous for the cowards.
      • Careful there. That 6% was one of those pre Trump lies bandied about by Trump and Fox leading up to the election. The actual full data point is only 6% in ICE custody as ICE don't consider those that are under other means of detention in those numbers. The majority of the remaining 94% were either in US prisons or had already served their sentence, but that wasn't a good talking point pre election.

    • So did they finish rounding up all of the immigrant criminals and gang members or did they just completely lose focus on them to chase quotas?

      That was *never* the actual goal, especially with Stephen Miller's 3,000/day quota. He wants *all* undocumented people out -- even those doing work no one else wants, like farm work (US agriculture secretary says Medicaid recipients can replace deported farm workers [theguardian.com]) -- and everyone with temporary permission out (hence all the legal-status revocations), and ... -- let's just say everyone who's brown. Trump's just along for the golf-cart ride at this point.

    • So did they finish rounding up all of the immigrant criminals and gang members or did they just completely lose focus on them to chase quotas?

      They never even tried.

      The problem with the gang members and criminals is they try to stay under the radar, so the government doesn't really know where they are.

      The undocumented immigrants who are meeting with ICE officials? Trying to go through the asylum process? Following the law and looking for a path towards legal status?

      Now those folks are easy to find, and therefore deport.

      The obvious outcome? Undocumented immigrants stop interacting with the government and start looking for the kind of work where the

  • My response to the effect on my own country is “shrug. cause and effect will play out one way or the other”. If Amazon can easily replace them with US citizens or automate the jobs away, then we never really needed them in the first place. However, the MUCH more likely outcome is that these people are NOT easy to replace, and Amazon’s business will suffer. This will degrade the quality of their service and affect their profits, reducing their stock price. Which will affect anyone who buys

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ndsurvivor ( 891239 )
      The thinking is that "somebody else" is the cause of America's "problems". I agree with you that immigrants are a net asset. They also commit less crime than 3rd generation Americans, but they are today's scapegoat. My guess is that Amazon will automate the jobs away, and there may be longer delivery times for awhile. MAGAs will find another "somebody else" to blame if their living situations don't radically improve. I can probably list them in order... they are predictable.

  • I am shocked that a company run by an oligarch would employ people whose immigration status is precarious. I am truly gobsmacked that such a company would think to make use of such an imbalance of power to keep its employees under its thumb.

    I can't wait for the unionization of Amazon warehouses, which surely will come any day now now that they're forced to hire Americans who know their rights...

    Bwahahahaaaa.....

  • Excellent test case (Score:3)

    by reanjr ( 588767 ) on Monday July 14, 2025 @12:43AM (#65518544) Homepage

    Now, let's see if Amazon wages rise at that factory. If they don't, the entire argument against immigration has fallen apart.

  • No matter which side of the political spectrum you are on this a complete moronic act. If you are a Trump supporter and believe the immigrants are just criminals then you have just taken away legitimate ways for these people to support themselves through legal means...geez I wonder what these now desperate people will do to feed their families?
  • > .. the job dismissals at the Amazon warehouse are part of the Trump administration's effort to thin the ranks of immigrants who had legal authorization to work ..

    What evidence do you have for such a such a statement?

    • It's based on the many semi-legal programs set up by the Biden administration to bring in more people without anyone else being involved in the process (see: CBP1 app, etc). If you read the summary you'll see that the workers in question entered on what was called "humanitarian parole". Asylum seekers were placed in jobs and given some other bennies to get themselves started. No real background checks were done, and there's no telling how many of those people actually showed up to work in their assigned

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Entrope ( 68843 )

      The wording is very careful. It's talking about people who were not authorized to immigrate to the US, but used programs that made it very easy to get forbearance of removal and work authorization.

      For example,this page [uscis.gov] describes one such group: Hondurans who moved to the US before 1999, and have not left the US since 6 January 1999. They immigrated illegally but can work and avoid being deported because they have "temporary protected status". This is one of the programs that the Trump administration is e

  • America Yeah , such a great place.

  • 500k not that many people (Score:5, Informative)

    by DrMrLordX ( 559371 ) on Monday July 14, 2025 @06:11AM (#65518914)

    Compared to how many people entered the country rather abruptly and without sufficient background checks (if any), 500k workers is really nothing.

    https://www.visualcapitalist.c... [visualcapitalist.com]

    Biden's numbers were nuts, and ~10 million is a conservative estimate, with some estimating that as many as 20 million people entered the country between 2021 and 2024.

    Here we have another huge corporation (in this case, Amazon) complaining that their cheap, pliant labor has been taken from them. Time to raise the wages and improve work conditions if you want to staff your facilities, Amazon.

  • verbose (Score:3)

    by cascadingstylesheet ( 140919 ) on Monday July 14, 2025 @07:10AM (#65518978) Journal

    workers in the country without legal permission

    If only there were some short, pithy word that meant "without legal permission" ...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by schwit1 ( 797399 )

      Criminal trespassers.

    • You'd struggle to find one. Being in the US without the appropriate permission is a civil, not a criminal matter. I'm not even sure most Americans understand that. I doubt you can encapsulate the ambiguity of that in a single word. I rather suspect the word you'd prefer to use would deny the basic legal reality.

  • Most low wage illegals are on public assistance (Score:4, Interesting)

    by schwit1 ( 797399 ) on Monday July 14, 2025 @09:01AM (#65519144)

    According to data from the Center for Immigration Studies (pro-immigrant) [x.com], many immigrants work for extremely low wages, which are then subsidized by taxpayers through public assistance.

    The argument that someone has to pick your lettuce is dead; there is no cheap labor only corporate subsidies at our taxpayer expense. It might even end up being cheaper for businesses holistically when they are forced to pay actual market wages rather than depending on roundabout benefits.

    54% of immigrant-headed households use at least one major welfare program, compared to 39% of U.S.-born households.
      Non-citizen households (e.g., green card holders and illegal immigrants) show the highest usage at 59%.
      Compared to U.S.-born households, immigrant households show elevated usage in:
      - Food assistance programs: 36% vs. 25%
      - Medicaid: 37% vs. 25%
      - Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC): 16% vs. 12%
      Illegal immigrants can receive benefits on behalf of their U.S.-born children, while children who are illegal immigrants themselves are eligible for school meals and WIC.
      Several states provide Medicaid or SNAP to some illegal immigrants, and millions of undocumented immigrants with work permits (DACA, TPS, asylum applicants) qualify for EITC.
      Removing low-cost programs like school meals and WIC from the analysis still shows 46% of immigrant households vs. 33% of U.S.-born households use at least one remaining major program.
      Workforce participation is high: 83% of immigrant households and 94% of illegal immigrant households have at least one worker.

    Workforce participation would be higher among citizens if citizens didnt have to compete with taxpayer-subsidized, below-market labor.

    • That's a good post. It's a reminder that there's legit information out there and that it will be completely and dishonestly lied about by people like you. No the numbers in your very post do not support your assertion that most low wage illegals are on public assistance. In fact to get to that conclusion you had to lump it together with immigrants (legal) and families (also legal), and then still you only just got over half way.

      Workforce participation would be higher among citizens if citizens didnt have to compete with taxpayer-subsidized, below-market labor.

      On the flip side 100% of American workers in the same situation would qualify fo

    • According to Wikipedia "The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) is an American anti-immigration[3][4][5][6][7] think tank." According to he Center for Immigration Studies, they are "an independent, non-partisan, non-profit research organization."

  • ... it's just a database error. They are on a shelf somewhere, just not properly entered into the tracking system.

  • Well, the left has been complaining that Amazon workers are underpaid. So, this will have the effect of forcing Amazon to pay more to get legal workers. What's not to like?

  • about them raiding gang houses and deporting actual violent illegal immigrant gang members? My feeds don't seem to be getting those stories.

  • He's manufacturing illegals:

    On May 30, the Supreme Court granted temporary approval for the Trump administration to revoke a program known as "humanitarian parole," which had allowed more than 500,000 migrants feeling political turmoil in Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to quickly get work permits if they had a fiscal sponsor...[emph. added]

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