King: Hire more Americans for dairy, meatpacking jobs

By: 
Robert Maharry

During a pair of follow-up interviews with The Grundy Register after his stop at Ritchie Industries in Conrad last Thursday, U.S. Congressman Steve King (R-Iowa) discussed ethanol, the plight of dairy farmers and their reliance on the labor of undocumented workers, the national figures who have endorsed his Democratic opponent J.D. Scholten, the Des Moines Register’s recent editorial disparaging him and the suspected assassination of Saudi-American journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul.
           
King cited one of his recent tweets as evidence that millions of able-bodied American citizens are not working while collecting government assistance after recent high profile events like the murder of Mollie Tibbetts in Poweshiek County and a story in Esquire magazine have highlighted the fact that Iowa’s dairy industry mostly employs individuals who have entered the country illegally.
           
“There’s a labor supply. We have to figure out a way to get them where the work is, and I’m not convinced that $15 an hour moves people from a place where they pay more than that at McDonald’s,” King said. “Right now, it’s too easy not to work, and we have employers that are trying to compete with the federal government. The government’s paying them not to work, which doesn’t take as much money as it takes to pay them to work, and we’re borrowing money from China and Saudi Arabia and the American people in order to fund a welfare program.”
           
He added, however, that his hardline stance on illegal immigration has never been focused on a specific locality or area within his own district but rather on “restoring the rule of law” nationwide, and he feels some sympathy for the dairy farmers struggling to survive in the current market.
           
“But they also expanded their operations with full knowledge of what the labor supply situation was,” King said.  “We’re 43 years in the construction business, and we’re running ads on the radio every day. I think King Construction has spent more money on advertisements in the last year or two advertising for help than I’ve spent advertising for votes… What you have to have is good people, no matter where they come from, but they have to be legal.” 
 
Read a full summary of the interview in this week's Grundy Register. Subscribe by calling (319) 824-6958 or clicking here. 

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