Sen. Durbin discusses need for immigrant labor

WASHINGTON, D.C. (KFVS) - In a Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee hearing, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) talked about immigrant labor.

Durbin said mass deportations and dramatic cuts in legal immigration would devastate many livestock and poultry processing plants that depend on those laborers.

“When you go to meat and poultry processing plants in Illinois or anywhere across the United States, you will find a lot of immigrant workers. Many of them are undocumented. They take these jobs because they’re hot, dirty, sometimes dangerous, and the local folks don’t want them,” Durbin said. “Immigrant and migrant labor is critical for agriculture in America. This notion that we should close our borders and say, ‘We’re done. We don’t want immigration anymore in this country,’ is wrong and it’s unfair.”