Used to stay and work in ND during my Summers in college. One of the businesses I worked for was a bin sealing company. The owner was a successful farmer and du

Used to stay and work in ND during my Summers in college. One of the businesses I worked for was a bin sealing company. The owner was a successful farmer and during the Summer, he would have two large families get work visas and would come up and help from Mexico during the Summer harvest. It was basically three months of sun up to sun down work. At the end of the Summer, the family would celebrate and put on a huge fiesta and cook food for everybody. The farmer paid them extremely well and they would leave and go back to Mexico in August, fondly talking about coming back again the following Summer when the farmer needed them again. This was my first exposure to migrant labor. It was clear the farmer took the appropriate steps to get visas and paid the family well for their efforts. Likewise, the family was thankful for the work, good pay and with the relationship. When I moved back to Minnesota after college, I started playing hockey again and two of my teammates had done something similar and worked on poultry and cattle farms in the southern part of the state. Their stories were the complete opposite of what I had experienced. Illegals were used all over the operation. They were paid roughly $3/hour cash to work 12-16 hour shifts. If they spoke up about safety issues or the pay, a supervisor would pick them up, buy them a ticket back to the border and drop them off at the bus station. The stories they had were pretty eye opening to say the least. I felt dumb for being so naive to think farmers just did everything legally.