“Who’s gonna pick the fruit?” “Who’s gonna mow your lawn?” “Who’s gonna wipe our a**es?” These are perhaps the most ridiculous — and, frankly, racist — questions that leftists are asking in the hopes of stopping deportations. It’s reminiscent of the “Who will pick our cotton?” question posed by 19th-century slave owners. What leftists are really saying with these crude jibes is that illegal aliens do the jobs that don’t pay well and/or are hard and dirty — jobs that the snooty leftist elite view as beneath most Americans.

One such job would be a position in a meatpacking plant. This week, The Wall Street Journal published an article — really an exposé — on this industry’s reliance on “migrant workers.” (The authors were very careful not to use the word “illegal.”) The article also discussed a new slaughterhouse/meatpacking plant’s pitch aimed at attracting American workers.

The pitch was competitive pay, no night shifts, and better workplace ergonomics. In other words, the plant promised to improve working conditions and provide a livable wage. Seems like this should be the model for every meatpacking plant. The Journal marveled at the idea like it was a revelation, calling it “novel.” Most people would call it common sense.

In fact, this sort of thinking — making workplaces safe and good pay — was championed by Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Democrat President Bill Clinton in the late ‘90s.

If that isn’t the standard, then one can only assume that other facilities employ individuals who accept low pay and no benefits because these workers are in the country illegally and have no recourse. It sounds little better than slavery, and it definitely sounds like creating the conditions that facilitate human trafficking.

As David Strom at Hot Air points out: “People will do things if they believe that doing them will leave them better off than before. Illegal aliens are leaving poor, poorly run countries. As Trump would say, 'Sh**hole countries,’ so working at even low wages in the United States will make them better off than remaining at home. They are willing to be cheap labor here because the alternative is worse. The same isn’t true for many Americans, so they pass over these jobs. For many, even being unemployed is a better alternative to doing backbreaking work in poor conditions for low pay, so they won’t do the jobs.”

The Wall Street Journal found that Americans are indeed happy to work at a job that pays them well and makes an effort to make a hard job more bearable.

At the end of the day, the problem was never Americans’ dogged unwillingness to do tough jobs. It was companies undercutting the American worker because they were taking advantage of a class of powerless people who would do the job for terrible pay and in more dangerous working conditions.

As our Nate Jackson noted last week, there has been a 1.7% increase in wages this year — the biggest spike since 1969. It seems that deporting illegal aliens has actually helped Americans, and that’s the essence of “America First.”