Most grain farmers are heavily subsidized by the US Taxpayer to the tune of about $20 billion per year. I expect the farmers could use a little bit of THAT money to pay a decent wage.
But instead the farmers are hiring illegals and that amounts to a second massive subsidy by taxpayers. We get stuck with paying for the health care, education, prisons and social services for all that cheap farm labor.
Exactly where do you get that information from? I won't argue one penny of the subsidies - I know about them ... BUT - If you know farmers who are getting rich from the subsidies, it must not be around here. The VAST majority of farmers here are struggling to stay afloat. In fact, farmers around here are exploring ways to keep the books at least close to in-balance including hunting leases and other alternate uses for the "off season".
Now - maybe the vegetable farmers out west are making a killing from the immigrant labor, but the imported labor around here make the same or more than the American workers - and that's not a lot. In addition, most farmers have continued to do more with less employees.
Now, there is a very small handful of farmers I know who are doing fairly well financially, but there are suspicions of other "cash crops" to bolster their bottom line. IN fact, a few of those have been caught in the last couple of years.
Of course, we could also open the can of worms related to foreign competition for farm products. Particularly heavy are the South American producers - they have FAR fewer regulations and Can pay workers $5 per day. Consumers demand cheap. We already see the cost of that to our manufacturing sector.
And I would love to see the end of farm subsidies. But these subsidies are the "welfare system" for farmers. And much like the welfare system, the farmers don't know how to live without it (and I don't know how they possibly could unless prices go WAY up).