You shall not abuse a needy and destitute laborer

Our Torah commands us:

לא־תעשק שכיר עני ואביון מאחיך או מגרך אשר בארצך בשעריך
You shall not abuse a needy and destitute laborer, whether a fellow countryman or a stranger in one of the communities of your land. (Deuteronomy 24:14)

 And Rashi explains that "abuse" refers to the substandard wage that the laborer's neediness or their foreignness might allow you to extract from them.

I am reading a history of farms and farm labor which is reminding me of all the ways we have historically done just that in this country. Chattel slavery built this country, its financial system, and some very great fortunes by treating African captives and their descendants as property. After the Civil War ended chattel slavery, Klan terror allowed the white people who took the land to continue exploiting the Black people who farmed it by means of debt peonage and sharecropping.

We have a minimum wage in this country (which has reached historic lows) but it explicitly says it is for "non-agricultural labor," meaning that gouging the pay of farmworkers is legal. And by keeping most of those farmworkers in a status that denies them the protections of law, we restrict their means of resistance: of bargaining for better. Sometimes we do that by laws and treaties, like the Bracero Program of the 40's, 50's, and 60's or the non-citizen status of Filipinos in the first half of the 20th century. Sometimes we do that simply by hiring people from other countries but declaring their presence here to be "illegal."

The most fundamental thing that makes me human is treating you as human.  Leviticus 19:18 expresses it this way:

Love your neighbor as yourself.

Treating others as something other than human is demonic. It is demonic when we rip infants from the arms of their mothers. It is demonic when we herd teens into concentration camps. It is demonic when we gas moms who are trying to bring their children here for safety from death squads and gangs and sexual abuse.

As I write these words I can hear an imaginary reader objecting, "But what about..."

And I fill in the words "But what about if it were you?"

What if it were your toddler being forced to testify alone in court in an language they don't know as to why they would be in danger if they were still at home?

What if it were your teen confined behind razor wire, under the supervision of predatory and violent adults, because they seek sanctuary here?

What if it were you being gassed because you are trying to keep your children safe from murderers and predators?

If you cannot identify with the exploited and the oppressed, then you are identifying yourself with the exploiter and the oppressor. You don't have to gas that mom yourself. You don't have to rape that teen yourself. You don't have to kidnap that infant yourself. If you fail to see them as human -- if you fail to see them as YOU -- then you share in the guilt of those who do those things.

I am uncertain what it would cost to reduce the super profits of agribusiness by paying a living wage to the people who actually farm our food, the people we choose not to call "farmers" but "farm workers." I do know that if they cannot feed their own children while those children live indoors and attend school, then we do not deserve to eat. I do know that if they cannot live free of pesticide poisoning, then we do not deserve to eat. I do know that if we cannot treat the people who feed us as human, then we ourselves are not human.