In This Article

• Will native-born workers step into jobs immigrants now hold?
• How is AI displacing middle-class careers?
• What happens when educated workers must downsize?
• Why coders and farm workers represent the future of labor.
• Can renewal and cooperation reshape the value of work?

Immigration Jobs vs. AI Displacement: Who Will Do the Work?

For decades, the immigration debate in America has been framed around fear. Fear that immigrants are "taking jobs," fear that they’re "changing the culture," fear that they’re somehow the reason wages stagnated. Yet, peel back the propaganda, and the real question has always been simpler: will native-born Americans do the work immigrants do?

The answer, historically, has been no. Americans like to eat strawberries but don’t want to pick them. They want their houses built but don’t want to carry drywall. They want chicken fillets but won’t work in slaughterhouses. Instead, we created a two-tier labor system: one group dreaming of advancement, another group supplying the muscle that made the dream possible.

AI Joins the Party

Enter artificial intelligence. It doesn’t cross a border; it crosses a circuit board. And it doesn’t just compete at the bottom of the labor pyramid. It cuts into the middle, coders, clerks, analysts, even some lawyers. The very people who once scoffed at "unskilled labor" are finding their own skills declared unnecessary by an algorithm.

What happens when the kid who went $80,000 in debt to learn coding discovers ChatGPT or its successors can do in ten seconds what he can do in ten hours? Suddenly, the distinction between "high-skilled" and "low-skilled" begins to look like smoke and mirrors.

The Great Career Downsizing

Here’s the hard truth: the modern economy was built on promises it never intended to keep. Go to college, get a degree, and you’ll be rewarded with a stable middle-class life. That was the deal, or at least the illusion. AI is now shredding that contract faster than you can say "student loan forgiveness."

Downsizing isn’t just happening to jobs; it’s happening to expectations. Imagine telling a freshly minted computer science graduate that their next gig is in agricultural fieldwork.

Sounds absurd, right? But look back through history, industrial workers displaced by machines often ended up doing service jobs their parents would have laughed at. Pride is expensive; hunger is cheap.

A Tale of Two Workers: Coders and Farmhands

Consider the symbolic contrast: coders and farm workers. Coders embody the promise of the digital economy, while farm workers embody the reality of physical survival. Coders once had status, stock options, and start-up dreams.

Farm workers, often immigrants, had none of that. Yet as AI automates the coders’ world, the farm worker suddenly looks like the more secure worker. After all, strawberries don’t pick themselves, at least not yet. The irony is brutal: the people once considered "low-skill" may be the last ones holding indispensable skills in their calloused hands.

The Psychology of Labor

People don’t just work for money; they work for identity. The American myth is that your job defines your worth. When middle-class jobs vanish, so does a sense of belonging. That’s why downsizing expectations isn’t as simple as retraining. You can’t just tell a former coder to "learn to weld" or "start farming" without acknowledging the psychic blow.

It’s not just about wages, it’s about pride, dignity, and social status. Immigrants have long endured this silent humiliation, branded as "essential" yet treated as expendable. Now, middle-class workers may be asked to swallow that same bitter pill. Will they? Or will they revolt before the first bite?

Historical Echoes

This isn’t the first time technology upended work. In the early 19th century, the Luddites smashed textile machines not because they hated progress but because progress meant starvation. In the 20th century, tractors displaced farmhands, assembly lines displaced craftsmen, and computers displaced clerks. Each wave promised new opportunities, but not everyone rode the tide. Many sank. The difference today is scale and speed.

AI is devouring jobs across the spectrum, from radiologists to receptionists, faster than society can invent replacements. And unlike machines of the past, AI doesn’t need rest, doesn’t unionize, and doesn’t demand healthcare. Capitalism just found its dream employee.

The Politics of Fear

Here’s where immigration and AI intersect politically. Elites sell the public a fairy tale: immigrants are the enemy. Meanwhile, AI’s real displacement goes unnoticed until the pink slips arrive. Blame the migrant picking lettuce, not the algorithm writing your software out of existence.

Divide and distract. It’s the oldest trick in the book. When wages fall, when jobs vanish, resentment needs a target. Politicians happily supply one, pointing fingers southward while the machines quietly hum behind closed doors. This sleight of hand isn’t accidental, it’s essential to maintaining control.

Harsh Language Warning

The Dignity Question

What happens when dignity runs headfirst into necessity? Will Americans scrub toilets, pick fruit, or gut chickens once

AI strips away their white-collar identities? Or will they cling to fantasies of middle-class entitlement even as reality kicks down the door? History suggests resistance. People don’t like stepping down the ladder. They riot, they rage, they scapegoat.

Yet history also shows adaptation. Irish immigrants once dug canals, Italians once laid brick, Chinese immigrants once built railroads. Each group was despised until their labor became normalized. Maybe tomorrow’s "native-born fruit pickers" will be today’s laid-off tech bros. Stranger things have happened.

A Chance for Renewal

And here lies the hidden opportunity. If AI displacement and immigration converge to reveal the fragility of the old system, maybe we can finally rethink the value of work itself. Maybe we stop worshipping jobs as the sole measure of worth and start recognizing the dignity of all contributions, whether coding, caregiving, or carrot-picking.

Maybe we finally admit that human beings deserve security, healthcare, and community not because they produce profit but because they exist. Immigration jobs and AI displacement don’t have to be crises; they can be the catalysts for building a regenerative economy where cooperation replaces competition as the organizing principle.

The Regenerative Thread

This isn’t just utopian fluff. The alternative is grim: escalating fear, division, and collapse. But weave a different thread, and renewal becomes possible. Imagine an economy where displaced coders work alongside immigrants, not in competition but in solidarity, advocating for universal basic income, healthcare, and fair wages.

Imagine dignity detached from job titles, where contribution is measured not by profit but by human well-being. That’s not weakness; that’s survival. And maybe, just maybe, it’s the next step in humanity’s long, messy evolution.

Who Will Do the Work?

So who will do the work? The immigrants will, as they always have. But maybe this time, they won’t do it alone. As AI strips away illusions of job security, native-born workers may be forced to confront the same reality immigrants have lived for generations: survival requires humility, adaptation, and cooperation.

The real choice isn’t between immigrants and AI. It’s between clinging to a dying myth of individual entitlement or embracing a future built on shared resilience. One path leads to resentment; the other, however unlikely, might just lead to renewal.

Music Interlude

About the Author

Robert Jennings is the co-publisher of InnerSelf.com, a platform dedicated to empowering individuals and fostering a more connected, equitable world. A veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Army, Robert draws on his diverse life experiences, from working in real estate and construction to building InnerSelf with his wife, Marie T. Russell, to bring a practical, grounded perspective to life’s challenges. Founded in 1996, InnerSelf.com shares insights to help people make informed, meaningful choices for themselves and the planet. More than 30 years later, InnerSelf continues to inspire clarity and empowerment.

 Creative Commons 4.0

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 License. Attribute the author Robert Jennings, InnerSelf.com. Link back to the article This article originally appeared on InnerSelf.com

Further Reading

AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order
Kai-Fu Lee explores the rise of artificial intelligence in both the U.S. and China and what it means for the global economy, work, and society. This book highlights how AI is reshaping jobs and industries, making it essential reading for anyone interested in the future of work and displacement.
Amazon: AI Superpowers

Humans Need Not Apply: A Guide to Wealth and Work in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
Jerry Kaplan takes a practical look at how AI is transforming the labor market and why many jobs we take for granted may soon disappear. His perspective helps frame the debate on what humans will do as automation accelerates.
Amazon: Humans Need Not Apply

The Future of Work: Robots, AI, and Automation
Darrell M. West examines how automation and AI are disrupting the workforce and offers policy ideas for how society might adapt. It’s a clear-eyed look at the trade-offs between innovation and human labor.
Amazon: The Future of Work

The Next Shift: The Fall of Industry and the Rise of Health Care in Rust Belt America
Gabriel Winant shows how the decline of industrial jobs and rise of service and caregiving work reshaped communities. This history resonates with today’s shift from traditional labor to AI-driven displacement.
Amazon: The Next Shift

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration
Isabel Wilkerson tells the story of how millions of African Americans migrated in search of work and dignity, reshaping the U.S. labor force. This powerful narrative echoes the struggles of immigrants and displaced workers today.
Amazon: The Warmth of Other Suns

Article Recap

AI displacement and immigration jobs are colliding to reshape the workforce. Native-born workers may be forced to confront roles they once rejected, as coding careers give way to manual labor. This clash between immigration jobs and AI displacement could spark social upheaval, or, if handled wisely, a renewed sense of cooperation and dignity in work.

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