We do. About 30,000 H-2A visas are granted for farm work. 95% of these visas are issued to Mexicans. There are about 2.7 million farm workers. Over half of them are in the country illegally.
Mexicans can also enter legally through the H-1B visa. H-1B Frequently Asked Questions Applications for this year were accepted in Oct of last year. Within 24 hours all 65,000 slots were filled.
I was wondering the Chinese and Asians who were hired to contruct the RR tracks of America. Were they migrant workers? Or illegal immigrants? Did they go home after the work was done? Curious.
Until the late 1800's there were no immigration laws. So I can't see how they could be necessarily classified as illegal or migrant workers. Some stayed, many returned to China on their own, many were forced back. I couldn't give you figures with out research. The Chinese were the subject of our first immigration laws. Lots of people didn't want them here The isolationist sentiment of the late 1800s said the Chinese wouldn't assimilate and were of low moral fiber...they smoke opium doncha know.
The People of the United States made a mistake. People do that. In 1882 the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed. The name of the act says it all.
The thus the Land of the Free spiraled down it's protectionist way followed by more immigration laws designed to exclude the ethnic of the day, followed by Smoot-Hawley, followed by Margaret Sanger, followed by Depression and Holocaust. Fortress America here we come!
But I digress. Thanks for asking some great questions.
Can we doubt that only a Divine Providence placed this land, this island of freedom, here as a refuge for all those people in the world who yearn to breathe free. Reagan's 1980 acceptance speech.
Thank U