We have to address the issues of paying for their health care, educating their drop, and letting them vote (which makes our own votes meaningless). If we let them stay, regardless of the arrangements, these things will continue. To think otherwise is to live in dreamland.
ping
"...He worried that the system was "adversely affecting the wages, working conditions and employment opportunities of our own agricultural workers."
Since he would be roundly chastised as being anti-immigrant. Sticking up for American workers is unacceptable in the face of the immigration lobby.
I was with him up until here "And, most controversially, work out a one-time-only citizenship plan for those who have resided for substantial time in the United States."
Now, I don't know what we are going to do with these hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of people and their citizen children. The idea of a fine of $1500- is absurd, when these folks (back in the impoverished home country even) are scraping up 10 times that amount to get smuggled in, that's just for a start. I really don't have a better clue (but I'd make a steeper fine, far steeper), which is why I suggest we start with deporting the criminals amoung them first. However, I do know we did the "one time only" thing back under Reagan, so please, don't insult my intelligence and tell me "one time only" when it will be twice for a start.
I'm quite sure the current anger over illegal immigration comes from a gut realization of the failure of the "one time only" already tried. As we are filling out our I-9 forms a horde of new illegals arrive daily.
The U.S. had better make up it's mind. Cheap labor = cheap food. If we get serious about stopping illegal immigration, we can expect some economic dislocations in agriculture until they find ways to adapt and mechanize.
It will also require protectionist policies to protect domestic agriculture from cheaper imported fruits and vegetables which are more dependant on cheap labor than commodities like wheat and corn which are already highly mechanized.
And all of the braceros returned to Mexico when their work assignments were completed. (And none of their children became American citizens because they were born in the US.)
A new bracero program would have to be more humane -- better living conditions, better education, better health case (most of it provided at the expense of the Mexican government). But a new version of that old program would make a great deal of sense.
Congressman Billybob
"and very cheap -- farm workers to American employers, most of them large agribusiness concerns."
I would say this is the reason to bring labor from foreign countries here.