[Itzlzha]

I was talking and have been talking about legal immigrantion. I know for a fact that our agribusiness industry here in California depends on legal immigration as the primary source for their seasonal labor demands, and I don't believe that people who willingly work for agreed upon wages are slaves. Temporary workers, guest workers, whatever they are called will always be needed or agriculture goes bust.

Ah..I see. Thanks for the clarification.

But we cannot even consider a "Guest Worker" program until we do enough to secure the borders against Illegals...otherwise you will definitely be rewarding Illegals for their Illegal behaviour.

As far as the "willingly work for agreed upon wages" part...how much negotiating can these workers do when if the agrobiz doesn't want to pay the rate they ask, there are millions of Illegals to do it cheaper? The very presence and threat of Illegal labor artificially devalues the labor costs..therby depressing wages. They have no choice but to agree to the wages, as any "negotiations" would result in others getting the work. Not being able to negotiate a wage in a "free market" means that wages are dictated, not valued by market forces...and the threat of Illegal workers forces legals who need the work to accept lower wages, thereby bringing about the concept of "wage slave".

That is my point...along with the fact that Illegals should never get any work/benefits/Gub'Mint hand outs beyond absolute humanitarian level, and then deport after their immediate crisis is over.

I need to go....my pain is breaking thru...I'll check back later.

[Jim Robinson]

I'm not arguing for illegals. Catch them and deport them. I don't care. But as I've said, there has to be some kind of program for bringing in legal workers as needed. Let's face it. Our education system here in California is just not graduating qualified field workers in the numbers needed.

[The Coopster]

But we cannot even consider a "Guest Worker" program until we do enough to secure the borders against Illegals...otherwise you will definitely be rewarding Illegals for their Illegal behaviour.

Actually, that's not a true statement.

The agriculture industry uses the H2B labor visa - a guest worker program. All paperwork (passports, visas, I-94, etc) are done BEFORE the worker ever crosses the border. Additionally, the workers pay taxes at the same rate that I do.

As an aside, I have found that the best way to determine if a worker is legal or not is whether or not they file a tax return.