Oh and IF You cared to look, and you don't because it would blow away your little world, you'd notice that I am NOT on the side of the OBL, nor do I advocate anything of the sort.
It's YOU who lumped me in there and it's YOU who seem to not be able to EVER answer a question.
Some say we should pass (another) enforcement-only bill and leave for later talk of a new temporary worker program. The problem is that those who say we should not permit more people to work on legal temporary visas until we "control the border" have it backwards: The only proven way to control the border is to open up paths to legal entry, allowing the market to succeed where law enforcement alone has failed.Beginning in 1942, the Bracero Program allowed Mexican farm workers to be employed as seasonal contract labor. Despite these legal admissions, limited enforcement and other factors provided little deterrent to illegal entry until 1954.
That is when a controversial crackdown on illegal immigration ensued. Importantly, Immigration and Naturalization Service Commissioner Joseph Swing preceded the crackdown by working with growers to replace an illegal, and therefore unpredictable, source of labor with a legal, regulated labor supply. The workers, being rational, preferred entering legally, and Mr. Swing received praise for pushing the substitution of legal for illegal workers.
Bracero admissions rose from approximately 201,000 in 1953 to more than 430,000 a year between 1956 and 1959. The increased Bracero admissions produced dramatic results. Illegal entry, as measured by INS apprehensions at the border, fell by an astonishing 95 percent between 1953 and 1959. (Apprehensions fell to 45,336 in 1959, compared to more than 1 million in both 1954 and 2005).
However, complaints from unions led to the end of the program by 1964. What happened to illegal immigration after we stopped letting Mexican farm-workers enter legally? It skyrocketed. From 1964 to 1976, while the number of Border Patrol agents remained essentially constant, INS apprehensions of those entering illegally increased more than 1,000 percent. -- Source
In The Impact of Agricultural Guest Worker Programs on Illegal Immigration, the report explains how in varying forms from 1942-1964, the bracero program allowed the admission of Mexican farm workers to be employed as seasonal contract labor for U.S. growers and farmers. Although facilitating legal entry for agricultural work proved effective, today, the idea of allowing regulated, legal entry that employs market principles to fulfill labor demand otherwise filled by individuals entering illegally is considered, depending on ones viewpoint, either novel, radical, or bold.
The report finds that By providing a legal path to entry for Mexican farm workers the bracero program significantly reduced illegal immigration. The end of the bracero program in 1964 (and its curtailment in 1960) saw the beginning of the increases in illegal immigration that we see up to the present day.
It is recognized that the number of INS apprehensions are an important indicator of the illegal flow and that, in general, apprehension numbers drop when the flow of illegal immigration decreases. From 1964 -- when the bracero program ended -- to 1976, INS apprehensions increased from 86,597 to 875,915 a more than 1,000 percent increase, indicating a significant rise in illegal immigration. The report found that Additional factors in illegal immigration rising during this period included economic conditions in Mexico and the lack of a useable temporary visa category for lesser skilled non-agricultural jobs.
This is not to say that the bracero program was without controversy or that workers who entered through the program did not experience problems or even hardships, says Anderson. The point is that when lawful temporary admissions were prevalent, illegal entry to the United States was low. After the program was curtailed and later terminated, illegal immigration rose steadily. The report notes that No one advocates resurrecting the bracero program in its various forms. Yet a revised H-2A visa category that meets the needs of both employers and employees would make a significant contribution to reducing illegal immigration in agriculture.
The report also concludes:
Apparently there are people who are working on uniting the various groups that are fighting against illegal migration, amnesty etc.
I have been invited to participate in this:
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Secure Borders Coalition Conference Call Hosted by Steering Committee Members: Don Feder, Phyllis Schlafly, Richard Viguerie, Mike Valerio, Alan Keyes, and Howard Phillips TOMORROWJuly 6, 2006 4:00 pm, EST |