I have friends in the sugar business here in Florida,and elsewhere.
They used to import cutters from Haiti to work the fields, great employees.
These workers were provided with housing, medical care, food, and education for their kids.
Obviously, the towns surrounding the sugar cane fields thrived during the "zafra" (cutting season), selling all the things these workers needed.
Some bleeding heart liberals, backed by immigration control advocates, managed to make the practice of bringing cutters in from Haiti financially detrimental to the mills, in order to protect these workers from being exploited.
The industry reacted by mechanizing the process.
Now the cutters live in abject poverty in Haiti when before they made an excellent living by Haitian standards, their kids are (most likely) not getting an education, and they can't afford medical attention.
Needless to say, the town surrounding the mills suffered as well from the loss of business.
I think that there is absolutely nothing wrong with a good guest worker program, and I can't for the life of me figure out how to remove ten to twenty million people from our soil effectively, and without making us look like we are conducting something akin to ethnic cleansing.
By deporting ALL illegal aliens. India managed very easily to deport 11 million foreign nationals who entered their country illegally, and has done a much better job of securing their borders than the Bush Administration.
Deportation is neither inhumane or unjust. If I were in another country illegally I would understand perfectly if I were arrested ot asked to leave no matter how long I'd been there. Defending the country is more important than keeping up appearances to anti-American foreign interests.
The two enemies of this program would be:
1) Liberals, who, at the first opportunity, would demand services and benefits for the guests, a) way out of proportion to their economic contribution to our society, b) way out of proportion their basic, US, earning power and c) magnitudes above the capabilities of their native society, leading to unrest in their native country.
2) The price of the commodity which the guests helped to produce would rise slightly as the producers were forced to assume more of the common burden for their relatively cheap and abundant labor supply. The price of a head of lettuce, a hamburger, a hotel room, a blouse, a tract home and lawn care might rise slightly.
After 1) our immigration regulations are enforced, 2) illegal employment of unregulated immigrants has immediate, unattractive consequences and 3) our southern neighbors are convinced to participate in government reforms, a guest worker program is a win-win for the hemisphere.