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Over many years while I was in Congress, I met with scores of employers in my district who faced terrible red tape just to be allowed to bring in temporary agricultural workers who would willingly return home once the work was finished.

The bottom line has always been cheap labor.

I read that argument all the time on FR but that really is not the case. Paul’s point was really about the ongoing hypocrisy from the US in pushing to allow all the illegals to stay and the do jobs Americans won’t while torturing those of us who try to go through legal means...guess it doesn’t fit into their agenda. BUT, there is already a legal method for coming here to work. The red tape Paul speaks of makes it an expensive annual nightmare. Yet I do it every year to bring up labor from Jamaica to pick crops legally. Some have been working for us for over 20 years. Right now the pay is $11.20/hour and housing plus transportation. Not cheap -unless we raise the price of lettuce and tomatoes and everything else. Would you pay more?
Close the border, deport everyone who is illegal, streamline and simplify the guest worker process (yep, everyone is vetted, vaccinated, and returns to their country of origin at end of contract...).
Remove the excuses about why we need illegals! But we all know they need to make it seem like we have to have them here to fulfill their political motives.
/Rant off

Re:Over many years while I was in Congress, I met with scores of employers in my district who faced terrible red tape just to be allowed to bring in temporary agricultural workers who would willingly return home once the work was finished.

The bottom line has always been cheap labor.

Yup ....

Cheap, desperate, compliant labor for all levels of the job market.

The red tape is a red herring. There are an unlimited number of visas for agricultural. Set up a computer to churn out the requisite paper work and there you go. The catch is you have to pay minimum wage an abide by minimal US labor standards. How awful !.

the bracero program was ok bring it back..problem is now illegals move up from the fields to construction etc taking citizens jobs and leaving a vacuum in agriculture-why pick crops when you can construct and get paid more?