| #1 I'm not against a guest-worker program. I am against using a "guestworker" program as a back-door amnesty. I think it would be a good idea to have a large number of Mexican citizens in good standing sign up for guest worker visas that would allow them to enter the US to pick fruit and vegetables, to do other seasonal work, and to even fill long-term jobs where there's a demand. There are several ways to handle it, though, and neither party has made any real attempt to define the program. With current computer capabilities there's no reason we cannot create a national database of APPROVED guest-workers, especially those that have entered the US before, then gone back to Mexico once their work was done. I think such a program would help reduce the number of illegals considerably, and give the US a better handle of who's in the country. It would also reduce the incentive for people to hire human smugglers, and make it easier to pot the bad guys who violate our border for criminal reasons (fewer "civilian" casualties when we do get nasty). It's going to take compromise, ingenuity, and initiative to develop a border policy that works. Right now, neither side is actually working to make things better. |