Each year on this floor we hear arguments for bringing in Mexicans to harvest our crops. The bill we have before us today includes an item of $1.521.000 for the Mexican farm labor program. The taxpayers of the United States are asked to subsidize the big farmers to the tune of $11/2 million to bring in foreign workers. * In other words. we can afford to spend $150 for each Mexican that is imported but we cannot afford 10 cents to each domestic migrant to make life more attractive and American labor more readily available for farm work. If the Appropriations Committee was looking for real economy. this would be a good place to begin. Let us look at the proposal of $100.000 for the Department of Labor to provide leadership in establishing a cooperative FederalState program for migrants. We all know that any improvement in the lot of migrant workers involves the cooperation of many agencies of GovernmentFederal and State. Without coordination of the work of these agencies little or nothing is done. The Labor Department proposes to give leadership in bringing these agencies together. particularly in the States. to study their migrant labor problems and jointly plan for their improvement. In the few places where such a joint approach has been made. real progress has resulted. The children of the migrant workers have been put in school. health needs have been met. housing has been improved * and community acceptance has resulted. For the first time the migrant families have been treated like human beings to the benefit of all parties concernedthe farmers as well as the rest of the community. Now. what is wrong with telling the rest of the country how these improvemerkts were brought about? What community forces were enlisted?
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migrants migrant