Speech #880062353

Mr. Speaker. I sense an effort in Congress to glamorize and promote a vast migrant labor program to furnish the supplemental labor necessary to harvest and process some of the vital agricultural crops of our Nation. Some Members of Congress. in order to defeat any program to import supplemental labor. would try to force upon our domestic farm labor a nomadic. migrant way of life. I know of no responsible sociologist who recommends the life of a nomad or migrant as a satisfactory way of life .r a family. I know of no family econo- ot ist who would recommend it. Congres- ar onal families continuously complain w )out it for themselves. pr Even the fanciest of migrant facilities re not proper or conducive to healthy. st appy family life. Why wish it on the te oor unskilled laborer? fc Even the families who are forced to a iigrate hate it. Facts and figures can si ubstantiate these viewsalthough per- t( aps not as well as the experience of ving with a migrant family. b One California farm association re- ir ruited approximately 300 domestic R armworkers from Texas. Food was R ood. housing excellent. schooling suerior. wages were twice the wages in exas. climate and working conditions p iere excellent. and transportation and t ubsistence en route were paid. Never- a heless none of them stayed more than P or 4 weeks. They were urged to stay nd promised long employment. but they n vanted to go home. they did not want b o move from place to place. no matter I. iow superior the wages and working c :onditions were. These people. particularly the families P and children. belong at homewhere there is security. stabilitywhere they can develop roots. I urge you to think of the individual migrant family before you vote funds to promote or encourage this barbaric. nomadic way of life. Proper use of a bracerotype program is an efficient. humanitarian solution to the migrants cruel plight.