Speech #880078714

I fail to see how eliminating the Mexican labor program will have any appreciable effect on the wages or conditions of employment for domestic farmworkers. Ample statutory and regulatory safeguards have been erected to prevent the use of Mexicans to replace domestic workers or their having any adverse effect on wages and working conditions. It makes little sense to cut off this program as a meaningless gesture of sympathy to the domestic migrants. The justification for continuation of the Mexican labor program is that sufficient domestic labor is not available in the place and at the time it is needed by the farmers. Mexicans do not replace domestic workers. they supplement them.