Speech #880107771

Many Mexican nationals have relatives. friends. and former neighbors in the United States. Life is immensely better in the United States. Thousands of applicants for permanent immigration from Mexico to the United States are denied each year. The bracero program is an irritating impediment to the unlimited immigrationist. If the immigration law and regulations were relaxed. hundreds of thousands of Mexican nationals would swarm over the border and into every State in the Union.. Such permanent immigration would cause immediate and widespread havoc in our labor force. Most of the many Mexican immigrants would be unskilled and would at first compete with native American unskilled labornaturally forcing many of our citizens out of work and depressing wages because the Mexicans are used to working for much less and need much less than our domestic workers. The Mexican national is bright. industrious. ambitious. and eager and able to learn. He would soon branch out into semiskilled and skilled employmentoffering strong competition for the jobs now held by our citizens. They- would also migrate rapidly from the border and agricultural areas into the urban and industrial areas offering more and more deadly competition in areas. employments. and industries already burdened and anguished by unemployment and underemployment. These Mexican immigrants would first seek work and homes in the border and agricultural areas. but when the first harvests were completed and the farm work peters out. they would quickly migrate in all directions and into all industries. The schools through which their children moved---perhaps many times a yearwould be thoroughly disrupteddetracting immeasurably from the quality and quantity of the education of the migrants as well as the American residents. The extraordinary additional cost and disruption would seriously hinder all primary and secondary education in America. After the harvests. from 3 to 6 months of the year. there would be no jobs for them in America. In almost every other industry and occupation there is a surplus of labor. Therefore. newly arrived Mexican immigrantsfreemer. and their familieswould need and seek relief and welfare assistance. This new demand could very well bankrupt many local and State welfare and unemployment insurance programs. as well as increases the Classification Act employees received in October 1962. force a wider and wider migration and a further depression of wages and working conditions. not only among the unskilled. but among the semiskilled and even skilled workers. We simply are not prepared now for a sudden inundation of hundreds of thousands of poor. unskilled workers and their families from Mexico or any other nation. We have some obligations to the needy and poor of the world and. especially. our Mexican neighbors. but we have a primary and immediate obligation to our own poor. needy. and unemployed in the United States. These promoters of unlimited immigration from Mexico into the United States oppose the bracero. The bracero program limits the demand for Mexican migration into the United States to the harvest seasons only and to agricultural work and agricultural areas only. In the event of the elimination of the bracero program. many pressures for unlimited immigration would greatly and dramatically increase. Modification of the present immigration laws and new immigration laws would be loudly demanded. Another group which opposes an extension of Public Law 78 is composed of somebut not all. by any meansbosses in organized labor. They are few. but they are vocal and persistent.