Speech #970010275

This bill is virtually identical to a bill which I and others sponsored in the 96th Congress. The Good Neighbor Act is the legislative proposal for a program I call Los Companeros. that is. the friends or companions. S. 47 would create a temporary worker program which would allow Mexican citizens to obtain a temporary visa for 240 days during which they could work at any worksite in this country unless the Labor Department certifies there are adequate and willing domestic workers. Freed from the restrictions of a sitespecific labor contract or illegality. the temporary visa holder could reap the full benefit of U.S. law and derive more benefit from his labors. The employment acts as an efficient form of foreign aid to Mexico. In contrast to this approach. the Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy decided to concentrate their attention on the issue of restricting rnigration without regard to the upheaval this will cause in Mexico. I. like others. recognize that the American populace does not want a permanent underclass of temporary workers coming to this country for work. But this desire cannot be achieved unless we create a selfenforcing program that relates with reality. The reality is that Mexico has 20 to 30 percent of unemployment in a population. 50 percent of which is under the age of 15. while we have a substantial number of lowskill seasonal jobs that would go unfilled at a tremendous. unnecessary cost to American businesses and their employees unless Mexican migrant workers have access to them. Furthermore. we cannot keep them out unless we are willing to create and enforce a socalled Tortilla Curtain at great economic and human cost to both the United States and Mexico. The beauty of the Los Companeros program is that if it is enacted. we will not have to radically increase our border enforcement. At present. although illegal migration may average several million persons annually. most return to Mexico after an average stay in the United States of approximately 6 months. Several recent studies document this fact. notably. "Mexican Migration to the United States: Causes.