Speech #970274871

I would like to provide my colleagues with a historical perspective which clearly reflects how the U.S. Government has over the last 80 years stimulated. encouraged. and implemented policy calling for the importation of Mexican labor for agricultural purposes. This history does provide a view that underscores the role this country has taken in encouraging undocumented flows when it was economically advantageous. Since 1917. this country has operated a temporary guestworker program of one type or another. In fact. this country instituted that first such program as a result of conflicts between immigration restrictionists against Mexicans employers. The U.S. Department of Labor resolved this conflict by utilizing the ninth proviso of the Immigration Act of 1917 which gives the Secretary of Labor discretion to admit the temporary importation of Mexican contract laborers. It is ironic that such a program would be enacted after such a period of antiimmigration. however. it does reflect the insatiable demands by U.S. employers for cheap labor. Prior to 1917. this demand had been met by other immigrant groups and was not to be hindered by such sentiments. This insatiable appetite was satisfactorily fed by the initiation of the first bracero program which allowed the Secretary of Labor to exempt Mexicans from the head tax required of each immigrant and the ban on any immigrants over age 16 who could not read. These workers were primarily to be employed in agricultural labor. Accompanying this program were rules and regulations designed to protect the worker. however. they were never effectively enforced.