Speech #1100054134

When we deal with this issue. what we will have done is we will have found solutions to the issue of a broken border that has been broken for a very long time. When we effectively deal with this issue. we will deal with the reality of the economic demands of the United States of America and how we treat people with the kind of humanity and morality we would expect of otheirs. It is true that when one looks back at the immigration history of this country. there have been chapters in that immigration history which have been very difficult and very painful for those involved. From 1942 until 1964. there was a chapter in our immigration laws called the national Mexican immigration program. or the Bracero Program. in which people were brought into this country because there was a need for labor. and we had many of oar men and women in uniform serving in faraway places. as those in my family were serving at that particular time. but because there was a need for labor in our factories and on our farms. people were brought to this country under a program. But it was a program that did not have worker protections. and the consequence of that program was that there were many people who suffered and who lived through a tremendous amount of pain because they did not have the protection of the laws of the United States of America. Today.