Diamondeye wrote:
We already do have all kinds of guest worker programs. You can get an E-series immigrant employment visa, and there are also H-1B, H-1C, H-2A, and H-2B temporary worker visas. There is no limit ont he number of nonimmigrant worker visas. H-2A is for temporary agricultural workers and H-2B is for nonagricultural workers. Since the vast majority of illegals come here to work in agriculture or unskilled labor that covers them quite nicely.
The bottom line is that we, as a soveriegn nation, have the right to determine who comes into our country and who does not. We are not obligted to any other country to let their surplus population come here and become our surplus population. That is a basic element of national soveriegnty.
Moreover, disregarding the drugs and criminals, the basic problem is that Mexico cannot manage itself. By acting as a relief valve for its excess population we allow Mexico to continue existing in the state that allows such conditions in the first place. It's no different than enabling an alcoholic.
Hiring people legally with temporary worker visas would require the companies to pay at least minimum wage, which would defeat the entire purpose of hiring foreign workers.
Also, the H-1 series of visas does have a limit. The H-2 series does not, but the regulations associated with it means there is no way in hell any company could afford to hire foreign workers for anything but specialty work under it. The prevailing wage rate rules typically force the employer to pay even more than minimum wage to hire under H-2A, and the workers must be provided with free lodging at the employer's expense.
We have 10,000,000 illegal immigrants at minimum and 30,000 H-2As. It's simply not a viable alternative as the jobs are worth nowhere near the amount the employer would have to spend. I would refer you to the destruction of the California orange crop in 2007, an illegal immigrant crackdown left the orange growers without workers in advance of an impending frost, and pretty much all of them decided it would be better to let the crop freeze to death on the vines than to pay Americans to harvest it.