Here’s a news flash: temporary workers won’t want to go back. I know, I know, understanding that would take common sense and foresight, things that politicians don’t have and have no interest in cultivating. However, for the rest of us, it shouldn’t take a leap of logic to understand that inviting in laborers and getting them accustomed to wages and a standard a living far above that they will be making outside of this country and then asking them to leave politely is… well, stupid.
And I’m not the only one who thinks that.
Immigrants say temporary worker program won’t be temporary
— reported by the Houston ChronicleJose Luis Vazquez and Elia Garcia know what they’re talking about when they predict that new immigrants crossing the border under the U.S. Senate’s temporary guest worker program won’t go home.
They each came over illegally more than a decade ago. They have children, jobs and houses — a life that would be difficult to dismantle because of a date on the calendar.
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President Bush called for such a plan last month on the theory that these immigrants would earn enough money to help their families and then move home.
The guest worker idea has strong appeal among such industries as construction, where nearly a third of the work force are immigrants.
[snip]
But some immigration experts say temporary worker programs have never worked in free market societies, because as workers become used to higher wages and start to assimilate, they don’t want to go back. It’s even harder to return once children are born here, making them automatic Americans, and the Senate bill allows for spouses of workers also to obtain visas.
[snip]
Well, duh!
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