What L.A. Residents Really Think of L.A. as a Sanctuary City - Town Hall

[EnterSandman]

 

[Jackson]

Good for the speakers!

 

[THAI EXPAT]

This convoluted mess called Immigration, was created by incompetent government officials who catered to interest groups. Governor Reagan of California implemented a Bracero program, by which people could come, pick the crops, and return home with enough money to live the rest of the year and have their children go to school. It was win-win. Poor people did the temporary jobs, that Americans would not, and kept Agriculture working in CA.
But Labor Unions who supported Democrats in office, got the program stopped. Now most of perishable crops are grown in other countries and shipped to USA.
I could write a story on this, as I owned a dive bar in Long Beach for 5 years and many of my customers were illegals.

 

[Tank]

Blacks and Hispanics love Trump

 

[shockedcanadian]

Quite telling that some news networks are covering the GOP Healthcare backlash townhalls, but none seem interested in these townhalls. Hmmm...

 

[bodecea]

This convoluted mess called Immigration, was created by incompetent government officials who catered to interest groups. Governor Reagan of California implemented a Bracero program, by which people could come, pick the crops, and return home with enough money to live the rest of the year and have their children go to school. It was win-win. Poor people did the temporary jobs, that Americans would not, and kept Agriculture working in CA.
But Labor Unions who supported Democrats in office, got the program stopped. Now most of perishable crops are grown in other countries and shipped to USA.
I could write a story on this, as I owned a dive bar in Long Beach for 5 years and many of my customers were illegals.

The Bracero program came about during WWII...hardly Reagan's doing.....

 

[THAI EXPAT]

Braceros: History, Compensation - Rural Migration News | Migration Dialogue

During the 1950s, California replaced New Jersey as the garden state of the United States, as fruit and nut production rose 15 percent and vegetable production rose 50 percent. New dams and canals increased the amount of irrigated land, the interstate highway system reduced transportation time to the eastern seaboard, and improved plant varieties and packing technologies made California produce available more months of the year. The availability of Braceros held down wages-average farm worker earnings in California rose 41 percent, from $0.85 an hour in 1950 to $1.20 in 1960, while average factory worker earnings rose 63 percent, from $1.60 in 1950 to $2.60 in 1960.

The Bracero program came under attack in the early 1960s, accused of being a government policy that slowed the upward mobility of Mexican Americans, just as government-sanctioned discrimination held back Blacks. Criticism of the Bracero program by unions, churches, and study groups persuaded the US Department of Labor to tighten wage and housing standards, thus increasing the cost of hiring Bracero workers and reducing the number employed. Growers argued that they needed Braceros because American workers would not do seasonal farm work, and that the availability of Braceros kept agriculture competitive and food prices low.

The CBS documentary "Harvest of Shame" aired in November 1960, and the discussion of farm labor that followed convinced newly elected President Kennedy that Braceros were "adversely affecting the wages, working conditions, and employment opportunities of our own agricultural workers." Kennedy encouraged DOL to further tighten Bracero program regulations in a manner that raised the wages farmers had to pay to US and Bracero workers, which prompted some farmers to consider mechanization.

During the summer of 1963, there was a showdown in Congress over the Bracero program. Farmers argued that without Braceros, fruit and vegetable production would shrink and food prices would rise. On September 17, 1963, 32 Braceros were killed and 27 injured when a bus taking them from the fields to their labor camp collided with a train in Chualar in the Salinas Valley. Their bodies were not claimed immediately, highlighting the lack of accountability that critics said was common in the Bracero program, and setting the stage for a decisive vote in Congress to end the Bracero program.

Many California farmers expected to employ Mexican workers under the H-2 (changed to H-2A in 1986) temporary worker program used to import Caribbean workers to hand cut sugar cane in Florida and to harvest apples in the northeast. However, DOL required farmers to pay the higher of three wages to be certified to employ Mexicans as H-2 workers: the minimum, prevailing, or the Adverse Effect Wage Rate (AEWR), and limited the employment of H-2 workers to a maximum 120 days. This was not a problem for the shorter seasons in the east, but California farmers who wanted to employ Mexican workers 11 months a year tried to transfer the authority to certify the need for H-2 workers from the US Department of Labor to the US Department of Agriculture. The farmers' failed in the Senate in 1965 only because Vice-President Hubert Humphrey cast the deciding vote against the growers.

 

[THAI EXPAT]

This convoluted mess called Immigration, was created by incompetent government officials who catered to interest groups. Governor Reagan of California implemented a Bracero program, by which people could come, pick the crops, and return home with enough money to live the rest of the year and have their children go to school. It was win-win. Poor people did the temporary jobs, that Americans would not, and kept Agriculture working in CA.
But Labor Unions who supported Democrats in office, got the program stopped. Now most of perishable crops are grown in other countries and shipped to USA.
I could write a story on this, as I owned a dive bar in Long Beach for 5 years and many of my customers were illegals.

The Bracero program came about during WWII...hardly Reagan's doing.....

A little knowledge can be misleading!

 

[THAI EXPAT]

Bracero Program[edit]
The Bracero Program (1942-1964) was a temporary-worker importation agreement between the United States and Mexico. Initially created as an emergency procedure to alleviate wartime labor shortages, the 1942 program actually lasted until 1964, bringing approximately 4.5 million legal Mexican workers into the United States during its lifespan.[6]

The Bracero Program expanded during the early 1950s, admitting more than 400,000 Mexican workers for temporary employment per year until 1959 when numbers began a steady decline.[6] While illegal immigration was a concern of both the United States and Mexico, the Bracero Program was seen as a partial solution to the upsurge of undocumented worker entries.[6]

Under the program, total farm employment skyrocketed, domestic farm worker employment decreased, and the farm wage rate decreased.[1] Critics have noted widespread abuses of the program: workers had ten percent of their wages withheld for planned pensions but the money was often never repaid.[7] Workers also were de-loused with DDT at border stations and were often placed in housing conditions deemed ‘highly inadequate’ by the Farm Service Agency.[8] Other scholars who interviewed workers have highlighted some of the more positive aspects of the program, including the higher potential wages a bracero could earn in the United States.[9] Due in large part to the growing opposition by organized labor and welfare groups, the program came to an end in 1964.[6]
Guest worker program - Wikipedia
Pat Brown was still Governor of California. Reagan didn't take over till 1967, my mistake.