No such -
I owe you an apology. I got you confused with grew up. I sincerely thought you were the same poster. I've never stacked hay in a barn before. I have had to buck hay and restack it because the bailer wasn't set up right. We don't have barns in California.
Grew up -
We used to have a guest worker program.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracero_Program
Here's the most important part:
"While the program was explicitly presented as an “opportunity” for the people of Mexico to obtain work in the United States, instead it was defined by exploitation of laborers, violation of civil rights, poor wages, inadequate housing and discriminatory practices."
And the difference between now and 1964 is............44 years.
I'm not disputing there is a problem. I'm disputing the solution is more complex than just "enforcing the laws on the employers". We tried to fix this in 1986.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Reform_and_Control_Act_of_1986
And the difference between now and 1986 is............22 years.
As a child (I was 3) I watched the UFW firebomb a bus full of scab workers, killing two near Huron California. You have no fan in me of the UFW.
Growers are growers. They grow. And they do what they have to do to survive. I don't have a lot of love for them either.
Upton Sinclain wrote "The Jungle" in 1906 to show the abuses of workers in meat processsing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle
So, instead of getting workers rights, saftey, and wages, we get the USDA.
Who was working in the meat processing plants in suburban Chicago a hundred years ago? Lithuanian immigrants of questionable immigration status. A hundred years of progress and we're still packing meat on the backs of exploitable immigrants. (I would argue the exploitable part. They willfully moved here. Nobody's forcing them to show up for the market rate jobs. Nobody's keeping NSR from moving back to the farm to buck hay either.)
I guess my only point is if you do what you are suggusting, you are going to cause disruptions in the food supply that will make the recent drama over rice prices look like, well, absolutley nothing. These people are here and assymilated into the ecomomy over the past 60 or so years. What you are suggesting will absolutey solve the disease by killing the patient. It's no solution. Which is why nobody will do anything about it.
This doesn't mean the problem isn't real or doesn't need to be addressed. It just means it's complex, maybe beyond what is practical to solve.