A Ruben Navarrette Jr. column exposes the flaws in the proposed resurrection of the old Bracero program that imported temporary workers from Mexico. Navarrette notes that we've not learned the lessons history taught - that the Bracero program was curtailed when Americans realized the degree which guest workers were exploited. The great journalist Edward R. Murrow revealed the dirty secrets of this "guest worker" program to mainstream America with his video documentary in 1960. Navarrette correctly tags it "an affordable dose of corporate welfare intended to free businesses of the obligation to pay decent wages".

Guest-worker programs should offend our national sensibilities. They designate a class of people and say that they're good enough to pick our crops but not good enough to stick around, buy a home and join the PTA. Besides, the programs never work. You just can't make employers pay the wages and provide the benefits and build the housing necessary to keep workers from being exploited, because doing all that would negate the value of the subsidy.

Well stated.