No. of Recommendations: 7
Any change is going to cause disruption. Take this thread. Is it remotely okay for some guy have 75% of his workforce be illegal? That's in Come on, man territory. If you're coloring that far outside the lines then yes, you can expect a lot of issues.
Indeed - but you can't just make those issues disappear with a "Come on, man." Again, if low-educated workers are a necessary factor of production for your industry , then there probably won't be a way to operate with a nearly entirely legal workforce if your domestic economy has an entirely high-school educated workforce. That's the choice we face as a society - you can have the industry and let them bring in the uneducated workforce, or you can get rid of the industry. You can't have both.
A Gues Worker program, where people have to register so we know who they are, and who if while here commit serious crimes can be kicked out the of US, is something that's long overdue.
But no one's willing to approve that. Many Democrats don't want it, because the idea of "second class workers" subject to exploitation run contrary to some of their beliefs. Many Republicans don't want it, because the idea of foreign workers here lawfully (and thus subject to the jurisdiction of the United States) will inexorably lead to some of those workers getting married or having children here in the U.S., and create domestic pressure to allow people who have been living and working here for a long time to have a path to citizenship.
Again, that's why this is a kludge. Historically, it has been a de facto guest worker program - off the books, but serving the essential economic function of providing domestic agricultural firms (and other industries) with the uneducated labor they need in order to remain in the country. Since no one will approve a de jeure system, you have to pick among the options that exist without it: i) illegal workforces; or ii) lost of segments of the domestic agricultural industry that need uneducated workers. There is no magic third option that lets you have the domestic industry and robust enforcement against illegal workers.
The kludge is what lets you have the domestic industry. Trump is going to try to break the kludge. There will inexorably be economic consequences - and they don't mean that Americans are "spoiled," just much more uniformly highly educated than the workforces in other countries.
