There seem to be two primary arguments against maintaining better control over who can enter and stay in this country. The first is the emotional “nation of immigrants” argument. Often made by the sort of people who mobilized the National Guard when exasperated Texans sent a few busloads of immigrants their way. I would argue that being in a position to decide who gets in allows us to then argue over how generous we want to be. The second is the fear that we will lose an economically valuable serf class if we discourage illegal immigration. I would think that
we could address that through some sort of guest worker program. But once again, we would need to maintain some level of control over who comes in for such a program to work.[/QUOTE]
This has been done for many years. However, for many occupations it is just easier to have migrant workers. Some of the other programs are complicated or time-consuming to initiate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guest_worker_program