Second, the time period for the program is temporary and too short. (They are proposing three to five years.) If the time limit is not extended, or fixed, the proposal is a non-starter. Undocumented workers will see it as a way to "track and/or deport" them after, or before, the specified time frame.

Third, there is no legal status guarantee after the time period. If you are in the system and the green card process is not opened up, this proposal will be seen as a "bait and switch." (Keep in mind that President Bush said this would help law enforcement because it facilitates tracking undocumented workers.)

So, if this is such a bad proposal and it is one wonders: Why propose it all?

The answer: We are in the election season. This is designed to fish for, or shore up, Latino support. To be sure, farmers, the hotel-restaurant industries, etc., are quite happy with the proposal. And they should be. Legal servitude is hard to beat. But the reality is that by the Bush administration floating this trial balloon now, it can see what it can do with it before the general election.

Already President Bush has realized political mileage. Mexico may rush to embrace this proposal. Mexico's president, Vicente Fox, is especially happy to get this political fig leaf after years of being ignored by President Bush.

In the larger scheme of things, however, it is about time that the matter is addressed. It brings out into the open an issue that has been swept under the rug. In particular, most Americans have been content to focus on the perceived negatives of migration (illegal status, taking jobs, etc.) rather than acknowledging what Bush's proposal tacitly recognizes that migrants in America make significant contributions to our standard of living and quality of life. And I'm not simply talking about contributions in agriculture.

Go to virtually any restaurant or hotel in California and you pay a price that is subsidized by the cheap labor of migrant workers, who make up 76 percent of all maids in California. Indeed, the price you pay for your meal or the bed you sleep in would be considerably higher and profits lower if industry had to pay workers competitive rates. (Benefits, retirement, medical, holidays, etc., take their toll.)

The housing industry is no different. Many new home purchases in this state are subsidized by migrant labor, which make up over 64 percent of California's construction workforce. (Just go to any job site in this city.) Our lifestyles and our quality of life are much better for it. Which brings me to my next point.

Economists, like U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, have long recognized migrant labor helps sustain an expanding American economy. Without a low-cost labor supply, tight labor markets can put the brakes on growth and contribute to surges in inflation. Today dependence on migrant labor is higher than ever in the U.S. and it is growing. (A look at changing demographics in Iowa, Illinois, Georgia and other "non-Latino" states illustrates this.) In fact, taken to its logical extreme, our disinclination to crack down on the use of migrant labor can be viewed as a form of consumer and corporate welfare.

Despite these realities, policy responses continue to be reactionary. (The driver's license debacle is a current example.) They are ineffective. (Migration is on the rise.) And they ignore simple facts, like migrant labor making up over 8 percent of the U.S. manufacturing work force. Instead, policy-makers prefer to focus on trade and punitive immigration policy, as if migrant labor makes no contribution to our society.

This is unfortunate because we have the legal and hemispheric infrastructure to begin recasting the immigration-labor-trade debate. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was signed with the notion that Mexico, Canada and the U.S. would work together to build a stable and prosperous free trading community. But how can we have free trade if one of the primary factors of production labor is restricted, maligned, and cannot find its level price?

While the details need to be worked out, we could start by recasting NAFTA so that it speaks to other aspects of commerce. We could begin by proposing a NAFTA visa. This would address concerns Americans have about other peoples entering this country under a blanket immigration policy, and entice the rest of Latin America toward Bush's Free Trade for the Americas proposal, which the big economies of the region currently reject. As well, it would help move us away from reactionary blockade politics (e.g. Proposition 187), ineffective INS raids (which have no deterrence value and have been largely dropped), and any talk of amnesty (which is politically untenable.)

More practically, a NAFTA visa program would enable all three countries to work together on common labor proposals, and tie them into larger concerns of trade, development, and even security. A NAFTA visa might even blend European Union-type labor policies which include transitional aid and training programs with past bracero-type arrangements.

Ultimately, the details would have to be worked out by government, industry, and labor organizations from throughout the hemisphere. But it would go a long way in moving NAFTA's partners toward viable policy solutions, rather than unilateral proclamations that are politically motivated, and please no one.