All due respect to Dr. Boustany, the small businessmen of South Louisiana, and you, but cheap labor from Mexico is a quick fix unsuitable for this situation. Small business owners would hire more Americans for seasonal work if they had the flexibility to do so. More Americans would be willing to work these unpleasant jobs if they were paid more money. It is much easier for a businessman to lobby his congressman to free up more H-2Bs than it is to find good help. That is a sad problem with our culture.

I guess, Kathy, that the only jobs college students can do is wait tables. If there were sufficient pressure on employers to raise wages, they would. There is nothing wrong with getting a little dirt under your fingernails at 18 years old. Generations upon generations of humanity has done this to earn a living.

Lastly, I must say I was with the open borders crowd until I visited and moved to Houston. A majority of the medicaid cases here (funded entirely by your tax dollars) are the children of illegal immigrants, most of which I’m willing to bet either took cash jobs after crossing or overstayed an H-2B. Roughly 10% of the population of Mexico now lives and works in the United States, and all of their children have the benefits of free education and health care, and a American sized sense of entitlement that American college students have today. If you think that cheap labor doesn’t have a price tag down the road, you are kidding yourself.