John Tierney, on the other hand, I am in the business of praising (no link, again, damn Times Delete — the article’s called: "Securing the Border (Again)").

His latest on immigration is another strong effort, and another reasonable entry in the "more legal immigration is the answer" line of argument:

What stopped the farmworkers from sneaking across [in the 1950s]? It wasn’t simply the get-tough measures that Republicans are calling for today. Although federal agents did intensify their efforts, conducting sweeps of farms and ranches, immigration officials realized that stricter enforcement wasn’t enough.

Along with the crackdown, officials encouraged farmers and ranchers to legally hire Mexican temporary workers called braceros. As new rules made it easier to hire braceros, the number of these legal workers doubled to more than 400,000 at the same time illegal immigration was plummeting.

‘’We wanted people to come in the front door, not the back door,'’ Brandemuehl says. The agents’ job became simpler not only because there were fewer Mexicans to catch but also because there was more help from American employers. Once farmers and ranchers could legally get the workers they needed, they were more willing to cooperate with agents tracking down illegal immigrants.

Unfortunately, though, Congress started shutting the front door. The bracero program became controversial, partly because American labor unions objected to the competition and partly because of concerns that Mexicans were being exploited. Some of the complaints were legitimate, but Congress’s response didn’t leave immigrants any better off.

They ended up with even fewer rights because they were working illegally after the bracero program was restricted in 1960 and then eliminated four years later. As the number of legal workers entering from Mexico dropped during the 1960’s, the number of illegal immigrants shot back up, and kept increasing after new limits were placed on other visas available to Mexicans in 1968.

When you give people a legal, above-board way to do business, they’ll usually take it. Now, if the real problem people have is with immigration of any kind, well, then opposition to a guest-worker program becomes easier to understand. But, in that case, the usual fig leaf that the crux of this debate is the word illegal — that the restrictionists have no problem with immigrants, just illegal immigrants — doesn’t hold up.