There’s a dangerous echo rolling through the immigration debate again—and this time it’s dressed up like progress. President Donald Trump has floated a proposal that sounds suspiciously familiar: Allow undocumented immigrants to return to work only after they leave the country first, get added to a list by their employers, and wait for the U.S. government to bless their return.
Let’s be clear: this is not reform.
This is a reboot of the Bracero Program, the infamous mid-20th-century guest worker scheme that recruited millions of Mexican laborers into U.S. fields—then tossed them aside when they were no longer convenient. It was institutionalized labor exploitation, with a legal cover and a cultural wink.
Now Trump wants to revive it—with a twist.
Deport first. Ask questions later.
Under this proposal, the immigrant labor force—already essential to U.S. agriculture, construction, hospitality, and domestic services—must voluntarily exit the country, then pray their employer vouches for them and the system lets them return. There is no promise of citizenship, no labor protections, and certainly no power to negotiate the conditions of return; just obedience, disposability, and economic submission.
And disturbingly, some in our own community are calling this “the next best thing” or “it’s a start.”
As if crumbs count as progress.
As if a more efficient exploitation model is a step forward.
As Chicano Prof. Armando Navarro would say, this is:
“A neo-colonial policy designed to control, not include; to extract, not empower. It is the recycling of racial capitalism under the guise of labor necessity.”
And he’d be right. Because this plan does exactly what power always does:
It demands sacrifice without rights.
It trades survival for silence.
And it uses brown labor to build an economy, without ever letting that labor belong.
Only in America do we tell a worker to pack up, leave, and if their boss misses them enough, we might let ‘em come back to scrub toilets and pick strawberries.
This isn’t immigration policy. It’s economic conscription with a visa attached. It treats workers like tools: store them when you’re done, check them out when needed, and toss them when they break.
It’s Bracero with Wi-Fi.
Fieldwork with a fingerprint.
And if you’re calling it “the next best thing,” then ask yourself—best for who?
Certainly not for the workers who must uproot their lives, sign onto a list, and hope ICE doesn’t lose the paperwork.
Certainly not for the families who are separated, stalled, or sacrificed on the altar of “border security.”
Certainly not for a community that has marched, organized, and bled for something better than this.
So no, this isn’t the next best thing.
It’s the same old exploitation, repackaged for campaign slogans and chamber-of-commerce comfort.
And we should call it what it is:
Labor colonialism, rebooted.