> The current system seems to generate a collection of second-class citizens
Poor choice of words. Illegals are not citizens. That's the whole point.
> have no recourse if they're exploited
The recourse is to go back. In the era when you could just immigrate to the US just by getting on a boat (before the Immigration Act of 1924), about 1/3 of immigrants went back to their home country if they did not make it in the US.
See:
> From 1908 to 1932, 12 million individuals migrated to the United States. Over the same period, four million returned to their source country.
Poor choice of words. Illegals are not citizens. That's the whole point.
> have no recourse if they're exploited
The recourse is to go back. In the era when you could just immigrate to the US just by getting on a boat (before the Immigration Act of 1924), about 1/3 of immigrants went back to their home country if they did not make it in the US.
See:
> From 1908 to 1932, 12 million individuals migrated to the United States. Over the same period, four million returned to their source country.
-- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00144... (you have to pirate it to view the full thing)
But now, the expectation of leftists is that the government is somehow supposed to help the failed immigrants.