Attention Immigrants: Thanks for Your Hard Work. Now Leave.
What could be better for business than a workforce that toils for next to nothing, drives down wages for everyone else, can't protest or unionize, and then goes away when you're done with them? Your guide to the guest worker program.
Key to the Bush administration's approach to immigration reform is the controversial guest worker program, which preserves the flow of cheap, low-skilled labor to American businesses while limiting the potential costs to employers and taxpayers. Under the program, there will be no children to educate (since guest workers won't be allowed to bring their families with them), no old-age entitlements to dole out (since workers will have to return home after working here for a maximum of six years), not even any health care to pay for (since these low-wage workers will be required to purchase health insurance).
The very existence of this program as a central tenet of the Kennedy-Kyl legislation, the bi-partisan immigration compromise that has drawn attacks from the left and right and inspired some of the most overwrought rhetoric in recent memory, points to the essential hypocrisy of the anti-immigrant stance. It appears their goal is not to keep out immigrants, who are indispensable to the U.S. economy, but rather to control and exploit them more effectively. Why give them the opportunity to become citizens—or even permanent residents—if we can get what we need from them and then send them packing?
Though it's been cast by the Bush administration as a novel way to solve the nation's immigration problem, guest worker programs are nothing new in the United States. In fact, such programs have a uniformly sordid history that goes back nearly a century. "Emergency" guest worker programs were launched in response to labor shortages during both World War I and World War II and lingered long after the troops had returned home. At its peak in the 1950s, the notoriously exploitative Bracero Program (bracero translates to unskilled laborer) imported nearly a half-million temporary agricultural workers from Mexico. In its concise history of guest worker programs, the Center for Immigration Reform notes: "Citizen farmworkers in the Southwest simply could not compete with braceros. The fact that braceros were captive workers who were totally subject to the unilateral demands of employers made them especially appealing to many employers. It also led to extensive charges of abuse of workers by employers as most of the provisions for the protection of braceros' wage rates and working conditions were either ignored or circumvented." What could be better for business than a workforce that works for next to nothing, drives down wages for everyone else, can't protest or unionize, then goes away when you’re done with them?
As currently envisioned, the guest worker program would grant immigrant-workers two-year visas that are renewable three times (provided they return to their home countries in between each two-year stint). The original Kennedy-Kyl proposal estimated that 3.6 million guest workers could be employed in the U.S. within a decade. Whether that target remains viable after the Senate and House get through tearing the bill apart is another matter altogether. Just yesterday, the Senate fought off an amendment, by a one vote margin, that sought to end the guest worker program after five years—this only after Ted Kennedy appealed to Senator Daniel Akaka, the Hawaii Democrat, to change his vote. The Senate also defeated an amendment that aimed to kill the part of the bill that would give illegal aliens who entered this country before January 1, 2007 the right to apply for an eight-year visa.
As it stands, liberal Democrats, led by California's Barbara Boxer and South Dakota's Byron Dorgan, want to kill the guest worker provision outright, and they are joined in this sentiment by organized labor and most immigrants’ rights groups. But since they don't have the votes, they keep hacking away at the program piecemeal. After losing a vote earlier this week to axe the program, they succeeded Wednesday in reducing its size, from 400,000 workers to 200,000, in a bipartisan vote of 74 to 24 that also included concessions to Republicans, including a measure proposed by South Carolina's Lindsey Graham that requires mandatory prison sentences for illegal immigrants who are caught re-entering the country.
Some immigration advocates seem ready to overlook the program's obvious flaws, viewing it as a small price to pay in exchange for the legislation’s promise to grant legal status to the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants now living in the United States, provided they jump through the required hoops. (The legalization plan, one of the bill's most controversial provisions, roundly condemned by some Republicans as providing amnesty to illegals, survived a challenge in the Senate on Thursday.)
But if we're letting them stay, it's not because we're doing illegal immigrants a favor, it’s because we couldn't survive a day without them. These 12 million undocumented workers, who are for the most part employed, are only filling an obvious need. They are vital to the profits of American agribusiness (which also stands to be a primary beneficiary of the guest worker program) and form the backbone of the low-cost workforce in the service industries. (They are actively sought out by American companies for the purpose of breaking unions.) Illegal immigrants also work at army bases as cooks and janitors.
Not only do these undocumented immigrants fight our wars, grow our food, care for our children and elderly, and serve us in a hundred ways every day, but they have also become an integral cog in American economic growth. According to a February 2007 study by New York's Center for an Urban Future, immigrants are more likely to be self-employed than non-immigrants, spurring growth in new businesses from food manufacturing to health care. "Immigrant entrepreneurs are now the entrepreneurial sparkplugs of cities," according to Jonathan Bowles, the Center’s director. "While immigrants have a long history of starting businesses in the U.S., their contributions have grown in recent years thanks to an explosion of immigration and their high rates of business formation. They are an incredible asset for cities that has only begun to be tapped for economic development," Bowles said.
It may, in fact, be the very success of recent immigrants that has some people nervous. It's one thing to have them picking artichokes or cleaning bedpans, and another to have them nipping at the heels of the already insecure and debt-ridden middle class. This, again, speaks to the backhanded appeal of the guest worker program, which promises to keep immigrants in their place—and can always be expanded to meet the demands of various low-wage industries.
Page 1 of 1 
why cant they stay u just hate cuz they spanh
Mr. Ridgeway: The fact that you characterize certain opponents of this bill as "anti-immigrant" shows either a lack of understanding or a lack of honesty on your part. I get the fact that it's a convenient strawman that enables you to then expose the "hypocrisy" ... the problem is that the majority of people upset with this bill aren't "anti-immigrant"; they're anti-ILLEGAL-immigrant. By not adding this all-important word, you frame it as a group of Archie Bunkers wanting to evict people who are different from themselves. In fact, I've heard next to nothing said about ending ALL immigration -- what millions of Americans are livid about is the notion that it's somehow our duty to pay a percentage of our hard-earned salary to pay for the education, medical care and other support of people from another country.
As it is, Social Security is running out of money -- are we supposed to believe that assuming responsibility for Mexico's teeming masses will strengthen the Social Security program? Does anyone seriously think that upon receiving citizenship, they won't then send for their parents, aunts, uncles and fifth cousins? Who's going to pay for all of them when their $6-an-hour landscaping job doesn't allow them to make ends meet?
I could go on, but the bottom line is this: People who sneak into this country illegally should be entitled to nothing from the American taxpayer. Moreover, I am unmoved by the "Thanks for the Hard Work" headline. Since when does working in another country -- illegally or not -- entitle anyone to citizenship? If I get a summer job in London, do I have a right to demand British citizenship? Illegals who are earning paychecks are spending some of it and sending some of it back to Mexico. That, and that alone, should be their compensation -- not some Great Society program, paid for by the American taxpayer, that rewards their illegal entry.
Please ... if nothing else I've said sinks in, at least have the intellectual integrity to stop calling opponents "anti-immigrant."
Your article is fascinating. Since the bill is flawed and the workers are exploited perhaps being serious about enforcing the laws on the books could be novel and maybe workable if the US Government was serious. The current legislation is bankrupt in credibility, ethics, and full of dishonesty.
Interesting piece, however the jobs that illegals are doing now (especially agricultural) can easily be replaced with sophistacted farm machinery.
There's no need to keep a slave class of indentured servants here just to appease low-minded businesses who have no interest in human health or welfare or worker fairness.
Better to send all of them back to help their own countries and stop stealing wages and jobs for real Americans.
not a single mention of secrurity in
your article.
so the majority of illegals come here to work -
and thats supposed to be
great for 'the economy' - whose economy?
the one you belong to, - the investor class
or the one most Americans are mired in, working for a living, as wages are driven down by insourced, exploited
labor and eaten up by inflation and rising fuel prices -
sure,
there are plenty of statistics that can be cited in favor illegal immigration
and just as many against -
how many people do you think
this nation can sustainbly support?
500 million? a billion? half the world
would come here and will if given
the chance.
hospitals are closing down, the infrastructure of this country is crumbling - but it seems the
investor class cares not a whit -
they are internationalists
who can always go somewhere else.
my heart goes out to these poor exploited semi-slaves - we should help
them make thier country better so they
arent driven out by economic forces.
we should institute a minimum wage
standard above the poverty line for all
people who work here, plus universal
health care, child care, safety and
environmental standards...for Everyone.
this removes the incentive for corporations to hire illegals -
and
(if i'm in arms reach) the next person i
hear repeat this noxious, Racist
statement 'they are just doing the jobs
Americans won't do' i'm knockin' their
block off.
Odd that the United States is striving to erect a program that emulates the model of the Gulf Arab States of the Middle East - low wage workers, no unions, no ties, perfect opportunities for visa exploitation and abuse. Odd that the more certain factions in America call to change this region, other factions work to make America more like it...there's a certain Newtonian irony to it - when you push to change other countries, you wind up pushing your own away from its ideals...
They also serve in large numbers in the U.S. military.
The US military doesnt have special under the table wages...
You have to have a social security number and pay taxes. You must go thru recruters, MEPS, and basic training. Having spent more than 25 years in the US military I have never met an illegal imigrant soldier.
what a bunch of bull****- we lived perfectly well w/o them for decades. they pollute my state with drugs, and constantly get arrested for drunk driving, get them the **** out of NC!!!!
Let us NOT FORGET what has been the cause of the influx of illegal immigrants into the United States, it is called neo-liberalism economic policies that force nations like Mexico to compete at a disadvantage against economic superpowers like the United States. Free trade and privatization supported by America is why we are dealing with this problem right now. So ask yourself, who's really responsible?
The only problem here is that the recent immigrants/illegals do not want to become part of our society, instead they want the money and there own values. This is a problem.
It is emergency to stop DV Lottery visa programme.
I run a landscape company in the Puget Sound Region. We employ about 6-12 immigrants from Mexico under the "H2b" guest worker program. We have participated in this program for four years now. The program requires that we advertise for landdvape jobs and hire any qualified and willing American. We do that. No one applies. So we seek workers from Mexico. These guys work a seasonal job, often in the rain at relatively hard labor. I pay them from $9-15/hr with all the vacation and insurance benefits I offer any of my worhers. These gentlemen come up from Feb to Dec, work for the same wages I would pay any domestic worker that would care to work for us. They work hard, send money to their families in Mexico and put in an honest days work that I can't find a local worker willing to do. One of these men told me he was making .40c an hour in Juarez two years ago. Now he makes almost $11. My field is rife with illegal workers, everyone knows that. Now these men can come to America, help lift our economy, work legally and return to their families, fully documented. What in gods name could possibly be wrong with that?
More Mexicans have come here than the economy can assimilate without making it impossible for Americans looking for a job to find one. Agriculture jobs hiring only Mexicans and manufacturing jobs being relocated to China or other countries make a bleak employment prospect for Americans looking for work that isn't difficult to get employed at or difficult to do. Not everybody wants to or can afford to go to college long enough to impress employers with their education. We need more jobs brought back into this country before allowing in any more Mexicans to get what few jobs there are left! I'm talking about good production worker jobs that hire anybody who comes in looking for a job, not those where they make you wait too long to know if you'll be hired or not.
steve smith you need to lay off the o'lielly factor...
As the immigrant I am from Mexico, there is sure alot of concerns about our future in this country. 12 million lives are in the hands of guys wearing ties. We need more walk outs!
We employ illegal immigrants. So, the Tees are almost FREE.
Tees.GenX10.com
Alan Burke wrote the landscaping company he runs hires at $9 to $15 an hour. That’s a lot of money, I’ll work for that! I wonder if he ever tried to hire any Americans that live by the Mexican border. I know many hard working American people in this region that will work for less.
Obviously this is a bad bill. I am especially cocerned avout the amendments that give the President the power to train and place foriegn troops on our streets. This seems like the first move to martial law, pretty scary. And the amendment that can require all American workers to redocument to stay employed.As with most legislation the amandments can change everything. This should be a question of ecconomics not another way to enforce racism in America.
Wealthy Mexicans will always be welcome, it's the poor that can't even get near the American Embassy to try and get a visa. Same situation in Central America. Give it time things will catch up with us. Nothing is for ever.
Secure the borders and ports, then we can talk about what to do with those who already entered illegally or over stayed visas.
Why even thank them? Also, why not hammer the Mexican Government for sending us their unwanted?
Can Mexico ever get its act together? I though everyone was equal...
Americans....reading all this comments makes me laugh, when i was working in the US i saw all those lazy american guys either white or black guys, they do not like hard working or get their hands dirty, nobody is going to tell me how the situaton is in the US, however i would like all Mexicans deported to Mexico and borders closed, then american goberment will be asking for mexicans are their economy (empire) will collapse, the landscape story is true i saw that every single day in the US if a white guy was asked to work hard they quit the next day or argued they where hurt on the job and they needed money from the employer or goberment to survive ........so plese give me a f.....ing break, be realistick. Mexico is not a SUPERPOWER economy but we are hardworking people. Drugs? come on US demands a lot of drugs for white guys, let me finish with this in Mexico we live poor but we are a fmaily we would not leave a Mexican die on a street like americans do, or even worse get our nose in other countries trying to steal oil and bringing goberment down then fail, look what you had done in Irak...........poor irakies i pray for them not americans, i hope kurds do not kill all american army.
Racism and ignorance make good bed together!
You seem to be some expert on the "American Worker" but you are just an idiot.
Who the heck do you think did these hard jobs before YOU waltzed over the border without a visa?
Many thousands of whites did carpentry, roofing,landscaping, construction work,
road work and other labor jobs. Strong italians did garbage collecting before automated garbage trucks came out. I have hundreds of examples of hard working
middle class Americans, but YOU call us lazy.
You should go back to Mexico, protest against your corrupt government and force a change there. Does your government give you any social programs, are even
"free education for your filhos?"
For you to take MY job and drive down MY wages is one thing, but your insults
piss me off, I want YOU deported NOW! ,,, and don't come back here!
I'm an American, born and bred.
I've worked hard all my life, from construction jobs to truck driving jobs. All I have is a highschool education, and I struggled all those years. Now, I'm 54. I can't do those hard labor jobs, and because of health problems I can't drive over the road.
I have no retirement, I have no savings. All I will have to live on in ten years is Social Security.
What I'm getting at is,,who cares about immigrants and thanking them for their work, and telling them to leave? I have not been treated any different. It's what this society does, it uses you up, then spits you out.
Nobody cares about me, why then should they care about someone from a different country?
Allowing immigration is a purely charitable decision. Some economists claim that our economy is healthy compared to European nations because our population is growing due to immigrants, legal and illegal. Even if this is true, our national population will climb to 600 million in forty years at this rate. Is that sensible?
The reality is that immigration laws are a manifestation of our compassion. However, the troubles our countrymen face within the United States should lead us to direct our compassionate activity towards our countrymen instead of toward foreigners. Additionally, large numbers of foreigners are invidious to political organization of the less-than-stupendously-wealthy constituency. As long as there are large, unassimilated masses of foreigners whose behaviors, language, and socialization are vastly different from our own, the stupendously wealthy who run the country will be able to play them against their fellow Americans, with whom they form a natural constituency against the "malefactors of great wealth", as T. Roosevelt called them. The same is true of Affirmative Action. While we fight for crumbs, the stupendously wealthy funnel ever more of our patrimony into their family trusts. Their consciousness of our existence is raised at election time only, when they have to calculate how much and to whom to contribute billions to keep the status quo, and animosity alive.
We may think that we are preserving a strong, independent electorate by permitting immigration, but this decision is really just another factor that the stupendously wealthy finesse to maintain an impotent underclass.
Cheap labor is the backbone of the capitalist economy. Illegal immigrant labor is the best. Immigrants can't unionize, and can't make demands, since there's someone else waiting for the job. In a capitalist state, the moral government's job is to temper the influence of the free market. When non-citizens are involved, the government can look the other way. By disenfranchising illegal immigrants in this way, politicians win in several ways: 1. They appeal to white and black voters who want to get rid of immigrants. 2. The economy improves thanks to the cheap labor the immigrants provide.
Also, no one should get to pretend that racism isn't involved in this whole debate; if white Canadians were streaming across the border and taking similar jobs, the gov't would be praising them for their work ethic and criticizing its own population for being lazy. Most illegal immigrants don't look like Americans and don't speak the same language. Ir's racism, pure and simple.
UR JUST HATE US BECAUSE WE CKICK UR [deleted]ING WHITE ASS MOTHA [deleted]A WHAT THE GOBERMENT DID WAS SWOW TO EVERYSINGLE PERSONT AROUND THE WORLD WAS HOW FULL OF [deleted] AMERICA IS.
I USE TO THING THAT AMERICA WAS THE SECOND FREE WORLD AS THE FLAG SPEAK BUT I FOUND THAT AMERICA MADE BY INMIGRANTS MAKE THAT WORSE [deleted] THAT [deleted] ESE......... TODAY 4RD OF JULY I CALL AND BURN AN AMERICAN FLAG AS A SHAME OF THIS COUNTRY SOOO [deleted] EVERYONE AGAINST MY PEOPLE MEXICANOS JENTE DONT TURN UR BACK ON THEM KILL THE POWER AND MAKE THEM BLEED MOTHA [deleted]AS [deleted] YOU PEACE OF [deleted]
I JUST STAR TO HATE MY OWN COUNTRY FOR WUT THEY DID TO THE INMIGRATION EVEN KNOW THAT THE GOBERMENT STILL BILLIONS OF DOLLARS FROM THERE SO [deleted] THE GOBERMENT AMERICAN PEACE OF [deleted] DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE SHAME ON THIS COUNTRY OF FREEDOM MY ASS PUTOS
Much hatred on here toward America
This forum does enlighten, it shows attutude and hatred between the races.
Those who feel disenfranchised ( white middle class) against the low skilled
Mexican who only came here to GET, not to GIVE anything.
The cause for all this hostility? Both sides are blinded to the REAL culprit:
Those huge corporations like Exxon, Doyle, Microsoft, General Electric, Maytag,
General Motors, Sony,Citigroup, ING and Monsanto.
These corporations have forced sharecroppers off the land in Mexico, pressured
the U.S. government NOT to secure the border, BUSTED the labor unions and
made the middle class American impoverished to banks and credit card companies.
WE owe more than we make while Mexicans get government handouts and almost free housing at OUR expense.
I can see that this will probably result in a race war. Many Latinos will suffer
an ill fate because of their hostility.
Its too bad that our government has no solution to the problem THEY helped to create.
I HOPE OSAMA BEEN LADEN KILL THE GOBERMENT AND THE WHITE HOUSE
WITHOUT MEXICANS THIS COUNTRY WOULD NOT RUN THINK CUZ US MEXICANS AND LATINOS DO THE MOST WORK AND U GUYS WONT DO THE WORK WE DO LIKE GARDERING WORKING IN FACTORYS AND MORE SO DONT SAY OUR WORK IS DONE WITHOUT US THIS COUNTRY WILL BE NOTHING BUT CRAP SO IMMIGRANTS RULE
[deleted] is not our fault u wanted to be a dumass u could of gone to college unlike us we work our asses off in school to get good grades and go 2 college n were latinos so whatevers we are latinos and we do matter so stop hating and appreciate cuz we have done more than u and our parents work hard for us to eat and live stable so don t whine cuz we have gone through more even though we werre born here amd dey still treat us diffrent stop whining just because we have the guts to protest for our rights so back of
This country is made of immigrants period....and for those anti-immigrants or anti-illegal immigrants whatever u want to called it immigrants are here to stay and if u do not like well to bad.
its simple, mexicans are doing businesses a favor in the U.S. Just keep telling them that we couldnt live w/out them and their happy, and we continue to rake it in and everyone's happy.
Alan Burke
I am a white American living in new mexico. I am college educated and I make 7$/hour. You see, the problem is Albuquerque is Hispanic, and they do not hire gringos. (Look at the city of Albuquerque web page).
You say you hire at 15$/hour. great, I' m in.
ichpc@yahoo.com
"YEAH SEND ALL THOSE ILLEGALS BACK HOME, THEIR TAKING AWAY ALL THE GOOD JOBS FROM US AMERICANS LIKE...MANUAL HARD LABOUR AND...CLEANING" This is the overtone of most if not all the comments left on this page. Heres a better idea. stop whining, get a [deleted]ing college degree. Immigrants DO NOT drive up oil prices or drive down wages. Wages have actually gone up geniuses. In 95% of the jobs in the US, yo must have a SS# and be a citizen, The jobs you people whine about are the jobs nobody else will take. LMFO whens the last time you saw an illegal immigrant operating on someone, or doing your taxes? HELLOOOO, whether you want to realize it or not, illehal immigrants do not harm us as much as you think. The only time you should be afraid of losing your jobs is when you start seeing illegal immigrants getting REAL jobs like being an attorney, doctor, or whatever. Until then, shut the hell up and quit whining. All Americans do is whine andl ook for someone to blame. You can never ever blame yourselves for a [deleted]ty capitalist system of rule where the gap between the upper and lower class is enormous. If you want to really make a difference, start electing better leaders.
si nosotros los gringos no tragarian bola de huevones no sabes espanol que malo saben los unicos ilegales son los gringos. este pais en nuestro.
