Thread: Immigrants more than guest workers

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Immigrants more than guest workers

By LINDA CHAVEZ-THOMPSON
Published on: 03/08/06
They are Salvadoran immigrants tending Buckhead's manicured lawns. They are Indian computer programmers working for major corporations near I-285. They are women, born in Mexico or Africa, who tend our children every day.

They pay taxes. Many have families and have been contributing members of our communities for years.

We rely on their labor each and every day. Yet their basic rights — to a minimum wage, to a safe workplace and fair treatment — are routinely trampled, undermining basic standards. This exploitation hurts all of us, foreign and native-born alike. An overhaul of our nation's broken immigration laws is long overdue.

Our nation needs a method of addressing its future needs for outside labor in a way that guarantees immigrant workers — and thus all workers — fundamental rights and a real voice on the job.

Temporary guest worker programs are not a cure-all. Real immigration reform cannot and should not be designed primarily to enlarge guest worker programs that have served only to provide employers with a steady stream of vulnerable, indentured workers they may exploit for commercial gain.

Effective, comprehensive immigration reform must include three interdependent goals. First, proposals must provide a clear and well-defined path to permanent residency for those workers who are already here and contributing to their communities. Secondly, our government must uniformly enforce laws on workplace standards.

All workers, including immigrants, deserve to earn a minimum wage and should expect to have safe jobs and fair treatment. When immigrant workers are treated poorly, standards are dragged down for all workers.

Finally, to achieve a blanket standard of workplace rights, we must reject outdated guest worker programs. Because workers in these programs are wholly dependent on their host employers for both their livelihoods and legal status to work in the United States, guest worker programs are ripe for worker exploitation. And too many employers — from the crab houses on the Eastern shore to high-tech firms in our nation's cities — have abused these programs and stepped on workers' basic rights.

Like the post-World War II bracero programs, guest worker programs such as H1-B and H2-B create an undemocratic, two-tiered society. Our nation had enough of that in our past.

If employers can demonstrate a real need for outside workers, these workers should be allowed in our country with the same rights and labor protections as any U.S. citizen. When there is a real need for foreign workers, we should embrace these workers not as "guests" but as full members of society — as permanent residents with full rights and full mobility that employers may not exploit.

As a nation that prides itself on fair treatment and equality, we simply cannot settle for anything less.

By PinestrawGuy
March 7, 2006 10:48 PM
Let’s re-phrase the debate a little to more accurately reflect the actual issue.

“Are guest worker programs a solution to illegal immigration?”

And the answer is… No. Not even close.

Let us posit that ANOTHER Guest Worker Program is passed, JUST for those who are already here. Word travels fast, you know, almost as fast as those who would race across our borders, north and south, to grab a piece of the American Dream. How would you know who’s ‘been here’ from who crawled in last night? What would you do, ASK them?

In any type of reform, it is first necessary to identify the problem. We do NOT control our borders. Without absolute border control any GWP is doomed before it starts. It will fail for the same reasons every other amnesty has ever failed. They don’t stop coming.

So now the border is secure. Fences, National Guard, citizen patrols, whatever it takes. What about all the illegal aliens ALREADY here? That solution, amazingly enough, is so simple as to be mind-boggling. Enforce the current laws ALREADY on the books. What a concept, huh?

Granted, business owners who use illegal labor will wail about their impending doom, but don’t fall for it, it’s a lie.

Agri-business will tell you that without illegal labor a head of lettuce will cost you $10. Statistically, only 10% of the cost of fresh fruits and vegetables is labor. Even if the cost of legal labor DOUBLED, the resulting price would rise only 10%.

Building contractors will tell you that the cost of a new home would double without their illegal labor. Do you honestly believe that half the cost of a new home is the LABOR that built it? What have you been smoking? Wages paid in the construction trades have been stagnant or falling for several years. Has that resulted in LOWER home prices?

Illegal aliens have the human rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as stated in our Declaration of Independence, but they have no claims on the Bill of Rights, as that ONLY applies to citizens. People here in violation of our laws are not citizens, therefore they are not entitled to the benefits of citizenship. The only thing they have a right to is a trip back home, paid for by their country of origin. We can just deduct it from their foreign aid money.