National law Journal Article on Guestworkers

GUEST-WORKER LEGISLATION
No permanent underclass by Al Meyerhoff, National Law Journal, May 8.  Here is an excerpt:

Congress is locked in an increasingly bitter dispute over immigration, focused on “criminalizing” the illegal presence of aliens in the United States versus allowing their eventual citizenship through “amnesty.” Establishment of a greatly expanded “guest worker” program has garnered less attention. According to opinion polls, it is favored by most Americans, as well as the White House, the agricultural and business communities and, rather surprisingly, several large international unions, but not the AFL-CIO. Guest workers. It is such a benign, almost gentle term. Here’s another way to look at it. There has been sharp criticism over the loss of American jobs to the “maquiladoras”-low-paying sweatshops-in Mexico and beyond. The proposed “guest worker” program will simply bring the maquiladora here. It is also not a new idea. Beginning in the 1850s-before the Chinese Exclusion Act-200,000 Chinese were legally brought here as guests to cultivate California’s fields. Japanese, Sikhs, Filipinos and especially Mexicans soon followed. Intervention by the Mexican government in the 1920s over their exploitation brought legal reforms. No worker would be allowed to enter the United States without a contract signed by an immigration officer establishing the pay, work schedule and place of employment. Workers without such documents were fugitives, the U.S. border patrol was established and the “illegal alien” was born.

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KJ