by Editors

REJECT BUSH’S IMMIGRATION BILL

BILL By: Leonard Carrier, DW In-House Historian and Philosopher

Congress is now debating the hodge-podge of an immigration bill that the George W. Bush desperately wants to sign. So far, it contains something for everyone—more miles of fence, a path to legality for the roughly twelve million illegal immigrants already here, and, dearest to Bush’s heart, a guest worker program that would allow U.S. employers to pay low wages to hundreds of thousands of foreign workers. The bill is a nightmare. Like the No Child Left Behind Act, and the Patriot Act, this 1000-page Frankenstein monster was cobbled together by staffers with no likelihood that anyone in Congress would actually read the whole thing. We know that “No Child Left Behind” has failed its purpose, and we now know that the Patriot Act was used as an excuse to have the government spy on us; but this immigration bill promises to top them both in sheer stupidity, and, I should add, cupidity on the part of employers lusting to make profits on the backs of underpaid workers, while leaving American workers out in the cold.

The first thing that Congress should do with this bill is to uncouple the part that tries to right our present immigration woes from the so-called guest worker program. The concentration should be on how best to give the twelve million illegal immigrants already here a path to legality. Congress should not be afraid of the word ‘amnesty’ The best way to handle the problem of undocumented workers is to offer them a way to come out from the shadows. They are not felons. Being “illegal” is a civil offense, not a criminal one. They should be given the chance to purchase a new temporary visa that would allow them to work in this country, and also to pay taxes. The price should not be too high to prevent their becoming legal, and it need not be paid all at once. If their record is clean after a two-year period, they could be given a choice, either to renew their temporary visa, or to apply for a permanent visa. Anyone with a criminal record should be deported, as should anyone who does not opt for legality. We already have sufficient immigration laws on the books to find and deport those who opt to stay in this country illegally. Congress should use money designed for border fences—which is money ill-spent, since the fences are really no deterrent–to increase the number of immigration agents whose job it should be to find and deport illegal immigrants. More important, employers should bear the responsibility should they hire illegal immigrants. A really stiff fine, or even jail time, might be imposed. If undocumented immigrants are prevented from getting jobs, then it is highly likely that they will either leave the country, or else take the necessary steps to become legal.

Central to Bush’s plan, however, is his guest worker program, which would allow foreign workers to enter the country to work on a temporary basis. If Bush gets his way on this, the path is open for hundreds of thousands of new “guest workers” to flood our employment rolls. What Bush doesn’t say, however, is that we already have a guest worker program for unskilled laborers, one that is largely hidden because these workers are socially and geographically isolated. This is the current H-2 program that brought about 121,000 guest workers into the United States in 2005, roughly 32,000 doing agricultural work, and the others in low-paid non-agricultural industries.

The H-2 workers, however, are not treated like guests. Instead they are systematically exploited and abused. They lack the ability to change jobs if they are mistreated and are instead bound like slaves to the employers who import them. If workers complain about abuses, they face deportation or other retaliation. Even though the Department of Labor provides some basic protections to H-2 workers, government enforcement of their rights is nearly non-existent, and private lawyers typically refuse to take their cases. This being the case, these workers are routinely cheated out of wages, forced to live in squalid conditions, denied medical benefits for injuries on the job, and are held captive by employers or labor brokers who confiscate their documents. All this has been documented in a 2007 report of the Southern Poverty Law Center, entitled, “Close to Slavery: Guestworker Programs in the United States.” This report is based on thousands of interviews with guest workers, scores of legal cases, and the experiences of legal experts throughout the country. As Congressman Charles Rangel put it recently, “This guest-worker program’s the closest thing I’ve ever seen to slavery.”

Of the twelve million illegal immigrants in the United States, most of them entered legally. They chose not to try to renew their visas and instead went underground. The reason they chose to do this should be obvious. They did not like the way they were treated by their employers. When their work visas expired they were supposed to leave the United States Rather than do this, and rather than put up with the exploitation they experienced, they became illegal immigrants. Now President Bush wants more temporary workers to enter our low-wage labor market. It should be clear that this tactic is likely to swell the ranks of illegal immigrants once the mistreatment of these new workers forces them to choose either to leave or to go underground. Bush’s plan is simply a way of allowing employers to hire disposable labor on the cheap. Congress should reject it, not only because it will exacerbate our present immigration problem, but also because it would deprive Americans of jobs they would be willing to perform for a fair wage.

Before any new guest-worker program is installed, the defects of the old one need to be cured. Here is an outline of the recommendations contained in The Southern Poverty Law Center’s report. First, Federal laws protecting guest workers from abuse must be strengthened, including a process that allows workers to gain permanent residency over time. Second, The Department of Labor must force employers to comply with guest-worker contracts, including a means of recovering earned wages not paid by employers. Third, Congress must provide guest workers with access to our courts, including federally funded legal services for all guest workers and penalties for employers who confiscate guest-worker documents. The Thirteenth Amendment to our Constitution abolished slavery. It is high time that the “legalized slavery” of our H-2 programs be brought to an end.

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