3 Shocking Examples of Guest-Worker Abuses
By TED HESSON (@tedhesson) Univision March 20, 2013
Republicans and business interests want to make sure that any immigration reform bill includes a way for lesser-skilled workers to enter the country legally.
Crafting such a system, however, is tricky. Guest-worker programs have a history of labor abuses, and any new program will need to offer guarantees to combat those worries among organized labor and Democratic lawmakers.
So far, business and labor interests, represented by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO, have come to a basic agreement on a new visa for lesser-skilled workers. Both sides have stressed that the proposed visa wouldn’t amount to another guest-worker program, since it would offer an eventual route to permanent legal status.
To see why guest worker programs have a bad reputation among labor groups, here are three examples of standout abuses:
1. The Bracero Program Read more
Border Crossing Deaths More Common As Illegal Immigration Declines
Caolina Moreno, HuffPost Latino Voices Updated: 08/17/2012 5:03 pm
The number of people attempting to illegally cross the U.S-Mexico border has plummeted, but the number of migrants dying during the trek through the mostly desert region has not.
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection continues its efforts to secure the border and prevent deaths in the area, Border Patrol officials said. But, while the number of border crossings has declined dramatically in the last five years, the number of deaths has not decreased at the same pace. Human rights organizations attribute the problem to the increased militarization Read more
Obama’s Tepid and Temporary Immigration “Reform”
Huffungton Post Posted: 06/18/2012 7:06 am
“The sad situation that so many unauthorized children face, being born in another country but raised American, can only be permanently resolved with immigration reform that vastly diminishes the government’s role in regulating, limiting, and controlling immigration.”
