U.S. and Mexican policymakers are rushing to resolve long-standing immigration problems. Guest worker programs are on the table, but the negotiators show a troublesome myopia about the programs' implications. The supposed economic benefits of such programs may prove illusory, and the "guests" may in fact come to stay.
Philip L. Martin, Professor in the Agricultural and Economic Resources Department and Chair of the Comparative Immigration and Integration Program at the University of California, Davis, served on the U.S. Commission on Agricultural Workers from 1989 to 1993. Michael S. Teitelbaum, Program Director at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, served as a member of the U.S. Commission on International Migration and Cooperative Economic Development from 1987 to 1990, and as Vice Chair of the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform from 1990 to 1997.
EVERYBODY WINS?
For decades now, the unlawful migration of millions of Mexican nationals into the United States has been a source of sometimes passionate disagreement on both sides of the border. In the past year, new presidents have come to power in the two countries and have given priority to addressing the issue. President Vicente Fox, who refers to unauthorized Mexicans in the United States as "heroes," has pledged to negotiate both a temporary labor program to bring Mexican workers legally to the United States and a large-scale "regularization of status" for some or all of the millions of illegal migrants already living there. President George W. Bush, who expresses real interest in Mexico and high personal regard for his Mexican counterpart, has reciprocated Fox's willingness to reach an agreement. Bush sees a potential benefit to U.S. agricultural employers in a Mexico-U.S. guest worker program, and his administration has floated the possibility of legalizing millions of Mexicans unlawfully resident in the United States in conjunction with such an initiative.
Bush has received support from some Republican and Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill, where congressional camps have rallied around three distinct proposals. The first, most expansive plan would legalize or give amnesty to some or all of the illegal Mexican immigrants on U.S. soil. A second approach would grant guest or temporary work visas for a specified time period, on the understanding that the workers would leave the country when their visas expired. Finally, an "earned legalization" program would grant temporary legal status and create a way for individual migrants to earn permanent legalization by fulfilling certain conditions, such as 90 to 150 days of farm labor within a year of receiving a guest visa.
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With the U.S. economy soaring, few care that immigration to the United States is at its highest absolute levels. But what happens when the economy falls back to earth? High-tech immigrant workers are already competing with Americans for jobs, while unskilled immigrant laborers are becoming a permanent underclass. High immigration is creating imbalances in education, income distribution, employment, and welfare demands -- as well as tensions between immigrants and citizens and among the federal, state, and local governments. An economic slump will mean crisis. Congress and the White House need to cut back now.
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