President Bush announced a new plan concerning immigration during his Jan. 7 summit with Mexican President Vicente Fox. Under the new program, the eight to 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States could apply for legal status as long as they had no criminal record and a sponsoring employer.
“Guest worker” status allows a three-year stay in the U.S. and easy travel between the U.S and a home country. After that, participants would be expected to return home; however, they are allowed to apply for a renewed three years or for a green card. Bush emphasized that “no special preference” would be given to such applicants.
The proposal has won Bush much-needed support from Fox, who disagreed with the Bush administration’s actions in Iraq last year. According to the New York Times, Fox hailed the plan as an important advancement for Mexican workers in the U.S.
With 38.8 million Hispanic citizens in the U.S., support for the bill could affect the next presidential election. However, Congress may not be able to vote on the bill before the November election. In addition to winning support and potential votes from minorities in the U.S., Bush’s program has been enthusiastically endorsed by big businesses such as hotel chains and fast food industries, which are leading providers of low-paying jobs to legal and illegal U.S. immigrants.
However, the guest worker program does not just affect Hispanic immigrants. Two million illegal immigrants in the U.S. come from India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. The BBC reports that the large South Asian population in New York has mainly welcomed the new legislation.
U.S. citizens have been less enthusiastic. Recent polls have found that more than half of Americans oppose the guest worker program, for different reasons. Some fear increased competition for jobs. Others fear a subsequent reduction of wages in fields that already pay little. However, guest workers could only apply for jobs that no U.S. citizens could, or would, take.
Some Congress members feel that this is a gift of legal status to immigrants who may have broken American laws.
Zoe Kelly disagrees. A senior majoring in International studies and Spanish who recently returned from Guadalajara, she believes that some voters may not give the bill enough thought. “Instead of criticizing it for honest reasons, they oppose it for xenophobic reasons,” she said.
According to the BBC, others are concerned that “unscrupulous employers” will use their power of sponsorship as a bargaining chip while lowering wages, denying benefits, ignoring unsafe working conditions, or charging huge sums to act as sponsors.
Because employees’ legal status would depend on their jobs, any complaint might get them fired and therefore deported. Hope Bastian, a Spanish and Sociology major who also studied in Guadalajara, said, “People are really afraid now … when you tie immigration status to work, it gets worse.”
Professor of Economics Robert Williams feels ambivalent. “Something’s got to be done when you have people dying in the desert because of the way the law is set up,” he said, but added: “I don’t know how well this [program] is going to be treating Mexicans and Central Americans who are in the United States.