1. THE PROBLEMS WITH GUEST WORKER PROGRAMS
Peter A. Kindle
Kacie Liput-Campbell
University of Houston

2. 35.2 million or 12.1% of US residents are foreign-born.
30.7% are from Mexico; almost half from Central and South America.
million of this number are undocumented.
500,000 new undocumented migrants come each year with post-2000 trends increasing.
(Camarota, 2005).

3. Politics and Immigration
Liberal?
11 year waiting period with substantial fines
Closed Border
Employer Sanctions
Temporary Guest Workers
Conservative?
Deportation
Closed Border
Employer Sanctions
No Guest Workers

4. NOTABLE QUOTES
“Anybody that votes for an amnesty bill deserves to be branded with a scarlet letter A” Rep Steve King of Iowa A

5. “Mr. President. We are not a tribe. We are not an ethnic conclave
“Mr. President. We are not a tribe. We are not an ethnic conclave. We are a nation of immigrants, and that distinction has been essential to our greatness” Sen. John McCain

6. Our Goals
To provide a framework for analysis of guest worker programs.
To look at the historical consequences of the Bracero Program ( ).
To suggest essential ingredients for a socially just reform of immigration law.

7. Pawns Buffeted by Competing Interests
Sending Nations
US Interests
Border Security
Budget Relief
Political problems
Unemployment
Business
Cheap Labor / Union Busting
Remittances
New Skills
Return / Capital
Labor
Wage Impact

8. Control Balance Theory
Control Surplus
Exploitation Plunder Decadence
Balance:
Non-deviant
Behavior
Control
Subjected
Control
Exercised
Control Deficit
Predation Defiance Submission
Kindle (in press)
Tittle (1995)

9. Degrees of Disempowerment
Guest workers lose most home support but little home obligation.
Guest workers have limited avenues through which to appeal host country inequities.
Guest workers lack legal status to challenge employer abuse.
Guest workers live under threat of deportation.

10. What controls are in place that could protect the guest workers?

11. Bracero Program ( )
Bilateral US-Mexico agreement included protective provisions that were not enforced.
Over 4 million Braceros entered the US during the program.

12. Degrees of Disempowerment II
As US and Mexico administrative costs increased, worker protection declined.
Recruitment centers moved from central Mexico to the border.
Responsibility for recruitment devolved to employers over time.
Employers came to prefer undocumented workers to Braceros.

13. Consequences of Bracero Program
Substandard wages, housing, and food
Unsafe working conditions
Job abandonment and infiltration into other domestic labor categories
Union-busting
Low wages and low capital investment in agriculture
Dependency on low-wage workers
Border recruitment increased undocumented entry
Permanent residence in US for undocumented workers
Union busting

14. National Shame

15. Do we really have to do it all over again?

16. Do we really think we can stop people willing to:
Mortgage their home to pay a coyote to guide them across the desert?
Risk their lives in that crossing?
Leave their children for decades in order to send money home to help them?

17. Will any fence be strong enough?

18. Deep enough?

19. Do we really want to turn away this kind of commitment?

20. “Mr. President. We are not a tribe. We are not an ethnic conclave
“Mr. President. We are not a tribe. We are not an ethnic conclave. We are a nation of immigrants, and that distinction has been essential to our greatness” Sen. John McCain

21. Ingredients for Socially Just Immigration Reform
Acknowledgement of economic motives
As long as the US continues to have the most robust economy in the western hemisphere, socially just immigration reform demands an open border.
Worker parity with employers
The only program that is likely to do no harm to workers is one that severely restricts the rights of employers.
Ready access to full civil rights
Power disparities inevitably lead to abuse. Socially just immigration reform requires elimination of power disparities.

22. We can do better than this!
We must do better than this!

23. Selected References
Camarota, S. (2005). Immigrants at mid-decade: A snapshot of America’s foreign-born population in Retrieved June 13, 2006 from
Kindle, P. A. (in press). Assessing power and control differentials: Understanding dysfunctional agency from the client’s perspective. Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, 14(3).
Tittle, C. R. (1995). Control balance: Toward a general theory of deviance. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.