#guestworkers

[centerforimmigrationstudies]

Vast Ramifications in Senate Obamatrade Vote Tuesday

Tomorrow the Senate will have to vote again whether to give President Obama fast-track authority to negotiate trade agreements that will have an enormous impact on the U.S. economy and future job prospects for U.S. workers — and significantly constrain congressional authority over U.S. immigration policy. read more

[centerforimmigrationstudies]

Obama Wants to Expand OPT for Alien Graduates, Grassley to Rein It In

The president wants to expand and extend the Optional Practical Training Program for recent alien college graduates, and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate's Judiciary Committee wants to rein it in. OPT is one of the multitude of foreign worker programs that usually operate under the radar, with few paying attention to them. While DHS describes these workers as "students", OPT has nothing to do with either students or studying. Instead it allows some foreign graduates of U.S. universities to work after they have graduated for up to 29 months, while simultaneously giving the employers of the OPT aliens bonuses for hiring them rather than resident workers, as we have pointed out earlier. read more

[centerforimmigrationstudies]

Free Trade, Not Free Admission of Workers

Trade agreements, the trade negotiating process, and trade pact approval measures (i.e. "fast track" authority) all must be carefully monitored to ensure that the trade deals do not cause increases in admissions of foreign workers or erode congressional authority over visa rules. The current fast-track proposal (TPA) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) would have Congress surrender its authority over guestworker policies to the executive branch and its trade negotiators and ultimately to international trade tribunals. This means that we would be stuck with the dysfunctional guestworker programs that we now have and kept on a one-way street allowing only more access for foreign workers to U.S. jobs, with no means to reverse direction. read more

[centerforimmigrationstudies]

Texans Deliver Another Blow to the Open-Borders Corporate Right

On the heels of last month's primary election defeats for establishment Republicans in Texas, the state party's biennial convention has toughened its platform's immigration plank. read more

[brot-moral]

Interview: The Taxi Driver

Interview: The Taxi Driver

Had I hopped into Orhan’s taxi en route to the airport, I likely would’ve assumed he was Turkish and left it at that. He might have asked me where I was flying to and I might have commented on the weather. He would’ve pulled my suitcase out of the trunk and wished me a good flight, and I would’ve thanked him. But instead, thankfully, I met Orhan in a very different context – our Wednesday evening…

View On WordPress

[centerforimmigrationstudies]

Utah Likely to Push Back E-Verify Mandate (Again)

Two facts have been missed by media outlets reporting on Utah's plan to push back the start date of the state's controversial (and unlikely) guestworker program: (1) this is the second time that Utah has delayed the guestworker program's start date, and (2) the state's E-Verify mandate is contingent on the guestworker program coming into effect, and thus will also be delayed. read more

[centerforimmigrationstudies]

Guestworkers Who Overstay Their Welcome

Trying to catch up on the pundits' most recent prognostications for "immigration reform", I came across a February 5 article in Politico titled "Immigration reform's other hurdle". The gist of the article can be found in its lede: "The Republican divide on whether undocumented immigrants can become citizens is consuming most of the headlines. But there's a trickier issue at play that ultimately could prove to be a bigger stumbling block for immigration reform: a guestworker program for future immigrants." House Republicans apparently are not in accord with the guestworker program numbers contained in the infamous Gang of Eight bill passed by the Senate last June. read more

[guatepolitics]

Congress is preparing to expand the guestworker program, but Mexican braceros remain unpaid after half a century

Every Tuesday, 76-year-old Miguel Díaz spends the better part of the day outside the House of Representatives in Mexico City. Díaz went to the United States in 1960s as a bracero, a contracted guestworker. Upon returning to Mexico, he and millions of other braceros were never paid the 10 percent of their earnings that had been withheld and sent to the Mexican government in an attempt to ensure braceros’ temporary status.

Each week, Díaz is joined outside the House of Representatives by around 100 other braceros, as well as widows and children of braceros. The vast majority are in their 70s or 80s. Some live in Mexico City, but others travel hours from other states to get there. Wearing sombreros to protect themselves from the sun, the braceros hang a large banner on the fence in front of the House that reads, “EPN [Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto] Pay Us or Kill Us!” According to their organization, the Binational Bracero Pro- Alliance, an average of 14 braceros die each day. Their cause is urgent.

The braceros’ struggle to recoup decades-old back pay sheds light on the unjust treatment and unexpected consequences of guestworker programs.

(full article continues at Jacobin | by Adam Goodman & Verónica Zapata Rivera)