B. wrote:
>President George Bush is, unusually, on the
>moderate side of the debate, pushing for a
>guest-worker programme that would keep the immigrants
>coming in accordance with America's economic needs but
>end the cat-and-mouse games at the border that have
>led to 3,500 migrant deaths from exposure to the
>punishing desert climate in the past 12 years.
>
The guest worker program should not get our support. It basically
creates a two-tier program for handling immigrant workers. The guest
tier provides "the right to work" with no other rights; the "other" tier
criminalizes the other workers. It drives a wedge through the immigrant
population, very much like the wedge driven through unions by the
two-tier programs introduced there. One tier got to keep wage and
benefit gains; the other got fucked.
As LA demonstrated, the immigrants are strong and united right now -- that's a good place to be.
Joanna
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