Monday, May 27, 2013

Time Machine: Democrats on Guest Workers in 2007

In National Review, I look at what Democrats had to say about guest-worker programs back in 2007.  They weren't fond of them.  Here's what Senator Boxer (CA) had to say about them back then:
These large employers want a large, cheap labor pool that they can draw from. My colleagues on the other side say: Oh, we are protecting those workers. Oh, they will be fine. No, they will not be fine. How many workers do you know ever in the history of America who have to leave after two years and wait a year to come back to a program, leave after the next two years, come back, and by the way, how powerless are these workers, these temporary guest workers? They know if they say one thing to criticize, perhaps, a manager or to complain or to beg for a sick day because they have a sick child at home, when they know they have no power, everything rides on their being able to come back into the country because the employer says they can come back in. We are setting up a system of exploitation. We are setting up a system with this generalized guest worker program, a system that will put downward pressure on the American worker.
Will Senator Boxer and other Democrats now support an immigration bill that even more radically expands the US's guest-worker programs?

Read the rest here.