Although it's been 140 years since slavery was abolished, Bush's proposal for immigration reform, to which CAP eludes, is a big step backwards toward the good old days of indentured servitude. Snippet:
| DANGER OF WORKER ABUSE: According to the President, "Participants who do not remain employed...will be required to return to their home." As a result workers are forced "to tie their fates to employer 'sponsors' who could ship them back home for complaining about job conditions." Specifically, there is no reason to believe that workers who report discrimination, labor law violations or any other abuses would be protected from termination of their employment and deportation. AFL-CIO president John Sweeney said that as a result, "the plan deepens the potential for abuse and exploitation of these workers." In an interview with American Progress, former INS General Counsel and Georgetown Law Professor Alex Aleinikoff noted the plan fails to “regularize long-term contributors to the U.S. economy.” Unsurprisingly, "business groups, made up of some of Bush's biggest financial backers, welcomed the plan" as a way to fill "low-wage and dangerous jobs." Professor Martin, said that Bush's plan effectively created "a large number of basically indentured servants."
NO PERMANANT SOLUTION: The President assured his audience that the plan requires "temporary workers to return permanently to their home countries after their period of work in the United States has expired" and that he "opposes amnesty." The White House makes clear that "the program should not connect participation to a green card or citizenship." Demetrios Papademetriou, co-direction of the Migration Policy Institute sums up the problem this way: "Why should they show up, pay the fees that will be required of them, go through all the process...so, what, they can be thrown out of the country in six years." Frank Sharry, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, predicts that "if the offer is a temporary visa with uncertain prospects for renewal and no path to permanent residency, you won't have a lot of takers." |
Mark Kleiman also has a thoughtful analysis of this.
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