Reform Must Include Guest Worker Program

In the immigration debate, most of the sound and fury is aimed at the notion of "amnesty" for illegal immigrants. But the real key to the debate is guest workers. The term refers to the importation of additional temporary foreign workers, legally, to do jobs that employers claim they simply cannot find enough Americans to do.

Organized labor detests the idea because it insists that foreign workers undermine U.S. workers, which is why they've ordered their patsies to kill any legislation that includes guest workers. The business community considers the concept to be an essential part of immigration reform and it has instructed its patsies in Congress to walk away from any deal that doesn't include guest workers.

Last week, Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., introduced a 10-point immigration reform plan that includes just about everything you can imagine, including legalization, except guest workers. That all but ensures that he won't get Republican votes, which in turn means he'll have to deal with conservative "blue dog" Democrats who oppose any legalization plan. Gutierrez just cooked his own goose. This debate might be over before it begins.

Worse, Gutierrez has taken a giant step in the wrong direction by openly flirting with a new kind of protectionism.

Intending to shield U.S. workers from the inconvenience of having to compete with foreign workers — even those who come to the United States legally — the congressman would like to manage future immigrant flow by establishing a commission that ties the issuance of foreign visas to labor demand. In a recent interview on National Public Radio, Gutierrez explained the rationale as wanting to guarantee that "no American worker, no citizen of the United States, no one born here in this country should ever have to lose an opportunity for gainful employment at the expense of someone not born here."

This is an outrageous concept. Imagine the government helping U.S. workers be less productive and hardworking by telling them they don't have to compete with anyone who has a visa. Why should U.S. citizens get a benefit not from something they had nothing to do with, such as where they were born? If a job is available, U.S. workers should compete for it like anyone else, and not have it handed to them as an entitlement.

If Gutierrez really wants immigration reform to have a chance, he must reach across the partisan divide and do what he can to get Republican support so he isn't eventually sandbagged by conservative Democrats. That will probably include putting in new language that calls for guest workers. Organized labor won't be happy. But so what? That's the price of leadership. So let's get to it.

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