Guests in the Machine

Guest worker programs may be the best hope many of the world's poorest people have for improving their lives.

Kerry Howley from the January 2008 issue

(Page 3 of 5)

In Asia and the Gulf States, the term guest worker is most often associated with domestic workers like Sri and construction workers like Manalac. In the United States, the term is almost universally associated with farm workers, and very often with abused, impoverished, exploited farm workers. Memories of the United States’ largest experiment with transient labor have not aged well, and they haunt proposals to bring more workers, agricultural or otherwise, across the border.

The original Bracero Program was an exception to the restrictive 1917 Immigration Act, which prohibited both illiterate immigrants and those “induced…to migrate to this country by offers or promises of employment.” Mexicans, needed to tend farms and lay railroad track, would not be subject to these restrictions. The Bracero Program known to most came later, between 1942 and 1964, during which time millions of Mexicans found work on U.S. farms.

The second Bracero Program was an agreement be­-tween two governments. The U.S. government would permit entry of migrant workers and collect paycheck deductions of 10 percent to be deposited in accounts in Mexico. During their time here, migrants were at times housed in dreary camps, used to break strikes, and subjected to abuse. Many returned home to find their promised savings nonexistent.

When President Bush raised the specter of a temporary worker program in 2004, opponents were many and bracero was the first word on their lips. Opponents also spoke of Germany’s experience with Turkish guest workers in the 1960s, many of whom came on one-year visas and never left. As the novelist Max Frisch put it: ‘’We wanted workers, but we got people instead.” The workers who stayed depended heavily on the German welfare state, but they were not granted the option of German citizenship until very recently. The program’s failures have contributed to the idea that “temporary immigration” is a bureaucratic misnomer, a utopian futility akin to a “drug-free zone.”

These historical examples illuminate the obstacles any guest worker plan faces, but they can obscure what we know to be possible in countries like Singapore: large-scale temporary migration. They also fail to account for the guest worker schemes in place in the United States right now. The H2-B Visa program brings thousands of au pairs, hotel workers, and farm workers to the United States every year. Aspects of the program are cumbersome and problematic, but it is not associated with high rates of permanent migration.

Any guest worker scheme is going to involve a large and fallible bureaucracy; such programs are an alternative to prohibition, and their terms must be made palatable to many constituencies if they are to survive. In order to placate Singaporeans who worry that foreigners will push them out of work, the government imposes levies on employers who hire non-Singaporean workers and sets limits on the percentage of a company’s workforce that can be foreign. Manalac, for instance, costs his employer S$80 a month in fees and contributes to the “dependency ceiling” on foreign hires.

Other functional programs have devised a series of incentives that encourage workers to return home. Some, such as South Korea’s, involve some amount of money being withheld until workers leave. Other countries actively enlist the help of governments such as the Philippines, which has an incentive to maintain the goodwill of countries that employ Filipino citizens. Dani Rodrik, the Harvard economist, has suggested decreasing the sending countries’ quotas relative to the number of immigrants who fail to return, which would in turn encourage such countries to provide incentives to returning workers.

In the United States, the plan President Bush was pushing drew crucial lessons from the bracero experience and other experiments in extending mobility rights. Immigrants would need a job offer in order to gain entry, but—crucially—they could change jobs once here. Employers would not be able to threaten workers with deportation, but only with unemployment, the same threat hanging over native-born workers’ heads. The program was designed to maximize opportunities while minimizing abuse, affording foreigners the same protections as their American coworkers.

As originally conceived, the new program would issue 400,000 two-year visas, each renewable up to three times. In May 2007, the Senate slashed that 400,000 to 200,000. In June, they inserted a sunset provision ensuring that the program would end in five years if not renewed. Later that month, they put the whole tortured immigration bill, the largest proposed overhaul in decades, out of its misery.

If support for a guest worker program was hard to find among elites, it wasn’t among Americans generally: A May 2007 USA Today/Gallup poll found 66 percent of the nation supporting “a program allowing people from other countries to be guest workers in the U.S. for a temporary period of time, and then be required to return to their home country.” In 2006, 79 percent told Time pollsters that they supported a guest worker program for undocumented workers already in the United States.

But opposition to an American guest worker program is loud and deeply impassioned, if not broadly shared. Though it’s probably the only politically viable way to significantly increase legal immigration, supporters of immigrant rights are as likely as not to oppose a program that invites immigrants to work but not to stay. “There is little that is more antithetical to the American ideal than a guest worker,” explained the center-left editors of The New Republic in April of 2006, echoing a 2005 piece from the hard-right Human Events that explained, in fine detail, why the “guest worker plan is un-American,” and foreshadowing a May New York Times editorial that called the guest worker program “a shameful repudiation of American tradition.” The pieces referred to different plans, but none of them bothered with the details; the broad outlines of any guest worker plan strike many as offensive.

“Until now,” the conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly wrote in 2005, “the American ideal of an immigrant has been someone who comes here with the ambition to work harder, earn more, save more, perhaps start a business, and succeed in the free-enterprise system.” Guest workers also come to earn and save, but Schlafly was getting at something else: The American ideal of an immigrant is someone who becomes an American.

Because U.S. immigration is so readily conflated with Americanization, the mythology of America’s immigrant past cuts against acceptance of a guest worker program. The story of the American Dream does not include a chapter for those who want to take the money they’ve earned and buy a home with a white picket fence and two-car garage in Mexico. The narrative allows no space for transience. Even the terms we use, from “anchor baby,” to “chain migration,” belie an inability to accept the essentially fluid nature of world migration patterns.

“There is that traditional mythology—that the rest of the world is just dying to be American,” says the Princeton sociologist Douglas Massey. “In the past that wasn’t true. There was heavy return migration of Italians and Poles in the 20th century, but it gets lost in historical memory.”

Because the collective memory is largely shaped by the immigrants who stay, it’s easy to forget how many came and left. According to the historian Mark Wyman, author of Round-Trip to America, at least a quarter of the 23 million immigrants who came to the states between 1880 and 1930 eventually made their way back home. The return migration rate for Italians was even higher, at 50 percent.

Comments

Timothy|12.17.07 @ 3:09PM|#

That's a great article, Kerry. Really makes one wonder what the US's problem with that set up is. Oh, right, we've got a lot of racists like TLB and Mr. Lemur around. Silly me, there I was thinking we'd gotten past that in the last century.

Brandybuck|12.17.07 @ 3:20PM|#

A guest worker program here would be awesome. It would take the pressure off of illegal migration, provide for those low wage unskileld jobs that native workers won't do, and let the migrant support his family in dignity. It boggles my mind why anyone would be against it.

|12.17.07 @ 3:30PM|#

It boggles my mind why anyone would be against it.

Brandybuck -- Democrats oppose it because it allegedly threatens the jobs and wages that "belong" to unionized workers.

Republicans oppose it because they're afraid the workers, once inside the borders, will take off and pursue their own agenda.

It takes a libertarian, someone who actually thinks about each issue, "how can we maximize freedom", to support something like this.

Kolohe|12.17.07 @ 3:37PM|#

As someone who has met many (esp Fillippina), ahem, 'guest workers' throughout Oceana & East Asia, there are trade-offs which you are close to capturing in this article. But I hesitate to apply too strongly any lessons of East Asia/Pacific Rim or the Gulf to the United States. The underlying history, economic, social, and political systems are too different in the three disparate locations to draw too many universal meaningful lessons.

|12.17.07 @ 3:47PM|#

I am not sure this artcle shows that Singapore has a better Guest Worker model than the US, at all. It was also confusing to see the Guest Worker and Immigrant categories used interchangeably in the article - this may be true of the US, but the UAE and Singapore draw fairly clear distinction between the two. I don't believe the UAE offers a path to citizenship for Guest Workers at all. IIRC, Singapore and the UAE both used to have explicit ethnic/religious quotas for immigration. In fact, one of the Singaporean officials quoted in Howley's article seemed to admitting as much, only abliquely.
"Hierarchy and segregation are part and parcel of the Singaporean psyche," says Leong Chan Hoong, a psychologist at Singapore National University and an expert in the public perception of foreign workers. "Because of that, you are able to accept foreign workers more readily." - Yeah, right ! A fine way of saying that Guest Workers stay in their Ghettoes where they aren't seen by the real people. This is a better model than the US ? This is how you best build human capital ?
I'm not saying the US program is ideal, but come on ...

|12.17.07 @ 3:58PM|#

SM,

Leong Chan Hoong was describing an ugly trade-off. It's not an endorsement.

Nor is the piece an endorsement of the specific system it describes. As I articulate in the piece, the Singaporean model is fraught with serious problems (such as the lack of a minimum wage coupled with barriers to finding new employment.)

|12.17.07 @ 4:00PM|#

I would say that a guest worker program is better than other proposals presently on the political table and the apparent direction of the US in general.

But it is very much inferior to simple free migration. And I would say it is even inferior to the don't ask don't tell understanding that was common prior to the recent crackdowns and spates of fence building hysteria.

|12.17.07 @ 4:08PM|#

MikeP,

I agree that free migration would be ideal from both a moral and economic perspective. But given that there is no sizable constituency for open borders in any developed nation, it's worth considering the least bad alternative.

|12.17.07 @ 4:15PM|#

FWIW, I certainly wouldn't say Singapore's program is "successful." I'd say it's problematic but preferable to a number of alternatives.

TLB|12.17.07 @ 4:19PM|#

I didn't bother reading the article, but I'm going to guess that Kerry Howley forgot to mention that Singapore is basically a PoliceState.

A find failed to show her mentioning that the U.S. - unlike virtually every other country - has BirthrightCitizenship, meaning that we'd create even more misery and difficulty sending "guests" home.

And, I doubt whether Singapore would put up with meddling in their internal politics by their labor suppliers.

For instance, a UN official proposed former MexicanCitizens voting in U.S. elections in order to promote the MexicanAgenda inside the U.S..

And, even the president of Mexico has explicitly stated that they're going to be using U.S. nonprofits to promote the MexicanAgenda inside the U.S..

Giving foreign governments PoliticalPower inside the U.S. has a very steep cost, but I don't expect the corporatists at Reason to acknowledge that.

Timothy|12.17.07 @ 4:27PM|#

Oh TLB, did the MexicanAgenda steal your LunchMoney and give you an AtomicWedgie? Is that what this is all about? Do you need a hug?

|12.17.07 @ 4:35PM|#

Kerry,

I didn't think your article endorsed Singapore's Guest Worker program, i was really reacting to how it was described in the blog post.
But I do think Leong Chan Hoong's comment perfecty describes the attitude to immigrants that rests lightly behind Singapore's & especially the UAE's program. To paraphrase the Who song - "You talk about your xenophobia, i wish you could see mine" !

Also - LoneWackoIsAnIdiot.

Click \'n\' Learn|12.17.07 @ 5:13PM|#

Visitors might want to ask themselves, "did Howley disclose all the costs that the U.S. would endure from a similar 'guest' program here?"

Then, when they find out that she didn't, they should think of what name we call people who promote plans without revealing all the costs.

What would happen with a similar program here is that the MexicanGovernment would worm its way even more into our PoliticalSystem. Several nonprofits already have links to that government, and they've explicitly stated they're going to use nonprofits to push their agenda. And, there are several elected officials who more or less represent MexicanCitizens, such as GilCedillo. Why, there's even an IL state sen. who also serves on an AdvisoryCommittee to the MexicanGovernment. In GA, a former MexicanConsulGeneral is particularly active in pushing the MexicanAgenda, and he's got links to politicians.

So, importing a large number of "guests" will inevitably lead to the MexicanGovernment having more PoliticalPower inside the U.S.

Before promoting things like this, and to avoid being called "shills", "hacks", or worse, Reason should quantify that cost for us.

So, Kerry Howley and Reason, put a dollar figure on that and then get back to us.

|12.17.07 @ 5:19PM|#

Then, when they find out that she didn't, they should think of what name we call people who promote plans without revealing all the costs.

Presidential candidates?

Timothy|12.17.07 @ 5:56PM|#

Visitors might also want to ask themselves: Did TLB ever get beat up by the MexicanAgenda? How much does he hate the BrownPeople? Does he love la migra? How much of the MexicanReconquista has he ShottoDeath?

|12.17.07 @ 6:05PM|#

Singapore has an authoritarian political system, but its not a "police state" in the North Korean sense.

|12.17.07 @ 6:18PM|#

"I didn't bother reading the article, but I'm going to guess that Kerry Howley forgot to mention that Singapore is basically a PoliceState."

Hey TLB, do you support throwing people in jail for hiring illegal aliens to, I dunno, mow the lawn or watch the kids? ...here in the U.S. I mean?

'cause if you do--and I suspect you do--then I don't know where you get off faulting Singapore for being a police state.

If just half of what I heard about Singapore were true... You can't kiss in public. You can't chew bubble gum. ...but even if it is a police state--can I hire a guy to mow my lawn without some wacko makin' a federal case out of it?!

VM|12.17.07 @ 6:33PM|#

Timothy -

his coupon at ChiChis was rejected.

and then he bit his lip when getting the fried ice cream.

then his mother plugged and thumped Jose, the absolutely fantastically hot maintenance man.

VM|12.17.07 @ 6:38PM|#

but the solitary batshitInsaneOns is sure DarnedCute

BakedPenguin|12.17.07 @ 6:47PM|#

Moose, you forgot Maritza Martinez turning him down for the prom (hence "lone" wacko).

VM|12.17.07 @ 6:48PM|#

yes!!!!

Although I heard it was Juanita who rejected him...

BakedPenguin|12.17.07 @ 6:55PM|#

Well, you never see him on the War on Drugs threads. Maybe hearing her brings back painful memories.

Back OT, I find it interesting that all the anti-immigration folks are more than happy to demand to know the costs of allowing immigrants here, but are completely tone deaf to the costs (both direct and associated) of kicking immigrants out.

|12.17.07 @ 7:07PM|#

Oh, PleasePleasePLEASE!!! VisitMyWebSite*. Just once? PrettyPlease,with SugarOnTop?

She's gorgeous, isn't she? (the sites not really mine, but I did have a claim on her long ago.)

VM|12.17.07 @ 7:20PM|#

cool web site, LoneSuperDee!

Plus, we have it on authority that hier is a pic of SolitaryBatShitInsaneGuy right before Juanita stood him up for prom. (don't his parents look proud)

h/t: C"BP"B

|12.17.07 @ 8:52PM|#

US per capita GDP is $43,000. World per capita GDP is $10,500.

Free immigration sounds like a lovely idea, until three billion people start knocking on your door.

|12.18.07 @ 12:42AM|#

Delaware per capita GDP is $66,961. Mississippi per capita GDP is $27,829.

Free migration between states sounds like a lovely idea, until three million people start knocking on your door.

dbust1|12.18.07 @ 11:15AM|#

"Migrants spend money 'conspicuously in order to indicate that it has been earned easily (which is prestigious) and are lavish in their generosity to fellow villagers as well as to village causes in order to secure the goodwill of the community and a higher social standing'…When outsiders visit a Singaporean family they expect to see goods bought in Singapore, all of which signal heightened status."

Wait a minute, do you mean that capitalism and wealth are the answers to poverty and not socialism and welfare? But I thought welfare was meant to cure poverty. How could these little brown people think they have a better answer than middle and upper class American twit liberals?

Also, as an aside and in reference to TLB's comment on "BirthrightCitizenship," this is an idea whose time has since passed and it needs to be killed.

@Ken Shultz,

In Singapore you are not allowed to chew gum. My brother-in-law just came back from a business trip and confirmed this. On the bright side though, the Singaporean immigration officer did offer him a breath mint when he entered the country!

|12.18.07 @ 12:19PM|#

"Also, as an aside and in reference to TLB's comment on "BirthrightCitizenship," this is an idea whose time has since passed and it needs to be killed."

Because ? Let me guess - the country is full up ?

dbust1|12.18.07 @ 1:05PM|#

SM,

No, because the idea that you are a citizen simply because you are born here is ridiculous. The law was written in the days when it took weeks, if not months, to travel here and before the existence of our current welfare state. Also because a successful guest worker program would require the repeal of the law.

|12.18.07 @ 3:51PM|#

As someone with a wife and children, I really had trouble getting the thought of Mr. Manalac's separation from his family for the last 14 years out of my head. It's interesting that while the article mentioned his obvious hurt, it completely ignored that aspect throughout the US debate portion of the article. Many American's have grown up poor, maybe not mud hut poor, but poor none the less. I believe if you asked most of those people if they would have been willing to trade one of their parents for more material comfort, or even a better education, most would probably not make that trade. Although as a father I can certainly empathize with wanting to provide better for our children (after all, isn't that our job), and I can't say I wouldn't do the same, the idea of enticing people to break up their families so we can have cheap lettuce has perhaps a larger role in the debate then what was addressed in this article. Overall, however, I found the article quite well written, very informative, and the arguments compelling. While it's would be difficult for me to argue against what's basically a voluntary arrangement between parties, I find some of the consequences of a GWP troubling. I suppose I would prefer to see an increase in legal immigration, as well a huge improvement in efficiencies of that process (privatization?). At the very least I believe a GWP should address the family aspect of this debate.

douglas gray|12.18.07 @ 6:58PM|#

Good article, but there are some differences between Singapore and the U.S. Singapore is an authoritarian society, and has no problem with forbidding the family members from coming over, which I find draconian. The Mexicans know that we are wimps when it comes to enforcing immigration rulse that separate families. Kerry does contradict herself, first saying the man is happy with the situation, then mentioning that he misses his family.

Singapore puts drug dealers to death. Their value system is skewered.

|12.19.07 @ 2:59PM|#

Kerry does contradict herself, first saying the man is happy with the situation, then mentioning that he misses his family.

As it turns out, it's possible for a man to feel happy that he can feed his children while--at the very same time!--feeling sorry that he can't be with them. Sorry, not every emotional reaction can be expressed with an emoticon.

|12.19.07 @ 5:25PM|#

Malcolm Cook, Director of the East Asia Program at the Lowy Institute for International Policy, has some thoughts on this essay on the Lowy Institute's blog, The Interpreter:

http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/2007/12/Southeast-Asian-labour-migration-Falling-off-the-ladder.aspx

|12.20.07 @ 10:57AM|#

Basically the article is informative about Singapore but is not applicable to the USA.The differences between the two entities are so huge the similarities that supposedly develop because of a shared phenomenon, immmigration, are not worth investigating.Bad idea for an article.

Luke Lea|12.20.07 @ 4:44PM|#

If guest workers are the best hope for the the third world's workers, then there is not much hope for the third world. Guest workers seldom go home, and immigration from poor countries to rich countries retards the development of the poor countries, which hurts the poor majority left behind.

World trade and investment is a better answer. And such immigration as does occur should run the other way, bringing much needed human capital to areas with very little.

These are really elementary conclusions from a theoretic point of view. The fact they aren't widely known is a standing indictment of the field of academics economics. It should be abolished in favor of the old field of political economy.

|12.20.07 @ 11:46PM|#

It's ludicrous to talk about a Singapore-style guest worker program in the US. We're going to somehow turn from the kind of country that gives free medical care to anchor babies to the kind that deports pregnant women? Employing illegal immigrants or helping someone overstay his visa is a *caning offense* in Singapore. I seriously, seriously doubt it is possible to maintain the kind of disparity in wealth that Singapore has without that level of authoritarianism, and it is absolutely not possible for the US.

Norman Hanscombe|12.21.07 @ 2:45AM|#

Discussion about whether or not Singapore has a 'good' system is irrelevant. Singapore has laws and widely accepted attitudes to social issues which are not found in liberal Western democracies. Let's face up to the fact that much of what may work well there, would prove disastrous elsewhere.

We can't make the world "better" by simply wishing things were different, or hoping sometging will come true.

|12.21.07 @ 6:17PM|#

The article confuses terms and therefore confuses the argument or rather, the arguments, length being another weakness of this long and tedious report.

An "IMMIGRANT" is a person who "EMIGRATED" from his country and is going to take up permanent residence in a new country legally. In the USA, immigrant status is granted by way of certain proscribed rules and regulations.

A "GUEST WORKER" falls under a completely different category. A guest worker is allowed to come and work in a specified country, usually under a "contract" for a specific time period only....a time period which can be extended depending on the rules of the country.

As the article states very well....A guest worker comes to build a nest-egg, not a nest.

The US has never had a "guest worker" program such as is found in the Gulf States, Europe and Singapore. What it does have is different kinds of "entry visas" one of which is a "working" visa, usually granted to people with highly valuable skills (usually in the computer field), artists and so on. But these really aren't "guest workers". They're visa holders, not contract workers.

Thus the term "illegal immigrant" so often applied to the millions of "illegals" in the USA, mostly from Latin America, is a contradiction in terms.

All "immigrants" are legal by definition. The proper term for illegals in the US should be "illegal aliens".....people in the country that have no legal status at all.

|12.22.07 @ 2:01AM|#

An "IMMIGRANT" is a person who "EMIGRATED" from his country and is going to take up permanent residence in a new country legally.

And the award for the comment that most assumes its conclusion goes to...

|12.22.07 @ 3:29PM|#

The inner part.

The inner light
and the beautiful
and tender narrator
invent a mutable
moment, when
Christmas arrives;
I see a blackbird
singing the birth
of an ancient era,
the time of my
life, the care and
the reason.

Francesco Sinibaldi

wyng|12.25.07 @ 7:14PM|#

Some things to clear up:

Yes we are authoritarian, but no-where a "police state". I find that label extremely insulting.

Apart from banning the sale of chewing gum (technically you still can chew gum, just not sell it), and draconian death penalties/caning, the people are allowed to do what they want. Including: having long hair, kissing/making out in public. The gay and lesbian scene in Singapore is actually rather thriving, even though there are laws that are anti-gay sex.

There are a lot of problems with the Singaporean government and the city's laws, but it's not as stuck up and regulated as some peeps here would believe.

Just some facts to clear things up.

thomas|12.26.07 @ 7:57PM|#

I am a "guest worker" in Singapore and think this article is far too kind to the place. People come because they are made promises that are rarely kept, and stay because it can be difficult to leave. Yes, the money can be good, but you are constantly reminded that you are a "guest" while doing the real work that Singaporeans are either unwilling or unable to do and then expected to say thank you after the terms of your contract suddenly change. Oh and legal recourse? Not for foreigners!

|12.29.07 @ 3:23PM|#

Prudence and the melody.

Arbours coloured
by a soft September
breeze delay in
the sunshine of a
beautiful morning,
and a loving
profile presents,
in a moment, the
taste of a dream.

Francesco Sinibaldi