On the other side of the argument, there are 11.5 million immigrant workers in the U.S. and only 500,000 of those have gone through the legal rout to become a guest worker. The other 11 million are here illegally. There are 14 million AMERICANS currently without employment. Ending the guestworker program could virtually end unemployment int he US if Americans would do these jobs.
Please vote in our poll and let us know where you stand on this controversial issue. Is the agricultural guest worker program helping or hurting our U.S. Economy?
Great issue!
ReplyDeleteI believe that most Americans are losing sight on what this country was actually founded upon, hard work and labor. I understand that we live in a technological era but that alone is definitely not enough reason to allow others to do out work for us while we as a whole squander our time.
Allowing immigrants to do our labor is more cost effective but it also brings in a whole new level of workers rights problems. Being that they are illegal (some of the time) and therefore don't have citizenship, they cannot complain about their wages for fear of being deported.
"AMERICAN agriculture can and will hold true to the best traditions of OUR NATIONAL life"
American employment is the way to go.
Interesting issue, and one that I think gets misunderstood at a national level heavily. The whole "taking our jobs" argument is outdated and happens every time the economy takes a bad turn (a website that addresses this well is http://takeourjobs.org/). The fact of the matter is our cheap food supply comes in many ways off the backs of immigrant labor and as a few examples from Alabama recently have shown when you take hardline stances on that you will see mass exodus and high prices at the grocery store. I think when you establish legislation you bring people out of the dark and have a greater want to register as a guest worker instead of seeing the high rate undocumented workers, so from a national security perspective there are clearly advantages to an adequate system as well.
ReplyDeleteVery insightful comments John and Davis!
ReplyDeleteI would encourage you to watch "A Day Without a Mexican" -- although intended to be a comedy, it has a much deeper meaning.
ReplyDeleteTwo other great movies on this topic are: The Milagro Bean Field War, and White Man's Burden.....Def. give you a new perspective on migrant workers in MBFW, and on race relations in WMB....
ReplyDeleteThose of us on the Ag Issues teams at Canyon High are very thankful to all of you for helping us out! Keep spreading the word please!
ReplyDeleteAs much as I would love, as an American involved in agriculture, to provide the manual labor, lower paying, jobs to Americans here at home. This concept is appealing on the economical, social, and even spiritual level; however, as the agriculturalist of the past so observed, you can take a horse to water but you can't make him drink. I personally believe that Americans view these labor positions "beneath" them and would not work these jobs even as a last resort. So, in my opinion, unless society changes it's mindset, there will be cries from horses about other horses drinking the water they don't want!
ReplyDeleteTo me the most interesting part of this issue is that "citizens in the U.S. spend less money on food and fiber than anywhere else in the world." It's circular- Americans don't want to take these jobs, and they don't want to pay more for their food. Same thing with houses. As a healthcare worker I see most often how people don't want to budget and pay for their health, which often has a lot to do with choices they make with food. As valuable as food is, we don't seem to really value it, which is also true for most of our basic needs.
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