The Guest Worker Proposal for Illegals is Unethical and a Jobs Killer

By Marty Nemko

Both Democrats and Republicans support a guest worker program that would allow illegals in the US to work here for three years, renewable for three more.Yesterday, I heard US Secretary of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff repeat the frequently made justification for that program: that illegal aliens do the work Americans won’t do. What’s missing from the end of that statement is, “...what American workers won't do at the unconscionable wages US corporations can get away with paying illegals.” If corporations paid them $20 an hour plus benefits, many legal Americans would gladly accept those jobs.The guest worker proposal is nothing less than corporate welfare: allowing corporations to pay $7 an hour for work that should cost $20.

In addition to depriving legal US residents of those jobs, a guest worker program would depress higher-level US workers' salaries:Adding millions of illegals to the US workforce creates an oversupply of legal workers for the higher-level jobs. Therefore, employers can afford to pay those workers less.

Yet another liability of the guest worker proposal is that it conveys the message, yet again, that illegality pays: Come to this country illegally and our government will look the other way.

I believe a wise, ethicalsolution to the problem of millions of Mexican entering the US illegally is a carrot and a stick. The carrot is for the US to assist Mexico in improving its economy enough that millions of people each year aren’t desirous of leaving their homeland for the US. Microloans have been proven effective in this. The stick is to penalize US corporations for hiring illegals.