Guest-Worker Proposals Prove Divisive

The Wall Street Journal's Kronholz: immigration reform not only splits the Republican Party, but Democrats are also divided.

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Guest-Worker Proposals Prove Divisive

Washington Weighs Means
To Meet Labor Shortage,
But Immigration Issue Remains Touchy
By JUNE KRONHOLZ
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
November 9, 2005; Page A4

WASHINGTON -- In 1942, with American farms short of labor, Congress created a guest-worker program to match low-skilled foreign laborers with U.S. jobs. It collapsed 22 years later amid allegations that the foreigners were being exploited.

Now U.S. service industries face a labor shortage, and Washington is considering another guest-worker program. But this time, the complaints are likely to come from many politicians and their increasingly immigration-wary constituents.

That helps explain why a new guest-worker program will be so difficult to achieve. President Bush and congressional Republicans, eager for domestic accomplishment amid political woes, see immigration as an issue with significant voter appeal. But it splits Republicans eager to help business from those concerned about border security, job losses and the nation's identity.

Immigration divides Democrats as well, which is one reason why the subject has languished in Congress for several years. Recent television images of violence in France by young men, many of North African descent, illustrate how difficult the issue is to resolve.

When Congress overhauled immigration laws in 1986, it provided almost no way for low-skilled workers to legally fill jobs being added by a growing economy. The result has been a flood of illegal immigrants. By most estimates, there are at least 11 million of them, and that is increasing by about 400,000 a year.
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But achieving compromise among competing ideas for a guest-worker program represents an uphill fight. The prospect of permanent residency would make the program "an illegal-alien magnet," Mr. Tancredo says. Yet without it, Mr. Gay responds, workers would have little incentive to apply for a visa since "you take away the key reason why it would work."

Write to June Kronholz at june.kronholz@wsj.com