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Foreign Affairs
The Mirage of Mexican Guest Workers
By Philip L. Martin and Michael S. Teitelbaum
Philip L. Martin, Professor in the Agricultural and Economic Resources Department and Chair of the Comparative Immigration and Integration Program at the University of California, Davis, served on the U.S. Commission on Agricultural Workers from 1989 to 1993. Michael S. Teitelbaum, Program Director at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, served as a member of the U.S. Commission on International Migration and Cooperative Economic Development from 1987 to 1990, and as Vice Chair of the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform from 1990 to 1997.
Everybody Wins?
For decades now, the unlawful migration of millions of Mexican nationals into the United States has been a source of sometimes passionate disagreement on both sides of the border. In the past year, new presidents have come to power in the two countries and have given priority to addressing the issue. President Vicente Fox, who refers to unauthorized Mexicans in the United States as "heroes," has pledged to negotiate both a temporary labor program to bring Mexican workers legally to the United States and a large-scale "regularization of status" for some or all of the millions of illegal migrants already living there. President George W. Bush, who expresses real interest in Mexico and high personal regard for his Mexican counterpart, has reciprocated Fox's willingness to reach an agreement. Bush sees a potential benefit to U.S. agricultural employers in a Mexico-U.S. guest worker program, and his administration has floated the possibility of legalizing millions of Mexicans unlawfully resident in the United States in conjunction with such an initiative.
Bush has received support from some Republican and Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill, where congressional camps have rallied around three distinct proposals. The first, most expansive plan would legalize or give amnesty to some or all of the illegal Mexican immigrants on U.S. soil. A second approach would grant guest or temporary work visas for a specified time period, on the understanding that the workers would leave the country when their visas expired. Finally, an "earned legalization" program would grant temporary legal status and create a way for individual migrants to earn permanent legalization by fulfilling certain conditions, such as 90 to 150 days of farm labor within a year of receiving a guest visa.
In August, Mexican and U.S. negotiators reached preliminary agreement on proposals involving the latter two concepts. Their plan would bring in guest workers to fill niches in agriculture, hospitality, and food service — sectors that already employ a large proportion of the illegal Mexican immigrants in the United States. The guest workers could then seek permanent legal status by "certify[ing] that they have been living and working in the country for a specified time, and have been paying taxes." When Fox visited Washington in early September, he surprised the White House by publicly calling for a final accord by the end of the year; Bush administration officials reaffirmed their commitment to the talks but said Fox's timetable was too optimistic. The September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon then pushed the issue into the background, although political proponents have not given up.
The theoretical benefits of temporary labor programs have seduced politicians in many countries, just as they are now enticing the Fox and Bush administrations. Many U.S. and Mexican proponents seem surprisingly unaware, however, of the long and checkered history of such policies, and quite innocent of the unwanted effects they have produced in both origin and destination countries. The negotiators are advancing the discussions and making decisions with a dangerously myopic perspective on . . .