Indentured Servitude? GOP Lawmaker Wants To Tether Immigrants To ‘The Dirtiest Jobs’

[DonViejo]

A top conservative in the House of Representatives told NPR Thursday morning that he opposes bipartisan proposals to allow undocumented immigrants to earn a path to citizenship, but would support expanding “a guest-worker program for immigrant-labor-dependent U.S. agriculture” to ensure that farms have a steady stream of foreign labor to fulfill the “dirtiest jobs.”

The Senate’s bipartisan framework for immigration reform includes a separate track for agricultural workers, allowing them to “earn a path to citizenship through a different process under our new agricultural worker program” and lawmakers had previously considered proposals “that would provide agricultural employers with a stable, legal labor force while protecting farmworkers from exploitative working conditions.”

In light of current proposals for earned citizenship, Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) is concerned that legalized agricultural workers will take opportunity of their legal status to abandon back-breaking agricultural work and find jobs elsewhere, leaving farmers without a stable stream of labor. “You’re going to have to have a program that assures those farms and those processing plants that there will be workers,” he says. “Because if you give them legal status, they can work anywhere in the United States — they’re not going to necessarily work at the hardest, toughest, dirtiest jobs.”

Immigration reform, then, could include a compromise that requires agricultural workers to remain in the industry for a pre-determined period of time and a new temporary worker program that ensures a constant supply of farm workers.

http://thinkprogress.org/special/2013/02/21/1619901/indentured-servitude-gop-lawmaker-wants-to-tether-immigrants-to-the-dirtiest-jobs/

[Scootaloo]

1. Yes, that's exactly what it is

Actually, sharecropping slavery might be closer, 'cause something tells me there's plenty of loopholes to force these people to "stay on the farm" and I have an itching suspicion that it will be generational in nature.

[reformist2]

2. What we need is a federal subsidy to bring these "tough, dirty" jobs up to minimum wage.

[rbixby]

3. At least you can respect his honesty

Seriously. Perhaps no more honest thing has been said by a republican about immigration reform.

[davidn3600]

4. It's not like we have jobs anywhere else anyway

Didn't you not read the recent story about how even minimum wage and low-skill jobs are now requiring college degrees?

[Romulox]

5. He actually makes a point.

One of the primary arguments in favor of illegal immigration is that such immigrants "do jobs that Americans won't do."--presumably because of poor pay and conditions.

So granting citizenship to all of those doing "jobs that Americans won't do," (at extremely low wages and substandard conditions) suggests that a new crop of illegal aliens will soon be required.

The idea that we can sustain a modern day feudal system somehow, at no cost to us, seems a fantasy, either way.