Wall Street Journal LTE: Guest Workers and the Bracero Model

We couldn’t disagree more with the contention that the Bracero program was “one of the most successful programs of all times” (“Bring on the Guest Workers” by William McGurn, Main Street, March 24). The Bracero program, which began during World War II to provide foreign labor to U.S. farms, ended in 1964 after years of exposés about its labor- and human-rights abuses. While Mexican citizens often were grateful for the job opportunities, the Bracero program exploited the workers’ vulnerability. The guest workers held a restricted, nonimmigrant status with no right to earn immigration status or citizenship. They were tied to particular employers and depended on the employer for the chance for a visa in a following season. Wages stagnated and U.S. citizens and immigrants were displaced in favor of the more controllable foreign workers. While protections against undermining of U.S. workers’ wages and working conditions existed, they weren’t strong enough and they weren’t enforced effectively.

More important, we already have an agricultural guest-worker program and its history reveals that it should not be a model for this nation’s immigration policy. The H-2A temporary foreign agricultural-worker program also began during World War II and has been revised several times, but the program suffers from the same flaws as the Bracero program. The U.S. should not become a nation of guest workers but instead should remain a nation of immigrants who are granted the opportunity to become citizens and enjoy our economic and political freedoms.

We couldn’t disagree more with the contention that the Bracero program was “one of the most successful programs of all times” (“Bring on the Guest Workers” by William McGurn, Main Street, March 24). The Bracero program, which began during World War II to provide foreign labor to U.S. farms, ended in 1964 after years of exposés about its labor- and human-rights abuses. While Mexican citizens often were grateful for the job opportunities, the Bracero program exploited the workers’ vulnerability. The guest workers held a restricted, nonimmigrant status with no right to earn immigration status or citizenship. They were tied to particular employers and depended on the employer for the chance for a visa in a following season. Wages stagnated and U.S. citizens and immigrants were displaced in favor of the more controllable foreign workers. While protections against undermining of U.S. workers’ wages and working conditions existed, they weren’t strong enough and they weren’t enforced effectively.

More important, we already have an agricultural guest-worker program and its history reveals that it should not be a model for this nation’s immigration policy. The H-2A temporary foreign agricultural-worker program also began during World War II and has been revised several times, but the program suffers from the same flaws as the Bracero program. The U.S. should not become a nation of guest workers but instead should remain a nation of immigrants who are granted the opportunity to become citizens and enjoy our economic and political freedoms.