Team Members: Jonathan Smith, Peter Barkley, Alex Martin, Tyson Meadors, Sale Lilly

Advisor: John Truslow

Topic/Audience: Holistic Review of President Bush's Guest Worker Proposal

Executive Summary

Over the next fifty years, immigration is a topic that will touch every aspect of society from environmental to financial. With the U.S. Census Committee estimating a population of 400 million
Americans (driven by illegal immigration) in less than forty years, the impetus to enact legislation to regulate immigration has grown tremendously. In January of 2004, President Bush proposed a "Guest
Worker Program" that would drastically alter current immigration policy by permitting 14 million illegal aliens to obtain guest worker passes. As a congressional exploratory committee, it is our
contention that the President's plan should not be passed in Congress based on legal, economic, and ethical Grounds. The President's plan is legal, but not feasible.

The Supreme Court has given The U.S. Congress the exclusive authority to create immigration policy. However, implementing this specific piece of legislation now would not be feasible structurally. The plan lacks the immigration staff assistance required to regulate and process 14 million persons. The Center for Immigration Security under the Department of Homeland defense is under funded and lacks the necessary legal enforcement mechanisms to hold violators of the program accountable.
Additionally the guest worker plan is not affordable.

Guest worker plans have the ability to reduce inflation and improve productivity in immigrant labor areas. However, the added productivity and inflation reducing characteristics of the plan are barely enough to match the depressed wage effects and the reduced industry competitiveness due to misuse of labor. The regulatory costs of managing such large numbers of persons over several years outweigh the minimal addition to GDP due to the plan.

Finally the plan should be rejected because it is fundamentally unethical. It creates a "moral hazard" on the part of businesses to hire guest workers that have less negotiating leverage in disputes
about wages and working conditions. The plan creates an incentive to hire someone employers can abuse. Native workers are also harmed because their employment is less desirable in the eyes of a profit-maximizing firm. The plan is also unethical because it creates a hierarchical labor structure with the backing of law. Congress has an ethical mandate to prevent social discord between cultures and
support a cultural pluralism that fosters healthy cultural assimilation.

Our solution references each lens we use to analyze the guest worker
plan (economic, legal and ethical) to advocate legislation for labor
union rights, improved security and funding for border agents, and an
adverse affect wage rate to create parity in the work environment for
any potential guest worker.

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