Guest worker program

A guest worker program allows foreign workers to temporarily reside and work in a host country until a next round of workers is readily available to switch. Guest workers typically perform low or semi-skilled agricultural, industrial, or domestic labor in countries with workforce shortages, and they return home once their contract has expired.

While migrant workers may move within a country to find labor, guest worker programs employ workers from areas outside of the host country. Guest workers are not considered permanent immigrants due to the temporary nature of their contracts.

In the United States there have been efforts at guest worker programs for many years. These include the Bracero Program, enacted during World War II, attempts by the George W. Bush administration, and the current H-2 visa program. However, attempts at improving the programs are ongoing and have been vigorously debated. While the United States' guest worker programs do not explicitly focus on any specific nationality, such plans typically target labor from Mexico, due to the shared border between the countries, the economic disparity between the United States and Mexico, and the history of programs between the countries.

The Bracero Program (1942-1964) was a temporary-worker importation agreement between the United States and Mexico. Initially created as an emergency procedure to alleviate wartime labor shortages, the 1942 program actually lasted until 1964, bringing approximately 4.5 million legal Mexican workers into the United States during its lifespan.

The Bracero Program expanded during the early 1950s, admitting more than 400,000 Mexican workers for temporary employment per year until 1959 when numbers began a steady decline. While illegal immigration was a concern of both the United States and Mexico, the Bracero Program was seen as a partial solution to the upsurge of undocumented worker entries.

Under the program, total farm employment skyrocketed, domestic farm worker employment decreased, and the farm wage rate decreased. Critics have noted widespread abuses of the program: workers had ten percent of their wages withheld for planned pensions but the money was often never repaid. Workers also were de-loused with DDT at border stations and were often placed in housing conditions deemed ‘highly inadequate’ by the Farm Service Agency. Other scholars who interviewed workers have highlighted some of the more positive aspects of the program, including the higher potential wages a bracero could earn in the United States. Due in large part to the growing opposition by organized labor and welfare groups, the program came to an end in 1964.

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