Discourse analysis

Martin, Philip. Guest worker Programs for the 21st Century. April 2000.
Website, Center for Immigration Studies, CIS.ORG. Web Feb. 18, 2011
Let us look at part of the opening paragraph of this article. “Should the US launch another guest worker program? The commission on Immigration Reform in 1995 concluded that: “a large scale agricultural guest worker program… is not in the national interest… such a program would be a grievous mistake.” President Clinton agreed in a June statement, which asserted that a guest worker program would increase illegal immigration, displace US workers, and depress wages and working conditions.” The binary in this article is, should the US launch another guest worker program, how it affects the national interest, and whether or not it would increase illegal immigration, displace US workers, and depress wages and working conditions. He goes on in the article to give a “Lesson of History”. He uses two other examples of guest worker programs that did just what he argues for in his beginning statements. Martin uses the Bracero and the H-2A programs as examples. Martin states, “None of these programs fulfilled their stated purpose: to add workers temporarily to the US work force without adding permanent residence to the population, and to do so in a manner that does not adversely affect US workers. Instead, the Bracero programs laid the groundwork for one of the world’s great mass migrations that from Mexico to the United States and the H-2A program has been wracked by costly disputes.”
Martin does a good job describing the way the other 2 programs worked and how they failed. What he does not make clear is how exactly the Agjobs program works and to what extent it is the same as the others. He seems to lump all guest worker programs into one category, he assumes that the government has not learned from its mistakes. Later in the article he states, “The surprise about Agjobs is that it has divided immigrant advocates, who are normally united against guest worker proposals.” If this is the case than my assumption would be that, there are differences large enough to gain support from a community that in the past was against such programs.
There is an issue he is trying to bring forth, that it is the large agricultural business uses their money through lobbying to keep a steady flow of cheap labor coming into the united states, instead of working smarter even if it costs a bit more. An example, “Employers invest in lobbying to maintain the program, not in labor saving or back saving alternatives.” The idea is that illegal migrant workers are much cheaper to maintain than moving into the 21st century , “where much of the labor could be replaced with labor saving machinery and better ways to manage now more expensive workers.” He seems to be placing the blame of the current system more on the agricultural businesses side than the government. He goes farther to give examples of how he believes the status quo should be changed, putting even more emphasis on the side of ag. Business. This is what he states needs to be done, “Illegal immigration must be under control., Employers must have a continued incentive to seek alternatives., Bilateral agreements should govern recruitment, remittances and returns.” In these principles, he puts a fair amount of responsibility on both the government and Ag. Business, but there is a conflict. He states, “Some level of failure can be expected when governments attempt to regulate a relationship in which migrants and employers have different goals than regulators.” Later he goes on to say, “Government policy should push agriculture towards a sustainable 21st century future, not permit it to revert to a 20th century “Harvest of Shame” past.” What does he expect each side to be responsible for? Whose responsibility is it to put agriculture into the 21st. century? He wants government to push agriculture into the 21st century but in turn says that the government fails when attempting to regulate employers and migrants.