Tweaks May Boost Guest Worker Pool

Supports crackdown without guest workers, path to citizenship

(NEWSER) - White House hopeful John McCain has pulled a U-turn on immigration reform—backing a new bill which cracks down on illegal immigration and offers no path to citizenship for illegal immigrants already here. McCain had been a champion of a guest worker program and citizenship for many of the 12 million illegal residents, but that position, anathema to the GOP base, alienated campaign donors. More»

New Republic warns 'draconian' measures will follow if compromise fails

(NEWSER) - Calling the immigration bill currently fighting its way through the Senate "the best that liberals are likely to get," the New Republic's editors tepidly endorsed the legislation that would bring 12M laborers closer to US citizenship even as they condemned the implications of the bill's proposed guest-worker program. More»

Bipartisan compromise tackles citizenship, border security, but faces uphill battle on Capitol Hill

(NEWSER) - Illegal immigrants are offered a path to citizenship for the first time under a new Senate immigration reform package unveiled today. A precarious compromise hammered out by Bush administration officials and top senators, the bill trades hard-line border control measures for controversial provisions like a guest-worker program and a system for earning citizenship. More»

(NEWSER) - American employers are systematically exploiting the 120,000 low-skilled guest workers they hire each year, from stealing passports and Social Security cards to consistently underpaying them. “I felt like an animal without claws—defenseless. It is the same as slavery,” says one worker, in a report published today by the Southern Poverty Law Center. More»

That pesky part about birthright citizenship

(NEWSER) - Mitch McConnell thinks Congress “ought to take a look” at changing the 14^th Amendment so that it does not grant citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants. That puts McConnell right in line with a growing Republican push on the issue, alongside Jon Kyl and Lindsey Graham, the Hill reports. “I think we ought to take a look at it—hold hearings, listen to the experts,” the Senate majority leader said, “We clearly need to look at it.” More»