JOE BIDEN SHOULD ROLL BACK EXPLOITATIVE GUEST WORKER PROGRAMS

By David Bacon
Jacobin, 3/9/20
https://jacobinmag.com/2021/03/biden-guest-worker-program-immigration-farmworker
https://davidbaconrealitycheck.blogspot.com/2021/03/joe-biden-should-roll-back-exploitative.html

Members of the Yakama Nation of Native Americans join farmworkers and other immigrants to celebrate May Day in 2017 and protest continued deportations and detentions. (Photo (c) David Bacon)










​The current guest worker system prioritizes agricultural growers' profits over immigrants' and workers' rights. Joe Biden should seek a different way: building an immigration system based on family reunification, community stability, and immigrant workers' rights to decent wages, health, and housing.


The intention of the US guest worker program for agriculture, called the H-2A program, couldn't have been stated more clearly than it was by agriculture secretary Sonny Perdue in a January 2020 speech to growers. He wanted, he said,

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