Editorial: Welcome to America

Friday, March 2, 2007 | 7:10 a.m.

A centerpiece of President Bush's proposed immigration reform is expansion of the guest-worker program that allows some immigrants to live in the United States for specific amounts of time as long as they have jobs.

But according to a recent story by The New York Times, foreigners who work in the United States as guests routinely are paid less than promised - or not at all - for jobs that don't always last as long as recruiters said they would.

Since guest-worker visas allow people to work only for the employers who brought them here, these workers are not allowed to find new jobs if their employers abuse them. And those who protest being abused can easily be sent back home.

In but one outrageous example, a Thai worker told the Times that he and 29 others from Thailand were lured into paying a recruiter $11,000 each for visas and farm-work jobs in North Carolina for which they were to earn $16,000 a year for three years. In reality, the jobs lasted only a month, and the workers only earned between $1,400 to $2,400.

Such abuses happen at nearly every level of the process. In addition, employers often refuse to cover transportation costs after committing to doing so, the Times reports, and some employers confiscate workers' passports upon arrival, leaving them trapped.

Such practices run rampant, experts told the Times, because there aren't enough government inspectors to keep tabs on every contract, worker and employer. And this is the program Bush wants to expand? The guest-worker program obviously is dicey on its best day, which is why it should be retooled regardless of what happens with reforming the nation's immigration laws.

Congress is considering a proposal that would bar employers from retaliating against workers who protest abuses and would allow abused workers to sue in federal court. It's a start. Luring foreign workers to the United States with false promises and then treating them as indentured servants is simply unconscionable.