Bush Temporary Workers Program - Essay Example

Bush Temporary Workers Program Bush Temporary Workers Program presupposes the creation of temporary workers program to reduce the threat of having eight (8) million undocumented workers in the United States. According to the program, this will help abate the abuse and exploitation of foreign workers, reduce human smuggling and protect the wages of all workers. The Program acknowledges that current immigration system in the United States is broken and suggest that a system of “matching willing employees with willing employers” will help reform the system.

Position: While Bush Temporary Workers Program can be laudable, this is however counter-productive considering the current economic condition of the country. Where we have more than 10 % unemployment rate caused by the 2009 Financial Crisis. The economic health of United States have already changed dramatically and it is no longer as robust as before. Such, it can no longer accommodate additional workers to compete with domestic workers. While I have nothing against foreign workers who are as talented and productive as an American worker, I would prefer that scarce jobs will go to Americans first.

Had this proposal of Bush been made during America’s economic peak, I would have nothing against it. But just not today where a job that will go to an immigrant worker will be a job that will be taken away from a prospective American job seeker. I understand that having more than 8 million undocumented workers can be a threat to national security. But taking away jobs from Americans who equally needs it, cannot justify the proposed immigration reform. The prospect of a looming homegrown unemployment can be equally if not more threatening to national security than undocumented immigrant workers.

And given the current size of immigrant workers, I really wonder if we can handle such size to process. Bush already admitted that current immigration system is already flawed, and that is without an additonal eight million immigration application to process. It might just create another problem to an already problematic system. This Temporary Workers Program also may encourage foreign workers from economically desperate country to immigrate to the United States. Thus, adding to the influx of foreign workers and encourage human trafficking more.

And an increase in population whether they are foreign workers or homegrown Americans will have a cost push for government expenditures that will be paid by taxpayers money. If our population will increase, that will also call an increase of scope of social services and government presence. We will be needing more policeman to patrol the streets, more hospital to accommodate the sick, more teachers to educate their offsprings, etch etch. That will add to the already overburdened expenditures of the government.

And at this time of economic difficulty where we are suppose to tighten our belts, the program is not necessarily recommendable. Lastly, the program is no longer applicable. One of its major component is that the availability of visas under Temporary Worker’s Program would be determined also by the availability of jobs. There are no more jobs available as our economy was devastated by the 2009 Financial Crisis and as such, there should be more available visas for work.