Guest Worker Program Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Guest Worker Program - Essay Example It contains no stipulations for either a new temporary worker program or citizenship (Espo, 2006). The proposed Senate legislation allocates additional funds to better enhance border security, provides for a ‘guest worker’ program and gives an estimated 10 million immigrants amnesty by putting those who are currently in the country illegally on the fast track to citizenship. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala. was skeptical about the legislation saying, â€Å"This bill will not secure our borders† (Kiely, 2006). The complaint regarding the guest worker program is that it is, in effect, amnesty. It has been estimated that the added cost to the federal government will be in excess of $15 billion per year when the present illegal aliens, working legally in the U.S., put a drain on the health care then when they eventually become citizens, will begin collecting welfare benefits. The highly debated immigration bill, endorsed by both the Senate and the Bush administration, would have added greatly to this number because it will encourage a new surge of low skilled workers through its guest worker program. Traditionally, immigrants to the U.S. were less likely than those born in America to collect welfare. This historic arrangement has radically changed over the past three decades. Today, immigrant families are at least 50 percent more likely to receive federal benefits than those born in this country. Additionally, immigrants are more likely to adapt their lives to rely on the welfare system and studies have shown the longer immi ­grants stay in the U.S., the more likely they are to be on welfare. To further aggravate the situation, when an illegal immigrant becomes a citizen, he can legally bring his parents who also have the right to become citi ­zens. The estimated long-term cost of overall federal benefits could exceed $50 billion per year for the parents of the 10 million beneficiaries of