Whats the controversy over the guest worker program in the Senate bill?
The Senate panel approved a plan from Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Edward Kennedy (D-MA) to create a guest worker program for up to 400,000 foreign workers. There would be some sort of computerized registry to match them up with U.S. businesses, and those companies would have to show that they could not find an American to do the same job. Participants in the guest worker program would have to work for six years before they could apply for permanent residency (a so-called green card). They’d have to wait another five years to apply for citizenship. Supporters say allowing guest workers to earn citizenship is necessary to avoid creating a permanent underclass, with no political rights, that is vulnerable to exploitation and depressed wages. Q: What about legalizing those undocumented immigrants already here? This is probably the most contentious part of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s plan. The bill passed by that panel would allow the nearly 12 million illegal immigrants estimated
