Migrant workers are being held in limbo.
 | By Elisa Gutierrez Producer, Opinion Audio |
I grew up in a family with an American-born mother and a father who immigrated from Mexico. My dad became a citizen when I was young, and I understood that because of his citizenship my family got to live with less fear than many others in the United States. Why other families had to struggle for the same thing mine had never made sense to me. |
As I grew up, the debates that I saw on television and heard others having made even less sense. It was exhausting to hear about the border wall and racist tropes about "others." |
In recent years the immigration debate has been reduced to the question of whether immigration is good or bad. But human migration is a fundamental through-line of our species. In the lived experience of immigrants, and in the minds of many of those who are thinking about immigration policy, the debate is not whether it should be allowed — but instead whether it is being regulated in the most humane and fair way. |
Nearly every expert I spoke to said that temporary work programs were one possible way to improve the immigration system. Those programs, tied to employment and used by the companies that need workers, grant workers from other countries temporary entry to the United States. They can make a major difference for people, but they can also leave workers vulnerable to the whims of their bosses and corporations. If a company decides that it no longer needs an employee, that person is not only out of a job — but also potentially forced out of the place they made their home. |
Jane talked to Michael Clemens, an economist and the director of migration, displacement and humanitarian policy at the Center for Global Development, and Daniel Costa, a human rights lawyer and the director of immigration law and policy research at the Economic Policy Institute, about fixes to the country's existing rules that could make a real difference in people's lives. |
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