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A guest worker program allows foreign workers to temporarily reside and work in a host country. Guest workers typically perform low or semi-skilled agricultural, industrial, or domestic labor in countries dealing with workforce shortages, and return home once their contract has expired.

While migrant workers may move within a country to find labor (as is the case in contemporary China ), guest worker programs employ workers from areas outside of the host country. Guest workers are not considered permanent immigrants due to the temporary nature of their contracts.

The Bracero Program
The Bracero Program (1942-1964) was a temporary-worker importation agreement between the United States and Mexico. Initially created as an emergency procedure to alleviate wartime labor shortages, the 1942 program actually lasted until 1964, importing approximately 4.5 million legal Mexican workers into the United States during its lifespan.

The Bracero Program expanded during the early 1950s, admitting more than 400,000 Mexican workers for temporary employment per year until 1959 when numbers began a steady decline. . While illegal immigration was a major concern of both the United States and Mexico, the Bracero Program was seen as a partial solution to the upsurge of undocumented worker entries.

Under the program, total farm employment increased, domestic farm worker employment decreased, and the farm wage rate decreased. Critics have noted widespread abuses of the program: workers had ten percent of their wages withheld for planned pensions but the money was often never repaid. Workers also were de-loused with DDT at border stations and often placed in housing conditions deemed ‘highly inadequate’ by the Farm Service Agency. Other scholars who interviewed workers have highlighted some of the more positive aspects of the program, including the higher potential wages a bracero could earn in the United States. Due in large part to the growing opposition by organized labor and welfare groups, the program came to an end in 1964.

History of Failed Attempts of Reform
Most guest worker legislation introduced during the 105th through 110th Congress (January 1997-January 2003) solely discussed reforming the H-2A program. Reform provisions, which included a pathway under which guest workers could gain legal permanent residence status, were not enacted into law. . Guest worker policy discussions in 2001 between President George W. Bush and Mexican President Vicente Fox were halted after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers.

On January 7, 2004, President Bush reaffirmed his desire for guest worker program reform and laid forth plans for its implementation, known as the ‘Fair and Secure Immigration Reform’ program. According to the White House Press Secretary, this program laid out five specific policy goals: The program also contains specific agenda items for reformation of the guest worker programs already in effect. Those are: The proposed program did not include a permanent legalization mechanism for guest workers. Bill S.2611, passed by the Senate in May 2006, included provisions for a guest worker program. No further action on the bill, however, was taken by the House, allowing to the bill to be defeated.
 * 1) Protecting the homeland by protecting our borders: the program should include efforts to control the United States border through agreements with participating countries.
 * 2) Serve America's economy by matching a willing worker with a willing employer: the program should efficiently connect prospective workers with employers in the same sector.
 * 3) Promoting compassion: the program should provide a temporary worker card to undocumented workers that allows them re-entry into the United States during their three years.
 * 4) Providing incentives to return to home country: the program should require workers to return to their home countries after their work period has ended.
 * 5) Protecting the rights of legal immigrants: the program should not be connected with obtaining a green card.
 * 1) Employers must make every reasonable effort to fill a position with American workers first.
 * 2) Enforcement against companies hiring illegal immigrants will increase.
 * 3) The United States will work with other countries to have guest workers included in their home country's retirement plans.
 * 4) Those in the program can apply for citizenship, but will not be given any preference and will enter at the end of the line.
 * 5) A reasonable increase in the number of legal immigrants into the United States.

Guest Worker Programs Outside the United States
Countries outside of The United States that have used guest worker programs in the past or currently have programs in place include Singapore, Canada, Taiwan, northern and western Europe countries including Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, and eastern European countries such as Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Poland.

The Canadian Mexican Agricultural Seasonal Workers’ Program, started in 1974, is a bilateral agreement between Canada and Mexico. While similar to the Bracero Program in that it uses temporary Mexican workers to fill labor shortages, the Canadian Program differs in its provisions of working and living conditions, more bureaucratic recruitment practices, and smaller size. The Mexican Ministry of Labor recruits workers and negotiates wages with Human Resources Development Canada. Farmers are required to offer workers a minimum of 240 work hours over six weeks, provide free approved housing and cooking facilities, and pay the higher of the minimum or prevailing wage given to Canadians performing the same labor. Most Mexican workers are male, married, and over 25 years of age, who leave their families behind in Mexico; their average stay in Canada is four months.

In 1990, Taiwan introduced a formal guest worker program that allowed the importation of workers from Thailand, the Philippines, and Indonesia under one-year visas. Under the Employment Services Act of 1992, temporary guest workers from these countries were permitted to work in Taiwan's manufacturing, construction, and services sectors. As a protection mechanism for local workers, The Taiwan government has set quotas for the percentage of foreign workers that each industry sector is allowed to hire.

In response to wartime physical and capital losses, what was then called West Germany imported guest workers after the end of World War II to speed up the post-war reconstruction process. The Federal Labor Office recruited low and semi-skilled workers from Meditteranean countries: while the initial bilateral agreement took place with Italy, the program expanded to include Greece, Turkey, Morocco, Portugal, Tunisia and Yugoslavia. Workers were required to obtain a residence permit and a labor permit, which were granted for restricted time periods and valid only for certain industries. Of the countries providing labor, recruits from Turkey accounted for the largest portion as approximately 750,000 Turks entered West Germany between 1961-1972. The program came to an end in 1973.