首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
Give the Senate some credit: in shaping the current immigration-reform bill, it has come up with one idea that almost everybody
Give the Senate some credit: in shaping the current immigration-reform bill, it has come up with one idea that almost everybody
admin
2016-06-30
43
问题
Give the Senate some credit: in shaping the current immigration-reform bill, it has come up with one idea that almost everybody hates. That’s the plan to create a new class of "guest workers"—immigrants who would be allowed to work in the U. S. for three two-year stretches, at most, provided that they return home for a year after each visit. Conservatives dislike the plan because they believe that the guest workers won’t return home after their visas expire. Liberals dislike it because they believe the program will depress American wages and trap guest workers in a state of serfdom. The only vocal supporters of the provision are businesses that rely heavily on immigrant labor, and they’re presumably just looking out for themselves.
History appears to give credence to the plan’s opponents. Think about Germany’s Gastarbeiter problem. Beginning in the early nineteen-sixties, Germany admitted immigrants from Turkey on short-term work visas. Many of these workers, instead of returning home, put down permanent roots, despite having no obvious way of becoming citizens. They were neither deported nor assimilated, and today they’re a sizable minority in many cities and, in some sense, a society unto themselves.
In the U. S. , the guest-worker experience has often been one of the abuse and mistreatment, most notably during the infamous bracero program. It was started during the Second World War as a way of bringing in a small number of experienced farmworkers to harvest crops in California. But farm owners quickly came to rely on imported labor, and in time more than four hundred thousand braceros a year were crossing the border, only to end up being used as strikebreakers, forced to live in grim migrant camps, and paid less than they’d been promised.
Given this record, and the broader concerns about the effects of illegal immigration, the hostility to the new plan is understandable. It’s also misguided. However imperfect, the guest-worker program is better than any politically viable alternative. Opponents of immigration sometimes imply that adding workers to a workforce automatically brings wages down. But immigrants tend to work in different industries than native workers, and have different skills, and so they often end up complementing native workers, rather than competing with them. That can make native workers more productive and therefore better off. According to a recent study, between 1990 and 2004 immigration actually boosted the wages of most American workers. And if by increasing the number of legal guest workers we reduced the number of undocumented workers, the economy would benefit even more.
Guest workers are also, paradoxically, less likely than illegal immigrants to become permanent residents. Mexican workers, contrary to popular belief, do not, generally, intend to live their entire lives in the U. S. Instead, as the sociologists Douglas Massey and Jorge Durand concluded after a comprehensive study of immigrant attitudes and behavior, most want to work for short periods to generate an alternative source of household income or to buy a house in Mexico.
The new guest-worker plan is not a reprise of the bracero program. Guest workers would no longer be tied to a single employer—within certain limits, they’d be able to change jobs if they wanted—and would be guaranteed all the protections that the law extends to native workers, including the freedom to join a union. These protections would not necessarily insure fair treatment, especially given the Bush Administration’s poor record of enforcing labor laws. But guest workers would have more by James Surowiecki rights than illegal workers, and be better treated. They’d also be paid better—better than they would as illegals, and far better than if they had to stay at home.
In fact, whatever benefits the guest-worker program brought to the U. S. economy or to particular businesses, the biggest winners would be the workers themselves. When a good made by a foreign worker enters this country, the worker gets only a tiny slice of what we pay. But when the worker himself comes into this country his earnings can rise by a factor of ten or more. But the program’s costs to American workers are negligible, the gains for the guest workers are enormous, and the U. S. economy will benefit. This is that rare option which is both sensible and politically possible. Congress should take it.
According to the passage, guest workers in the U. S. are______.
选项
A、immigrants working for a short time
B、opposed by the parties and all classes
C、believed to leave when their visas expire
D、well paid from farm owners
答案
A
解析
事实细节题。由题干定位至首段第二句。该句清楚地解释了guest workers这个新阶级的含义,即被容许来美国进行最多三次、每次最多两年的短期务工外来人员,条件是每个两年期之间要回国居住一年,因此[A]正确。由首段第三、四句可以看出,保守党和自由党都反对这项计划,但首段末句指出这项计划仅有的支持者,即深度依赖移民劳动力的产业,故排除[B];由首段第三句可知,guest workers在签证过期之后会非法滞留美国,故排除[C];由第三段末句But farmowners…and paid less than they’d been promised.可知,[D]所述与文意不符,故排除。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/hU7O777K
0
专业英语八级
相关试题推荐
"Andshetiedabunchofvioletswithatressofherprettybrownhair."Shesatintheyellowglowofthelamplightsoftly
Thelatesthottopicamongeconomictalkingheadsisthecomingcurrencywar.Accordingtoconventionalwisdom,there’sariskt
Pre-courseLectureof"AmericanNovelSince1945"Tolearnthelectureof"AmericanNovelSince1945",somepointsshouldbe
Whileattendingahighereducationsystemoffersmanypositives,italsoofferscertainnegatives.Onenegativeisthefacthigh
GivetheSenatesomecredit:inshapingthecurrentimmigration-reformbill,ithascomeupwithoneideathatalmosteverybody
Themostobviousandrapidchangeinthedevelopmentofalanguagetakesplaceintheareaof______
Speakingtwolanguagesratherthanjustonehasobviouspracticalbenefitsinanincreasinglyglobalizedworld.Beingbilingua
Speakingtwolanguagesratherthanjustonehasobviouspracticalbenefitsinanincreasinglyglobalizedworld.Beingbilingua
我读过一本译著中的一番话:科学成就了一些伟大的改变.但却没能改变人生的基本事实。人类未能征服自然,只不过服从了自然,避免了一些可避免的困难。但没能除绝祸害。地震、飓风,以及类似的大骚动都提醒人们,宇宙还没有尽人自己的掌握。事实上,人类的苦难何止于天灾,还有
随机试题
下列不属于学校文化评估内容要素的是()
患者,男性,45岁,因右上颌肿物行右上颌骨切除加植皮术。术后所植皮片大部分坏死,遗留较大肉芽创面。准备再行皮肤移植消灭创面。此病例植皮时最好采用
佐剂的功能不包括()
案例五某厂(甲方)与某建筑公司(乙方)订立了某工程项目施工合同,同时与某降水公司订立了工程降水合同。甲乙双方合同规定:采用单价合同,每一分项工程的实际工程量增加(或减少)超过招标文件中工程量的10%以上时调整单价;工作B、E、C作业使用的主导施工机
下面()是组合投资类理财产品资产池中可能有的品种。
为下列歌曲片段编配钢琴伴奏。要求:(1)为前7小节编配钢琴伴奏。(2)与歌词表现的意境相符。
下列科技成就中深刻影响人类文明进程的是()。
我国社会主义在改革开放前所经历的曲折和失误,改革开放以来在前进中遇到的一些犹疑和困惑,归根到底在于没有完全搞清楚
Thereisconcernaroundtheapparentinabilityofscienceeducationtocountercurrentnegativeperceptionsofscienceinbothd
Partsofthefollowingtextaremissing.Whilelisteningtothetape,completethepassagebyfillingineachblankspacewitha
最新回复
(
0
)