Discarded: Should the U.S. implement a guest-worker program for those who entered the country illegally?

edited and approved in different topic

good. let's do this.

i prefer donovan's suggestion.

let's revise and approve:

Should the U.S. implement a guest-worker program.

I'm not sure where it goes bc we have the Immigration Debate topic too.  errrr....

I'm fine with Jacki's initial change at the bottom there. 

Should the U.S. implement a guest-worker program for people that entered the country illegally? 

I think that's fair...it's compassionate (hehe) in that it doesn't refer to these people as illegals, yet it is not afraid to talk about the fact that they did enter the country illegally reagrdless of where you stand on this issue.

I'm pretty sure the guest worker program Bush is proposing allows illegals, if I may, a chance to stay temporarily as guest workers.  It doesn't gaurantee everyone gets to be citizens.  I'm not positive...

If these immigrants aren't illegal than there's nothing really to talk about here.

I think Donovan's is a good compromise. Because he's right - the guest worker program wouldn't be for illegal immigrants, because they wouldn't be illegal if there was a guest worker program. So, let's do that.

"Undocumented workers" is preferable to "illegal immigrants" in my book - the latter implies a legal finality, rather than a categorical designation.  The only reason they're "illegal" is because Congress says they are, which if they create the guest worker rules, they won't be anymore. 

Why not avoid the problem entirely - since language DOES matter here - and just say, "should the U.S. create a guest worker program?"

Sounds good.

I've got an anecdote too...

Back in college, so many many years ago (not really), I was forced to take some Human Resources class for my major, and I took serious exception to labelling humans as resources - you know, debasing a worker's humanity and all that bunk. Therefore, I hated the class and got 70s on all the tests. But despite my objections, the class retained the name, "Human Resources 101".

Anyway, my point is that I agree with all of you but I have to side with Nick and esperanto simply because "illegal immigrant" is the preferred or accepted nomenclature, to use the parlance of our times.

In summation...I approve of the topic as is...it's about time to get it approved too, and I think it should probably be a breaking news topic, or whatever Nick alluded to (sorry I don't have the window open anymore).

also, re: nick; i'm fine with that.

At a journalism convention last year, I met a columnist who was very pro-immigrant and would never use the phrase "illegal immigrant" in her personal life, but made the choice to use it in her columns because she thought the phrase "undocumented workers" would automatically put off a lot of the people she was trying to persuade. I'd tend to agree with Jacki that a phrase like "undocumented immigrants" would probably be more technically correct and less offensive, and "illegal immigrant' is the kind of loaded buzzword we'd like to avoid on this site – but there's something to be said for leaving it as is. Even if it's stupid, everyone knows what it means, and it's more generally accepted than the PC alternative.

I did a bad thing.

I created "The Immigration Debate" as a news topic.

refresher on news v. standing topics... if the issue is going to "go away" at some point, it belongs in a news topic... and I'm doing stuff to make news topics more accessible and easier to create.

This issue is exactly related to the present "news"... once the program is created or not, the issue goes away.

everyone ok with moving it over to the new topic and keeping this topic for "standing" issues about US immig?

as for the issue itself, I think jacki's been in legal aid too long

everyone knows them as illegal immigrants, and while she's technically correct, going with more complete language like "immigrants that entered the country illegally" would be unconscionable and would lead to bad karma in this lifetime and the next....

i think it is wrong to describe human beings as "illegal."  not comfortable approving issue until that language is changed.

Let's go with it.  It would be nice to have this one up there now.

i'm fine with this issue but i prefer a different term to describe undocumented people living in the U.S. 

Should the U.S. implement a guest-worker program for people that entered the country illegally?