H2-A program was relaxed slightly, they argue, it would be an acceptable price to pay under certain conditions.  After all, the program already exists, and in a Republican Congress there's no likelihood of abolishing it.     Pursuing that logic, Los Angeles Congressman Howard Berman crafted a compromise two years ago, in cooperation with the UFW and other farm worker unions.  It would allow growers to pay a housing allowance instead of providing housing, and would freeze the minimum required wage for a number of years.  In return, workers who performed 100 days worth of farm labor in 18 months could apply for temporary legal status, and if they did another 360 days of that work in six years, they could gain permanent residency.     In addition, guest workers would become covered under the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act, which covers all other farm workers.  The act, amended to formally include the right to organize, would then allow all farm workers, including guest workers, to sue their employers in Federal courts over violations.     That compromise almost became law.  But after seeing the 2000 election results, growers decided they could get a better deal under President George Bush, and backed out.  Congressman Larry Craig (R-ID) introduced a new bill, which looks much more like the traditional bracero program.  Guest workers would have no right to go to court or recognition of union rights.  Minimum wage rates would be slashed -- the bill requires only the minimum wage -- and the government would no longer have to certify a labor shortage to permit importing workers.  The grower's word would do.  And workers would have to labor 150 days per year, just in agriculture, to qualify for legalization.  That bar would disqualify most seasonal workers, while at the same time, the disincentives for bringing in guest workers would be reduced drastically.  For workers the message would be clear -- if you want to work legally, sign up as a bracero.     "Growers always want to scream'shortage,'" Berman commented bitterly, "but in reality what they want is an oversupply of labor to keep wages down and discourage unionization."     Other industries now want guest workers too.  In Congress, the push comes from the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition, which includes the American Health Care Association, the National Association of Manufacturers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Increasingly, the enforcement of employer sanctions, the law which makes it illegal for an undocumented worker to hold a job, is directed toward building political support for guest worker programs.     "It's time for a gut check," declared Mark Reed in 1999, who at the time was INS regional director based in Dallas.  "We depend on foreign labor, and we have to face the question -- are we prepared to bring in workers lawfully? ... If we don't have illegal immigration anymore, we'll have the political support for guest workers."     That year, in Nebraska meatpacking plants, the INS mounted the largest workplace enforcement action in its history, Operation Vanguard.  The operation was later suspended in controversy, but in the changed atmosphere surrounding immigration after September 11, it has been restarted in Missouri and Kansas.  Meanwhile, the INS has initiated a wave of other worksite raids and enforcement actions, especially the high-profile Operation Tarmac at airports around the country.     Critics of U.S. immigration policy have said for decades that its purpose is not really "welcoming your tired, huddled masses. [Continue.....]