Guest worker system broken

Dallas Morning News: If there were ever a good case to be made for a guest worker program, we wouldn't need to look much farther than New Orleans. About a month after Katrina tore through the Gulf Coast, handwritten signs were splattered across the devastated and nearly empty city: "Workers Wanted" or "Need 50 Laborers Now."
With most of the city's own workers gone -- and surveys indicating that many were gone for good -- what was New Orleans supposed to do? After all, the city has embarked on the nation's largest reconstruction effort in modern history.
Two-thirds of the city is gone. The cleanup work is messy, the jobs brutal. And, not surprisingly, the majority of those hauling off debris, clearing downed trees and tearing out drywall are Latino immigrants. Accounting for only 3 percent of the population pre-Katrina, Latinos now make up about a fourth of New Orleans residents.
A Dallas Morning News article detailed what Latino workers find in New Orleans. Take Melvin Diaz, a Dallas construction worker. Companies stiffed him of pay, gave him checks that can't be cashed and bad food that sent the 21-year-old to the hospital.
Had a guest worker program been in place when Katrina hit, it would have provided a more orderly way to hand out jobs. Legal residents willing to do them would get first chance at them, and the city would have been certain it could secure the workforce needed. Instead -- minus labor rights and employment rules -- unemployed natives find themselves pitted against migrants, who find themselves conned out of wages and working in hazardous conditions without proper safety gear.
The only ones laughing all the way to the bank are the unscrupulous contractors.