Unlike U.S. citizens, guestworkers do not enjoy the most fundamental protection of a competitive labor market — the ability to change jobs if they are mistreated. Instead, they are bound to the employers who “import” them. If guestworkers complain about abuses, they face deportation, blacklisting or other retaliation.
Bound to a single employer and without access to legal resources, guestworkers are routinely:
Cheated out of wages
Forced to mortgage their futures to obtain low-wage, temporary jobs
Held virtually captive by employers or labor brokers who seize their documents
Subjected to human trafficking and debt servitude
Forced to live in squalid conditions
Denied medical benefits for on-the-job injuries.
[Source: Southern Poverty Law Center]