Guest Worker Programs

I mentioned this briefly in class last week, but it is interesting to revisit guest worker programs from the eyes of a farmer in the United States. I was really grateful to hear the personal imput, about how the workers return year after year for the same season to work, how they receive a lot of letters, and how most of their families are at home. This is one aspect f spring break that I am most excited about: direct interaction with the farmworkers.
I was lucky enough to have direct interaction with guest workers in Singapore, doing lots of field research with my class and personal interviews. I have a feeling there are many similarities and differences between programs there and programs in the US. For one, here they allegedly have the right to change employers. In Singapore they do not, and the island is so small and so secure, that running away, leaving one's job, or even reporting abuse means instant deportation. Furthermore, no one wants to settle in Singapore. It is incredibly hard to get citizenship there; and PR status goes mostly to foreign talent. A domestic worker who marries a Singaporean does not get citizenship automatically, and the laws do not really protect you if you are not one. Also Singapore requires certain physical elements to their program that would be considered an invasion of the right to privacy, such as mandatory HIV and pregnancy tests, if positive for either one is immediately deported. I just bring up these things because Singapore is considered the model guest-wroker program across the world for it's efficiency, and many people say the guest worker program needs to be revamped to be more like Singapores. My question is, even if we did reform the guest-worker program, how could we make it more efficient without sacrificing the qualities that we support as a liberal democracy?