Towards a common sense immigration policy

After years of controversy and partisan infighting, we appear today no closer to any meaningful new national immigration policy than we were over six years ago when Bush first claimed he would make it a priority upon taking office. Much of the blame for this situation clearly rests on the shoulders of the President and his party, who during six years of essentially unopposed control of government, failed to reach any acceptable compromise. But, there have also been divisions within the Democratic Party that have helped stall the effort.

While stating a uniform policy of supporting "comprehensive reform", exactly what constitutes such reform can differ greatly within the Democratic Party.

The three core components of comprehensive reform presented thus far; Enforcement, Guest Workers, and A Path to Citizenship, have greatly varying degrees of support, and none appears to be universally accepted in their currently proposed incarnations legislatively. Even within the three major Democratic camps on this issue, which could generally be categorized as the "Immigrant-Rights/ Liberal" wing, the "DLC/Corporate" wing, and the "Lou Dobbs Democrat/Populist" wing, there are divisions. We are in fact nearly as divided as our Republican opponents.

But this need not be the case.

With the intelligent incorporation of some of the policies and ideas already advocated by organized labor, we could craft an immigration policy that would satisfy the needs of US workers, while still allowing for a reasonable flow of new immigrants wishing to seek a better life.

But there is division even among the leaders of the nations largest unions on this issue. So which policies and proposals would work best to unify the Democratic Party might not at first appear clear.

About two years ago, the country's labor unions split into two: a coalition of unions with millions of union members bolted from the ranks of the old AFL-CIO, and formed the Change to Win coalition.

The AFL-CIO that remained was about a third smaller than its former self.

This has had important consequences for immigration, particularly the Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CIR) battle currently underway on Capitol Hill, here's why. Historically, the largest organized opposition to immigration in the US was big labor. This was true in the late 1800s, and remained true through almost all of the 1900s. The switch of the unions from the "anti" side to the "pro" side in the late 1990s was thus a momentous change and was spear-headed within the old AFL-CIO by the leaders of the unions that have since bolted to form the Change to Win coalition.
Link

The split has left a division in labor on the issue of immigration reform. The SEIU and UNITE HERE (members of the Change to Win coalition) are part of the Coalition for Comprehensive Immigration Reform, the coalition of immigrant-rights groups, labor, and human rights advocates pushing for immigration reform. Many Win to Change unions also support guest worker programs as a means to allow new immigration and hopefully fill their ranks with new members - the AFL-CIO on the other hand holds some different views. There is good reason why.

Generalizing a bit broadly, the Change to Win coalition unions largely organize occupations that cannot be globalized easily (e.g. waiters, hotel staff, laundry workers), while the new AFL- CIO unions largely organize occupations that are subject to strong global competition (e.g. steel workers, auto workers). Put another way, while we can import a car from Japan, dirty dishes cannot be sent to Mexico to be cleaned.
Link

This leaves the AFL-CIO playing a more traditional role in its attempts to protect American workers and jobs.

The fact that labor is divided between the "liberal" policies of the Win for Change camp and the more "conservative" policies of the AFL-CIO, is in fact a very good thing. Since no immigration policy can ever be crafted without the support the American people, and particularly American workers, the positions of the AFL-CIO might gain wider acceptance with American workers and help diffuse some of the more hysterical rhetoric that comes from the Republican right.

It is no small wonder that the self-described spokesmen for American's working men and women such as Lou Dobbs or, Bill O'Liely never interview representatives from labor on the issue of immigration reform.

For all their faux-populism and wanna-be workingman bravado, the loudest opponents of immigration reform hold views quite far from the mainstream of the American labor movement. As much as Lou Dobbs wrings his hands and sighs at the sorry state of our "broken borders" or the thought of comprehensive reform, his head would explode if he were to spend ten minutes listening to AFL-CIO President John Sweeney speak on the issue….Sweeney just makes too much sense for Dobbs. His ideas and policies are well thought out and practical … something that surely can't be said for Dobb's bloviating rants.

This week Sweeney spoke out in the LA Times on immigration reform in general and proposals to initiate a new guest worker program specifically.

In a joint editorial with Pablo Alvarado, executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, Sweeney voiced his opposition to guest worker programs such as those favored by President Bush and instead believes that any immigrant admitted to work in the US should be put on an immediate track towards permanent residency or citizenship.

He went on to say that foreign workers should enjoy the same rights and protections as US workers, including the right to unionize and to collective bargaining. "Labor laws must protect all workers, regardless of immigration status. If we leave undocumented workers without any real way to enforce labor laws, as our laws do now, we are feeding employers' hunger for more and more exploitable workers, relegating them to second-class status. That hurts all workers."

On a guest worker program::

(It) will assure a steady flow of cheap labor from essentially indentured workers too afraid of being deported to protest substandard wages, chiseled benefits and unsafe working conditions.

Such a system will create a disenfranchised underclass of workers. That is not only morally indefensible, it is economically nonsensical. We’ve had plenty of bad experiences with such shortsighted answers to a complicated problem..

."The solution to the immigration crisis will require a new approach," Sweeney said. " First, everyone who is admitted to work must immediately be on a track toward permanent residency or citizenship."
Sweeney went on to list other key reforms:

• Employers who can prove that they tried and failed to find U.S. workers should be able to hire foreign workers, but not under abusive conditions that have a negative effect on the wages and working conditions.


• Caps on the number of employment-based visas issued each year should be set by the U.S. Department of Labor based on economic indicators that establish the needs of particular industries, not by political compromise.


• Employers should not be allowed to recruit abroad, a practice that invites bribes, exorbitant fees and potential abuse. Instead, employers should be required to hire from applications filed by workers in their home countries through a computerized job bank.


• Foreign workers should enjoy the same rights and protections as U.S. workers, including freedom to form unions and bargain for a better life.

The guidelines Sweeney laid out this week pretty much match those first put forward last year in the unions Executive Council statement on immigration reform.

Responsible Reform of Immigration Laws Must Protect Working Conditions for all Workers in the U.S.

Uniform enforcement of workplace standards must be a priority.
(The) exploitation of workers will continue as long, as it makes economic sense to do so, to the detriment of U.S.-born and foreign-born workers alike. Unfortunately, the lax enforcement of labor and employment laws has given too many unscrupulous employers the economic incentive to recruit undocumented workers…

The only meaningful way to remove that perverse economic incentive and to equalize the competitive playing field is to ensure that all those who gain the benefit of a worker’s labor, … abide by all labor and employment laws. That means that the immigration reform law must provide real and enforceable remedies for labor and employment law violations that are available to all workers, regardless of their immigration status…

Reforms must provide a path to permanent residency for the currently undocumented workers who have paid taxes and made positive contributions to their communities.
Legalization is an important worker protection. History shows that legalizing this population benefits all workers. … Without a legalization program, the economic incentive to hire and exploit the undocumented will remain, to the detriment of U.S. workers who labor in the same industries as the undocumented, because all workers will see their working conditions plummet.

We must reverse the trend of allowing employers to turn permanent, full-time year-round jobs into temporary jobs through attempts to broaden the size and scope of guestworker programs.
…Guestworker programs are bad public policy and operate to the detriment of workers, in the both the public and private sector, and of working families in the U.S. The abuses suffered by workers in the first such program, the post World-War II Bracero program, are well documented. The negative effects of the modern versions of the “guestworker” construct—such as the H1-B and H2-B programs—are all too evident today. Workers around the country are witnessing the transformation of formerly well-paying, permanent jobs into temporary jobs with little or no benefits, which employers are staffing with vulnerable foreign workers who have no real enforceable rights through the guestworker programs. These modern programs have had a major and substantial detrimental effect on important sectors of our economy.


In our view, there is no good reason why any immigrant who comes to this country prepared to work, to pay taxes, and to abide by our laws and rules should be denied what has been offered to immigrants throughout our country’s history, a path to legal citizenship. To embrace instead the creation of a permanent two-tier workforce, with non-U.S. workers relegated to second-class “guestworker” status, would be repugnant to our traditions and our ideals and disastrous for the living standards of working families.

Long-Term Labor Shortages Should be Filled With Workers with Full Rights
We recognize that our economy may face real labor shortages in the coming years, as the baby boomer generation retires. Instead of relying on a construct that guarantees the deterioration of working conditions in the U.S., we should focus on a meaningful solution that guarantees full workplace rights for all workers, both foreign-born and native, and also permits employers to hire foreign workers to fill proven labor shortages. The solution is simple: Congress should revise the permanent employment-based visas system and devote more resources to removing processing delays.

Employment-based admissions for permanent visas (commonly known as “green cards”) are subject to labor certification provisions…(and Congress has arbitrarily set the number of these visas at 140,000 annually. That approach should be changed so that the number of visas available responds to actual, demonstrated labor shortages, which will satisfy employers’ needs for workers, and will prevent the creation of a secondary class of workers and residents, because the new foreign workers will have full employment rights and the promise of a permanent future in our democracy.

Reform of immigration laws must consider the root causes of migration, and must take into account the global economic policies, as well as U.S. foreign policy that are pushing workers to migrate
Without rising living standards abroad for workers and the poor, the pressure for illegal immigration will continue. U.S. foreign policy, as well as trade and globalization policies, must be grounded upon a coherent national economic strategy, as described in An Economic Agenda for Working Families, adopted at the AFL-CIO’s 2005 Convention.

So in essence the AFL-CIO is already advocating positions on which the vast majority of Democrats could agree. They protect workers, both immigrant and native born, and set guidelines for future immigration that will not be exploitive.

• No guest workers


• Uniform enforcement of all workplace labor regulations


• A path to legalization for those already here


• Revise the green card system and devote more resources to removing processing delays


• All new entries come in on green cards, with a path to citizenship


• New caps on green cards set by DOL, economic conditions, and industry needs, not congress or political compromise


• No recruiting of foreign workers or use of brokers, but rather a computerized job bank


• Address the global economic policies, as well as U.S. foreign policy that cause migration

Ironically, these proposals would end up being easier to enforce and less costly to enact than the ones already being debated in congress. They contain no convoluted and complicated procedures to deal with the current undocumented population or future entrants. No "touchbacks", temporary status, fines, or waiting periods. It’s a plain and simple plan. Figure out exactly how many jobs you really have and workers you need, then let them in legally with green cards as full members of society.

With some refinement and tweaking they could easily become the groundwork for a unified Democratic position on immigration reform and eventually meaningful comprehensive reform .

In fact some of the framework for the more difficult areas of the legislation already exists in the current legislation.

For example in TitleIV, sec 410 of the Gutierrez -Flake bill there is a call for a bipartisan "Standing Commission on Immigration and Labor Markets." A separate agency to be set up within the executive branch, made up experts in "economics, demography, labor, business, or immigration who cannot be employees of the Federal Government or of any State or local government" and are charged with making recommendations on the annual levels of immigration. Although obviously a throw-away section in the bill, that gives the commission little more than an advisory powers, with modification, and some teeth, this commission could become a powerful regulatory agency to work with the DOJ in setting immigration levels going forward. This would take the process out of the hands of politicians and their business allies. If the proper levels of future immigration could be determined through economic guidelines that protected American workers while still supplying opportunity to those abroad, it would go a long way towards eliminating many of our current immigration problems.

Acceptance of these compromise positions by the "Immigrant-Rights/ Liberal" wing, and the "Lou Dobbs Democrat/Populist" wing of the party would allow for legalization, future regulated immigration, workplace enforcement, and an end to exploitive guest worker programs and labor recruiting practices.

Although not a complete answer to all the issues to be dealt with concerning immigration reform…they're acceptance as policy would leave us a lot better off than we are right now as a Party…and in far better shape than our Republican opponents.


tags: immigration, AFL-CIO , guest worker, amnesty, labor unions

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AFL-CIO leader speaks out on immigration reform

AFL-CIO President, John J Sweeney spoke out Tuesday in the LA Times on immigration reform and proposals to initiate a new guest worker program. In a joint editorial with Pablo Alvarado, executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, Sweeney voiced his opposition to guest worker programs such as those favored by President Bush and instead believes that any immigrant admitted to work in the US should be put on an immediate track towards permanent residency or citizenship.

He went on to say that foreign workers should enjoy the same rights and protections as US workers, including the right to unionize and to collective bargaining. "Labor laws must protect all workers, regardless of immigration status. If we leave undocumented workers without any real way to enforce labor laws, as our laws do now, we are feeding employers' hunger for more and more exploitable workers, relegating them to second-class status. That hurts all workers."

Guest Workers: A Worn-Out Labor Idea
Such programs are bad for immigrants and hurt U.S. workers as well.
By John J. Sweeney and Pablo Alvarado

CORPORATE America has made an expanded guest worker program the cornerstone of its preferred brand of immigration reform, and no wonder: It will assure a steady flow of cheap labor from essentially indentured workers too afraid of being deported to protest substandard wages, chiseled benefits and unsafe working conditions.

Such a system will create a disenfranchised underclass of workers. That is not only morally indefensible, it is economically nonsensical. We've had plenty of bad experiences with such shortsighted answers to a complicated problem.

The notorious bracero program all but enslaved immigrant agricultural and railroad workers in the years after World War II. Today we have H-2A and H-2B visa programs to remind us that "temporary" immigration employment models rest on a faulty foundation.

The H-2 programs bring in agricultural and other seasonal workers to pick crops, do construction and work in the seafood industry, among other jobs. Workers typically borrow large amounts of money to pay travel expenses, fees and sometimes bribes to recruiters. That means that before they even begin to work, they are indebted. They leave their families at home, and they are essentially "bound" to employers who can send them home on a whim and who do not have to prove a need to hire them in the first place.

According to a new study published by the Southern Poverty Law Center, it is not unusual for a Guatemalan worker to pay more than $2,500 in fees to obtain a seasonal guest worker position, about a year's worth of income in Guatemala. And Thai workers have been known to pay as much as $10,000 for the chance to harvest crops in the orchards of the Pacific Northwest. Interest rates on the loans are sometimes as high as 20% a month. Homes and vehicles are required collateral. Handcuffed by their debt, the "guests" are forced to remain and work for employers even when their pay and working conditions are second-rate, hazardous or abusive. Hungry children inevitably checkmate protest.

Technically, these programs include some legal protections, but in reality, those protections exist mostly on paper. Government enforcement is almost nonexistent. Private attorneys refuse to take cases. And guest workers, especially the poorest, the least educated and those with the least English, end up with no choice but to put their heads down and toil, innocently undermining employment standards for all U.S. workers in the process.

This doesn't mean that there is no solution to the immigration crisis or no good way to deal with workers and families who will want to come — and who we will need to come — to the United States to work.

In 1997, the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform validated our belief that a "properly regulated system of permanent admissions serves the national interest" and warned that another temporary-worker program would be a "grievous mistake." This means that everyone who is admitted to work must immediately be on a track toward permanent residency or citizenship.

Yes, employers who can prove that they tried and failed to find U.S. workers should be able to hire foreign workers. But no, they shouldn't be able to bring them in under abusive conditions that have a negative effect on the wages and working conditions of other workers.

Yes, we should have caps set to limit the number of employment-based visas issued each year. But no, they should not be determined, as the H-2 quotas are now, by political compromise or industry lobbying. The number of employment-based visas should be set each year by the Department of Labor based on macro-economic indicators that establish the needs of particular industries.

Employers should not be allowed to recruit abroad, a practice that invites bribes, exorbitant fees and potential abuse. Instead, employers should be required to hire from applications filed by workers in their home countries through a computerized job bank.

Foreign workers should enjoy the same rights and protections as U.S. workers, including freedom to form unions and bargain for a better life. Labor laws must protect all workers, regardless of immigration status. If we leave undocumented workers without any real way to enforce labor laws, as our laws do now, we are feeding employers' hunger for more and more exploitable workers, relegating them to second-class status. That hurts all workers.

Scholars have long recognized that the genius of U.S. immigration policy throughout our history has been the opportunity afforded to immigrants for full membership in society. That is the solid foundation on which a morally and economically sound policy can be built, and it is the foundation we are working together to build.
LA Times

Related:
AFL-CIO Blog


tags: immigration, AFO-CIO , John J Sweeney, Guest worker

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Immigration News Roundup: Feb 12 - Feb 18

This week features some news that’s current and some that re-examines policies of the past. Recently released documents showed that restrictive immigration policies during WWII prevented the most famous victim of the Holocaust from migrating to the US. Refugees from Regan era policies in Central America now face new immigrations restrictions. We look at some immigrant meatpackers who are fighting to unionize and examine the effects of last December's meatpacking raids. Speaking for raids …there was a bunch of them this week.

• Anne Frank Was Turned Away by American Immigration Restrictions


• US Shifts Policy towards Cold War Refugees from Central America


• Immigrant Workers Fight to Unionize Tyson Plant


• Two Months after Swift Raids Families Still Struggling


• Raids this Week throughout the Country

Anne Frank Was Turned Away by American Immigration Restrictions

Anne Frank’s family tried to escape the Nazis by immigrating to America — but they were turned away.

This extraordinary new chapter in the teenager’s tragic saga was made public on Wednesday, when the YIVO Institute for Jewish Studies in New York City released eighty newly discovered documents from the correspondence of Anne’s father, Otto Frank. They detail his efforts, in 1941, to gain permission to bring his family to the United States.

At the time of the correspondence, the Franks were living in exile in Holland, having fled their native Germany after Hitler’s rise to power. By 1939, with anti-Semitism spreading throughout Europe, the Franks began thinking about how to get to America. Otto Frank had already lived in the United States from 1909 to 1911, working as an intern at Macy’s Department Store in New York City.

But by 1939, it was a different America. After World War I, in response to the public’s intense anti-foreigner sentiment, Congress had enacted restrictive immigration quotas. The quota system was structured to reduce "undesirable" immigrants, especially Italians and Jews.

…snip…

The new annual quota for Germany and Austria allowed a maximum of 27,370 immigrants — far fewer than the hundreds of thousands of German and Austrian Jews searching for haven from Hitler.

Remarkably, even those meager quota allotments were almost always under-filled. American consular officials abroad were directed by Assistant Secretary of State Breckinridge Long to "postpone and postpone and postpone the granting of the visas" to refugees.

…snip…

In May 1940, the Germans conquered and occupied the Netherlands. Emigration was forbidden, and the Franks’ hopes of going to America appeared to be dashed.

But they didn’t give up. In 1941, Otto Frank began writing to his American relatives, and to U.S. officials, in the hope of securing permission to immigrate. The details of his efforts are disclosed in the YIVO correspondence. What we already knew, however, is that at the same time the Franks were seeking shelter in America, State Department officials were seeking new ways to shut the nation’s doors even tighter.

In the summer of 1941, Breckinridge Long implemented new procedures to further reduce the number of immigrants. His actions had the full backing of President Roosevelt

…snip…

We need to teach our children why America cast aside its proud tradition of welcoming "the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free" and closed its doors. Only then can we hope that such moral failures are not repeated by the next generation
NJ Jewish Standard "Why America closed its doors to Anne Frank", Feb. 15, 2007

Related:
Daily Telegraph (UK)
New York Times
Time

US Shifts Policy towards Cold War Refugees from Central America

Immigrants from El Salvador and Guatemala have complained that the U.S. government may be targeting them for deportation -- despite a lingering Cold War legacy of problems in their countries.

Herman Martinez fled when right-wing death squads targeted him and many other leftists in El Salvador.

He sneaked into the United States in August 1980, and remained undetected until immigration agents detained him at a Homestead tomato farm in May 1985 and placed him in deportation proceedings. Martinez asked for asylum, but immigration authorities did not believe his story and pressured him to voluntarily return home.

''I refused,'' said Martinez, who eventually stayed under a 1986 U.S. amnesty law. ``Had I been sent back, they would have killed me right at the airport, on arrival.''

…Martinez, 47, was among tens of thousands of Salvadorans who in the 1980s were discouraged from seeking asylum. That practice ended in 1988 when a Los Angeles federal judge issued an injunction ordering immigration authorities to advise Salvadoran immigrants about their right to seek asylum.

The Orantes Injunction is now under official attack. The Department of Homeland Security is pressing a federal court in Los Angeles to lift it -- and for Congress to prohibit similar future injunctions.

…snip…

Also, activists who represent Guatemalan immigrants say asylum officers from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services have begun to systematically deny thousands of asylum claims from Guatemalans who fled in the 1990s, arguing that normalcy has returned to Guatemala since the 1996 peace accords.

Meanwhile, other immigrants from El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua are growing increasingly fearful about possible deportation if the Bush administration does not renew their temporary work and residence permits -- which expire later this year.

More than half a million Central American immigrants could face deportation proceedings if temporary protected status ends, the Orantes Injunction is lifted and most Guatemalan asylum claims fail.

Miami Herald"Policy shift may speed up deportations", Feb. 12, 2007

Immigrant Workers Fight to Unionize Tyson Plant

Each day 150 semitrailers loaded with cattle arrive at Tyson Food Inc.'s Holcomb plant for slaughter. Each day workers here butcher 5,700 head of cattle.

And each day at least one meatpacker at the plant gets hurt on the job.

…snip…

For years, the 3,100 workers who toil here have accepted injuries as a risk of working in one of the nation's most hazardous occupations. Now they are seizing upon those injuries to buck a trend of low union participation that grew as the nation's meatpacking industry consolidated and drew more immigrant labor.

…snip…

Adopting farm labor organizer Cesar Chavez's rallying cry: "Yes, we can," immigrant workers have now taken on behemoth Tyson. On March 1, workers will vote on whether to unionize under the United Steelworkers union. If they succeed, the union would represent 2,450 workers in Tyson's Holcomb plant, about 80 percent of whom are Hispanic.

The workers face a formidable opponent. Tyson is the world's largest processor of chicken, beef and pork — employing 114,000 people at 300 plants around the globe. Human Rights Watch reports that about 30,000 employees in 33 Tyson facilities are represented by unions.

Union membership and wages in the nation's meatpacking industry plummeted in the 1980s amid plant closings, lengthy strikes and deunionization struggles, according to a study by the Agriculture Department's Economic Research Service. Union rolls had remained stable through the 1970s, but fell from 46 percent of workers in 1980 in 1980 to 21 percent in 1987, and has stayed at those lower levels.

Declining unionization coincided with changes in the slaughter plants' demographics, with immigrants from Southeast Asia, Mexico and Central America making up larger shares of the work force, the study found. The frequent movement of immigrant workers limited union opportunities to organize.

The Holcomb workers hope bringing in the union will help slow the production line to ease repetitive strain injuries, while getting them better health and retirement benefits.

Workers last year reported 452 job injuries at the plant, in addition to a man who died in December after getting hit in the head by a large metal door, Occupational Safety and Health Administration logs show. While the reported injury rate at the Holcomb plant was higher than national averages, the company contended the number of serious injuries was far lower.

Nationwide, about 47,500 workers in the animal slaughter and processing industry were hurt in 2005 while on the job.

Houston Chronical "Immigrant workers take on giant Tyson in bid for union", Feb. 14, 2007

Two Months after Swift Raids Families Still Struggling

In Minnesota, US born children still try to cope with the loss of their immigrant parents. Teenagers care for their younger siblings until arrangement can be made, and mixed status families try to figure out how best to reunite.

Two months after the immigration raid in Worthington, families remain split and the nation's immigration "system" is still broken.

One mother was reunited with her baby. One father was released from jail to undergo the testing that might make it possible for him to donate a kidney to his (U.S. citizen) son. But most of the rest of the 230 families whose fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters were arrested in Worthington on Dec. 12 are gone.

Many have been shipped out of the country. Most of the rest are still in custody, far from Worthington and far from Minnesota.

…snip…

- The thirteen-year-old girl, left without parents when her mother was shipped to Mexico and her father disappeared. Days later, he was found in detention in Atlanta.
- The twelve- and thirteen-year-old U.S. citizen children, the only safe members of their families, who had to look for missing relatives, shop for groceries, seek help.
- The parents, trying to get passports for their U.S. citizen children, so they could take their sons and daughters away from the towns where they were born and raised and go to school to return to a "homeland" that offers no opportunity for parents or children.

Workdat Minnesota"Two months after Worthington raid, families still struggling to cope", Feb 15, 2007

Raids this Week throughout the Country

Herndon immigration raid nets 11 Fairfax County Times, VA

Immigration Agents Conducting Raids In S.F. CBS5, San Francisco CA

Immigration agents detain 51 in Auburn, WA., raid The Colombian, WA

Authorities say they arrested 48 illegal immigrants Charlotte Observer, SC

19 suspected illegal immigrants arrested in Peach Macon Telegraph, GA

17 Illegal Immigrants Arrested In Wheeling The Intelligencer WV

46 Illegal Immigrants, 9 Smugglers Found and Arrested in Locked House FOX, Houston TX

tags: immigration, labor unions , refugess, immigration raids

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Evidence mounts of ICE ties to union busting

There is mounting evidence that the recent spate of immigration raids might have more far reaching implications than originally thought. Appearing at first to be the result of increased pressure from the right to take a tougher stance on illegal employers, growing evidence suggests that the raids are instead being used by businesses to help them fight union organizers.

Questions first came up after the December 12th raids on the Swift&Co. plants following management's cooperation in ICE's Basic Pilot program to screen for undocumented immigrants.

Things were further complicated later that month when statements made by ICE chief, Julie Meyers, at a Chicago immigration symposium hinting at a new policy cracking down on unions were revealed. Speaking before the University of Chicago Legal Forum, Meyers stated that due to unions increasingly providing representation to undocumented workers, ICE would "need to look at" unions' possible violations of the boundary between "charitable assistance and the unlawful employment of aliens."

Any question of collusion between employers and ICE were put to rest this week with the revelation of a new program called IMAGE that has allowed employers to essentially use ICE as modern day Pinkertons in union disputes.

tags: immigration, immigartion raids , unions, Smithfeild

Over the past seven months, Bush administration officials have quietly toured the country, trying to persuade businesses that rely heavily on immigrant labor to join a little-known program that would spare them from embarrassing federal raids if they voluntarily handed over their workers' documents so the government can scan them for fraudulent information.

Officials at the Department of Homeland Security have asked companies to join the ICE Mutual Agreement Between Government and Employers program, known as IMAGE, operated by the department's Immigrations and Customs Enforcement division. It calls on businesses to submit all I-9 employee eligibility verification forms to ICE for an audit and to "ensure the accuracy of their wage reporting" by verifying workers' Social Security numbers, according to a description of the program
…

"The upside for those who . . . participate is that they're better equipped to know whether their workforce is legal, and ICE is less likely to be on their doorstep unexpectedly, interfering with their business," said Matthew Allen, acting deputy assistant director for infrastructure and fraud in the agency's investigations division.
…

Allen would not disclose the names of companies recruited into IMAGE, saying only that dozens have taken the steps toward enrollment.

One business, Smithfield Packing Co., which operates the world's largest hog slaughterhouse, in Tar Heel, N.C., has participated since June, with dramatic results. Twenty-one workers at the plant were arrested last week after the government scrutinized forms submitted by the company.

ICE alerted Smithfield by e-mail of discrepancies in employees' records. A company spokesman said 541 workers in the plant's workforce of 5,000 are facing termination because of discrepancies on their job applications. Nearly half of Smithfield's labor pool is Latino.

…

(Company spokesman Dennis) Pittman called Smithfield's agreement with ICE "a business decision" resulting from an implied threat. "We knew raids could be a possibility," he said. "We felt going this way, there would be less of an effect."

But Smithfield received an added benefit from cooperating with the government, according to the union that is helping its workers organize. Union officials say the company submitted the names of organizers as a tactic to intimidate some workers and get rid of others. The officials note that the National Labor Relations Board has found that Smithfield worked to undermine union elections by intimidating employees in 1994 and 1997.

"Most of the leaders of a walkout in November are on their list," said Leila McDowell, a spokeswoman for the United Food and Commercial Workers. "Whether ICE is consciously in collusion or not, Smithfield could very easily manipulate the process and can use it as a tool to intimidate and threaten workers, which it has done in the past and been found to have done so illegally."

Washington Post

Smithfeild's Tar Heel plant has a long and troubled history when it comes union organizing.

Twice in the last dozen years, the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) mounted union-organizing drives at Tar Heel. Twice, when the workers voted, the union lost. The second election, held in 1997, was a whopping 2-to-1 loss for the UFCW.

But seven years later, when it finally addressed the union's appeal, the NLRB found that Smithfield had systematically harassed pro-union employees while openly favoring anti-union workers; it also threatened in forced-attendance meetings to cut wages or even close the plant if the union won. All of which is illegal.

In addition, the NLRB said, in the run-up to the election the police presence both inside the plant and outside (thanks to the Bladen Sheriff's office) was deliberately suffocating to the organizers and designed to intimidate those workers--immigrants especially--who might be thinking about voting pro-union.

Then, just after the votes were tallied, the NLRB found, the Smithfield cops helped mug two union activists, dragged them out of the plant in handcuffs and arrested them on phony charges that were later dropped for lack of evidence. The two won damages of $755,000 from Priest and Smithfield in a civil jury trial; their award, however, was overturned on legal technicalities by a Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals panel.

The NLRB ordered a new election, and though Smithfield's appealing its ruling in the courts, and in particular the part that says the election must be held somewhere other than the plant, the UFCW's already begun a third organizing drive.

Raleigh.Durham Independent, July 20, 2005

Smithfield lost the appeal in May of last year, just one month before signing on to the government's new IMAGE program

Gene Bruskin, an organizer for the union, said the company had started to cooperate closely with immigration authorities after a walkout by immigrant workers last summer. “My concern is the company is using the immigration issue to manipulate this long fight over workers’ rights,” Mr. Bruskin said.

Tension over the workers’ immigration status has been running high at the plant since November, when more than 500 employees stayed away for two days after the company fired about 50 workers it said had used false Social Security numbers when they were hired. The walkout was unusual for a nonunion plant.

NYT

The union claims that the company is using the raids as a precursor to a larger action where they will be firing all of the workers who walked out last November regardless of immigration status .

The statement from the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) says, in part: The arrests of the 21 Smithfield workers by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) comes on the heels of the company announcement that it will fire up to 600 people next month, primarily those who walked out in protest last November over the firings of fellow employees allegedly for receiving social security no match letters.”

The union says the arrests “may also be in violation of ICE's own instructions which preclude the agency from facilitating the use of immigration laws of enforcement to intervene in the course of a labor dispute.”

Meatnews

The timing of this newest round of raids is not lost on immigration reform advocates and the labor activists. Particularly those like the UFCW who support the legalization of the 12 million undocumented immigrants already living and working in the country, but oppose President Bush's plan for a temporary worker program. The government has a long history of using increased enforcement as a method to garner political support for immigration reform measures.

ICE's pressure campaign recalls the history of immigration enforcement during previous periods when anti-immigration bills were debated the U.S. Congress, as they were this year.

Before 1986, the then-Immigration and Naturalization Service conducted months of high-profile workplace raids, called Operation Jobs. INS used the raids to produce public support for the employer sanctions provision later written into the 1986 immigration law.

In 1998, the INS mounted a huge enforcement action in Nebraska, also targeting meatpacking workers, called Operation Vanguard. Mark Reed, then INS District Director in Dallas, was open about its purpose -- to get industry and Congress to support new bracero-type contract labor programs. "That's where we're going," he said in an interview at the time. “We depend on foreign labor. If we don't have illegal immigration anymore, we'll have the political support for guest workers."

Today, ICE and the Bush administration also have an immigration program they want Congress to approve. Once again they want new guest-worker schemes, along with increased enforcement of employer sanctions.

"Justice Deported", American Prospect.

This present case seems to be an attempt to send even a stronger message. Either unions like the UFCW get on board with Bush's guest worker program, or not only will they be targeted …the government appears to be more than willing to do the employers dirty work and help break them.

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New questions raised about ICE raids and union busting.

In the wake of last months Swift&Co raids, serious questions were raised about the motivations behind the crackdowns. Within days, there was speculation that the raids were used as a method to target unions that represent and organize undocumented workers. David Bacon in the American Prospect wrote, "The real motivation for these immigration raids is more cynical. The Swift action follows months of ICE pressuring employers to fire workers whose Social Security numbers don't match the agency's database. These no-match actions have been concentrated in workplaces where immigrants are organizing unions or standing up for their rights."

A recently released statement made more than a month before the Swift raid by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement assistant secretary, Julie Myers, now appears to confirm that early speculation.


tags: immigration, immigration raids , Julie Myers, union busting

On October 27, 2006 the University of Chicago Legal Forum held its annual symposium. Over two days, 70 law professors, students, and immigration attorneys gathered at Chicago’s Laird Bell Law Quadrangle, to discuss this year's topic; immigration law and policy.

…the lawyers assembled in the mock courtroom were eager to hear what the conference's keynote speaker would have to say about it all. She was ICE's chief administrator, Julie Myers.

"In order to have a better America," Myers pronounced, ICE was busy catching undocumented immigrants before they could commit "criminal and in some cases even terrorist acts." She praised Alabama's introduction of law-enforcement officers into the process of applying for driver's licenses in that state and excoriated "sanctuary cities" like Houston and Chicago. Her prosecutorial mien surprised no one.

Then came something startling. As labor unions increasingly provide representation for undocumented workers, she said, "we need to look at" unions' violations of the boundary between "charitable assistance and the unlawful employment of aliens." Several lawyers were soon on the phone with labor officials trying to figure out what she meant. Is an ICE crackdown on labor organizing drives imminent? Was one already under way? Were unions harboring undocumented immigrants in violation of the law?

ICE spokesman Dean Boyd seemed a bit taken aback when reached by The Nation for clarification. "There is a fine line between organizing individuals, um, which is perfectly legal; however, once you cross that line where you might be involved in knowingly hiring illegal aliens, that's a problem." … "Let's say there's a bunch of new employees, and some of them are illegal and the union organizer is an employee of the same company and is advising them, I don't know, on how to, for example, where they can get better fake documents," he fantasizes. "Or, 'I know your status. Here's a place where you can stay where law enforcement can't check.'"

The Nation

The 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) placed penalties on employers who knowingly hire undocumented workers, but specifically exempted unions from any liability in order to allow them to organize and represent workers. Yet, even this exemption has not been enough to protect workers rights according to Michael Wishnie, a clinical professor at Yale Law who also addressed the symposium. Wishnie called for an end to all employer sanctions, on the grounds that they only foster a system that has kept the unions from protecting their members.

The sanctions, Wishnie argued, have achieved the opposite of their intentions: they “grant to employers terrifying power.”

Employers are required to keep employees’ immigration status on file, information that becomes a handy club to use against labor organizers in the event of an ICE raid. Wishnie did a quick survey of such raids: 54 percent occurred at companies in the middle of active labor disputes—employers blowing the whistle on their employees to break unions or dampen unionizing impulses. Usually they don’t need to actually blow the whistle: employers can maintain a “union-free, OSHA–free, and Title VII–free workplace” with the help of a ready file of blackmail material the government requires them to compile.

Indeed, Wishnie noted, the legislation has created a “perverse incentive” to hire illegals, in turn creating a whole category of bottom-feeding businesses to subcontract illegals to employers.

University of Chicago Magazine, Jan-Feb 2007

According to Jennifer Chacón of the ImmigrationProf Blog, who was at the University of Chicago law school event:

Now Julie Myers' remarks suggest that ICE may be thinking about a strategy that would further strengthen the hand of the most unscrupulous employers of undocumented workers at the expense of unions. But union-busting is not a good way to prevent undocumented migration. It is a good way to make it even easier than it already is for corner-cutting employers who hire undocumented workers to circumvent wage and labor laws at the expense of all employees -- citizens and noncitizens alike.
link

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Probable cause for immigration stings questioned

The raids on the Swift&Co. plants earlier this month raised a myriad of legal questions about racial profiling, and the rights of those detained to legal representation and due process. Although these raids were high profile and received national attention, similar actions have been taking place on a smaller scale throughout the country all year long that have garnered little attention outside their immediate areas.

For example, since spring, small farmers and orchard owners in western New York have watched as one by one longtime workers have been taken into custody during an increasing number immigration raids. The raids have led to a record 189,924 deportations nationally during the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, up 12 percent from the year before. In Buffalo alone deportations were up 24 percent with a total of 2,186.

This increase in enforcement has led to serious questions about just how ICE and DHS determines who is to be targeted for arrest. The case of one Danbury Connecticut day laborer has led a group of Yale Law School students to inquire into the methods used by immigration officials to determine just how the profiling for undocumented immigrants works.


tags: immigration, ICE Raids , DHS, immigration raids

Stung in the Search for Work
By JOSEPH BERGER
December 31, 2006, New York Times

As he does six mornings a week, he showed up on Sept. 19 outside Kennedy Park and, bracing his cup of coffee, mingled with the other day laborers waiting for job offers from landscapers or contractors. A gray car approached and a driver wearing a hard hat said he needed three fellows to tear down a fence. He offered them $11 an hour. Mr. Barrera and two others squeezed into the car.

Minutes later, in a nearby parking lot, the three laborers stepped out and were seized and handcuffed by a half-dozen men in green jackets. The hard-hatted driver and men in green turned out to be Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

…..

The question hovering over the sting — one that a group of Yale Law School students are asking — is, how did the man in the hard hat know that Mr. Barrera and the others were illegal aliens?

The students, who work in the Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization, a training clinic, filed a Freedom of Information request this month for documents about the arrests. They want to know what “reasonable suspicion” the federal agents had for assuming that the 11 men were illegal aliens. Standing on a street corner while being Hispanic is not enough, the courts have ruled.

True, if you pick out a laborer at random from the Kennedy Park job bazaar, chances are you’ll choose someone who is in this country without a visa. So the federal agents had the odds in their favor, batting 11 for 11 by simply asking who wanted a job.

But is that how this country is supposed to work? The Fourth Amendment protects people against “unreasonable searches and seizures” and requires “probable cause.” The public would be outraged if agents lured a Connecticut Yankee in suit and tie into a car and took him for a drive while checking his credentials. Yes, immigration authorities have an obligation to enforce the law, but, they have to do it in a manner that passes constitutional muster. That would mean that before seizing Mr. Barrera, the authorities would have had to gather evidence that he was here without a visa. “You can’t look at an individual and tell whether they’re documented or undocumented,” said Staci Jonas, a third-year law student at Yale.

The students who filed the Freedom of Information request also want to know what role Danbury officials played in the sting

…..

…Stings are a legitimate, and necessary, tool of law enforcement. But they are usually based on evidence that the person under investigation is likely to commit a crime. When undercover officers buy cocaine, they buy from someone who they know has been seen selling drugs

.

As was seen in the Swift&Co case and similar raids earlier this year in Stillmore Georgia, ICE often casts an extremely broad net when looking for undocumented workers, often taking in both US citizens and legal permanent residents in the process. If linguistic skills and skin pigmentation are to be the sole determining factors in ICE's decision making process as to whom to target, the question must be raised as to what makes their process any different from that of the Minutemen vigilantes who go to work sites looking for undocumented workers.

How do the minutemen propose to determine an immigrant's legal status? According to the group's national training coordinator, they have a simple test. They ask suspected "illegals" a series of simple questions, such as what their favorite food was. If the worker couldn’t answer the questions, Thompson said volunteers should assume the worker is undocumented and report him to his employer or to law enforcement
Link

When the lines between the practices of the federal government and vigilante style "justice" becomes so dim as to make them nearly indistinguishable, it is perhaps time for some serious reevaluation of these government practices.

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A comprehensive look at comprehensive immigration reform.

With the coming election, a new round of debate has opened up on the issue of immigration and immigration reform.

With both parties trying to define their positions on migrant and immigration issues, perhaps it is time to re-examine what needs to be done about this issue and perhaps re-define the goals and terms of the debate. With the emergence of a new growing populism within the progressive ranks, it is important that we not be drawn to solutions and proposals that run contrary to the basic progressive beliefs in human value and dignity.

With that in mind, what follows is a proposal for how to address this issue effectively while still remaining true to the ideals of liberal and progressive thought… a policy paper if you must… but I'd rather think of it as a starting point for meaningful dialogue.

tags: immigration, immigration policy , guest worker,immigration reform

GETTING TO THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEM: COMPREHENSIVE IMMIGRATION REFORM AND WORKING AMERICANS

Introduction

After years of controversy and partisan infighting, we appear today no closer to any meaningful new national immigration policy than we were nearly eight years ago when President Bush first claimed he would make it a priority upon taking office. Much of the blame for this situation clearly rests on the shoulders of the President and his party, who during six years of unopposed control of government, failed to reach any acceptable compromise.

But, there have also been divisions within the Democratic Party that have helped stall the effort. While stating a uniform policy of supporting some sort of "comprehensive reform", exactly what constitutes such reform can differ greatly within the Democratic Party.

Currently undocumented immigrants traverse the borders daily risking their lives, and sometimes losing them, in order to find work and security in the United States. Perhaps upwards to a 500,000 undocumented people each year find a way, whether it be by overstaying a visa, or crossing hundreds of miles deadly desert, to enter this country in hopes of making a better life.

Americans of diferent political stripes seem concerned about this situation, but there is great division on exactly how to solve the problem. Some have advocated a tightening of security and closing of the porous border as a solution. Others have promoted a method to regulate the flow of new immigrants and legitimization the undocumented.

But there is one thing missing in both of these strategies.

Neither contains any analysis of why this problem exists, and more importantly, why at this particular time in our history the current influx of new immigrants is causing such great concern for many Americans.

Neither group seems concerned with root causes.

The number of immigrants has not really changed

Throughout our history we have encountered many waves of immigration. In fact, most Americans can trace our roots back to foreign shores one way or another, albeit for some, not of their own accord. The number of new immigrants who come today, both entering through proper channels and the undocumented, is no greater as a percentage of population than at many other times during our history. From the late-nineteenth century, through the first thirty years of the last, immigrants represented about 14.6% of the total population (1) ; today that number is 12% (2).

Certainly our earlier immigrants were not rich, and most had limited education, but they, like our current crop of immigrants, had the drive and determination to seek out a better life. This influx of new vitality and ambition has been a cornerstone on which the nation was build.

So why today do we find ourselves in the middle of what some would term a crisis?


What is different today then during past immigration waves?

Historically there have always been a number of protectionists who've opposed immigration for xenophobic or racists reason, but generally, as a nation, we have accepted new immigrants, and they have eventually taken their place in the American mosaic. This not to say that the immigrant experience has not been rife with tensions, or that they have always been welcomed with open arms, history proves diferently, but over time each group has found a place. Yet, today many seem to be finding it harder and harder to accept our newest arrivals. Why do so many believe the new immigrants are putting undo pressures on our economy, creating stresses on a tight job market, and stretching already taxed social services and education systems?

Why today do we find it so hard to absorb these new immigrants? Why at a time in our history, when we are still the richest nation in the world despite our current economic difficulties, and are more educated as a population and have a higher standard of living than during past waves of immigration, do many believe that these new immigrants are putting such great stresses on our society? Perhaps we need to look at some of the changes that have taken place over the last twenty-five or so years to find the answer.

THE SYSTEMATIC ASSAULT ON WORKING AND MIDDLE-CLASS AMERICANS

Over the past twenty five years there's been a systematic assault upon the working and middle classes of this nation which now leaves many vulnerable and in a position where they must compete for an ever decreasing pool of resources. At one time, a family could live comfortably on the income of one earner, but today it takes two just to make ends meet. A guaranteed pension for retirement is no longer the norm. A union card no longer guarantees a lifetime of job security. Health insurance costs have become an overwhelming concern for both workers and employers and forty five million Americans in fact go without any. A job with one of the nation's largest companies no longer means yearly raises and increased benefits; in fact it doesn't even guarantee job security. An advanced degree no longer means a career in your chosen field. Today, working and middle class Americans can expect plant closings and layoffs, pay cuts and increased hours, loss of benefits and outsourcing. They can expect economists to talk about "jobless recoveries" and increased productivity. It is no wonder that many working-class Americans are feeling the added stresses of our new modern global economy and are looking for an avenue to vent their frustrations.

Our nation is sick, and the perceived "immigration crisis" is not the cause of this national illness, but just another symptom of it.

Who is responsible for this situation?

The answer is simple ... the economic and social policies of those who claim to be economic conservatives that favor an elite class of the economically privileged over the vast majority of Americans.

Of course, many working class Americans might scoff at this idea. Certainly a philosophy of smaller government, personal responsibility and free-market economics sounds appealing to many, and on face value alone is quite in line with the principles on which our nation was founded. But in practice, what these so called Conservatives have done with this philosophy has been the antithesis of what the founders had in mind. These Conservatives have used this philosophy to consolidate economic and political power in the hands of the few at the expense of the many. They have turned the ideals of fair play and Christian charity upside down and transformed them into grotesque parodies.

They have taken two hundred years of struggle to raise the standard of living for the average American and thrown it to the winds, all in the name of "fiscal responsibility" and "smaller government." All along being neither fiscally responsible nor providing smaller government.

How did they do this?

How did these self-proclaimed Conservatives wage this war on the working and middle class? In a nutshell, with two policies that came to define the Reagan era; deregulation and union busting. They've continued with more failed and flawed policies right up until our present day in alliance with business interests and the economic elite who benefit most from this agenda.

Union Busting

Starting with the firing of the air traffic controllers in 1981, Conservatives have set forth an agenda through legislation and judicial decisions to slowly disassemble the American labor movement. At the time, many Americans supported the idea, feeling that unions had become too powerful, corrupt and greedy, but the results of this policy have had devastating effects on American workers. Conservatives advocating "right to work" legislation under the guise that it allowed workers free choice whether or not to join a union, have in effect allowed employers to guarantee open shops and eventually drive the unions out of many sectors of the US economy. Ever since the eighties the number of union households has been steadily declining from a high of 20.1 % in 1983 to 12.5% in 2005 (3). Today Wal Mart, the nations largest employer, continually fights against the unionization of it's employees using laws and policies put in place by conservative legislators.

At the beckoning of corporate interests, Conservatives have managed to take what was once the bulwark of working class America, the very entity that allowed millions of American workers to move themselves or their children into the middle class, and rendered it powerless.

Deregulation

Under the guise of increased competition and lower prices through free-market forces, Conservatives began a campaign of deregulation. They would no longer allow the government to regulate business, but rather leave it up to the free market. Again, on paper this practice looked reasonable, but under their control we have ended up with the reverse.

Instead of government controlling business, we now have business controlling government.

We have allowed business combinations that rival any of those of the Robber Barons of the late nineteenth century. We have seen regulated monopolies in the energy, telecom, airline and other industries destroyed, only to recombine into unregulated monsters like Enron. We have seen the merger of mega oil companies that are larger than those of Rockefeller's Standard Oil, who make profits that would make King Midis blush, while the average American can't afford to fill up his gas tank.

Globalization and outsourcing

The next logical step after domestic deregulation for Conservatives was globalization and the taking of their idea of the free market economy, without any government regulation, to a global scale. Conservatives passed legislation and trade agreements that allowed huge multinational companies to operate with impunity throughout the world. Believing that free markets, free trade, and the unrestricted flow of capital would produce the greatest social, political and economic good, Conservative policies have left our nation with record trade imbalances (4) and a national debt of over 8 trillion dollars (5) , much of it underwritten by economically rival nations like China (6,7). Hundreds of free trade agreements have been signed that have in many cases had devastating effects not only for US workers, but decimated industries in foreign countries. In Mexico in particular, free trade agreements have destroyed large sections of the agricultural sector (8), leading to increased immigration to the US. They have allowed companies like Halliburton to set up shadow entities on foreign soil to avoid paying taxes.

They've allowed American businesses to sell American jobs to the lowest bidder on the global market all in the name of free market economics.

Rewriting the tax codes and starving the beast

Conservatives often say that the only thing wrong with government is government, and promise to lower taxes, reduce the size of government, and be fiscally responsible. Yet, after years of Conservative leadership we have the largest government in US history, a record federal deficit and a record national debt of more than 8 trillion dollars. The only part of their philosophy they seem to be able to stick too is tax cuts.

They have systematically worked over the last twenty-five years to shift the tax burden from both big business and the top 1% of the nation's wealthiest people and place it on the middle and working class.

They have consistently rewarded corporations and the rich with larger and larger tax breaks. Through cuts in funding to education, health and human services and many other state and local programs they have managed to shift the tax burden down to the local level so that average Americans now pay more in real estate, state and local, use and sales taxes than ever before. They have not given the American people "back their money" as they claim, but rather forced them to just pay more to other government agencies.

The other aspect of the Conservative tax cutting agenda has been to use cuts as a means to, as they term it; "starve the beast". It's been conservative policy to try to assure that social programs for education, childcare, healthcare and the poor are "starved to death" due to the lack of available federal funds.

Their philosophy has resulted in huge benefits for the rich while programs that poor, working and middle class Americans rely on are cut. The best example of this is public education, where Conservatives have consistently cut funding while placing ever more increasing demands upon the system.

Healthcare

Another big concern for average Americans is healthcare and its skyrocketing costs. Conservative deregulation and free market philosophies have influenced this also. While fighting vehemently against any form of a national healthcare program, they have through legislation and governmental agencies, allowed large pharmaceutical manufactures, insurance companies, and healthcare conglomerates to set the agenda.

National health policy has been written by insurance companies and other corporate interests rather than physicians and medical professionals. A policy that has left 45 million Americans without basic health insurance and millions more grossly under-insured and paying a large percentage of medical costs out of pocket

.

But What Does All This Have To Do With Immigration?

These Conservative policies that favor the economic elite have had devastating effects on the working and middle classes, yet in order to remain in power they have tried to shift the blame. Every problem that is claimed to be a result of the "immigration crisis" can be seen to have its roots in Conservative economic and social policies.

Conservatives and power elites have been trying to convince the American people that it is immigrants who have put all the stresses on education, social services and healthcare institutions and that they take jobs from American workers and drive down wages. But it must be understood that while immigrants highlight the problems of working class Americans, they haven't caused them. Those who have caused these problems have played upon race, bigotry and ignorance to further muddy the waters, and distract the American people away from the real reasons for their economic concerns and discontent. History is ripe with examples of scapegoating those not in society's mainstream, and this time it is no different.

All these problems can be seen as direct results of twenty-five years of Conservative policy. This is obvious when you look at the root causes. The Republican controlled Congress for the last ten years has exacerbated the situation by rubber-stamping every Conservative policy that has come down the pike. With each passing year they have taken more and more from working Americans and given it to their corrupt corporate masters. Now there is nothing left, and the American working man and woman knows it.

What can we do?

We, as a nation need to stop letting those who don't have our best interests at heart control the agenda. We must not allow them to divide us along lines of class, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation or gender. We must not allow them to misdirect us or mislead us with appeals to our patriotism or national pride. We must not allow them to fan the flames of racial or ethnic bigotry to distracts us. We must not let them blame the symptoms rather than the disease.

The so called "immigration crisis" is just another symptom of a far greater disease ... the disease of an agenda that favors the rich and big business over average Americans. The influx of new immigrants certainly highlights the problems of the now decimated social programs, education and health care systems, but they did not cause the national illness.

How do we "fix" immigration?

Fixing our broken immigration system will not be easy, and it will be a long hard process. Again just as in the case of working Americans, one key must be to look for the ROOT CAUSES OF THE PROBLEM. We must look at the reasons why millions of people every year risk their lives to come here? What is it about their countries of origin that make them so desperate to leave? Take the the case of Mexico. It's a nation that has the 13th largest economy in the world, ahead of 167 other nations. They also are the second largest recipients of direct investment by US companies in the hemisphere. On top of that Mexico has vast amounts of untapped natural resources and oil reserves that rival those of any Middle Eastern power. So why do so many live in poverty? Why must they come here simply to survive? Could it be precisely because they are the second largest recipients of direct investment by US big business? Could it be because US trade and economic policies have been crafted to favor the business elite and the ruling classes of Mexico, just as they favor them here? Could it be because US policies help perpetuate a system that leaves 55% of the countries wealth in the hands of 20% of its people? These are all things that need to be addressed when looking at the "immigration crisis".

WHAT SHOULD MEANINGFUL IMMIGRATION REFORM LOOK LIKE ?

Despite what many claim, support for some sort of comprehensive immigration reform is not tantamount to calling for "open borders" , unrestricted immigration" or as Lou Dobbs like to claim, "importing half the population of Mexico into the US." While some from the left, and both the Libertarian and Free Trade right, favor open borders and the total unrestricted flow of people, goods and services between nations, most pro-immigration advocates don't. They see our current "immigration problem" as a failure of our system to live up to its historical duty to allow for the reasonable flow of people from all over the world to come to this nation to make a better life, add vitality and diversity to our national mosaic, and join in the great American democratic experiment. The key phrase being: "reasonable flow".

Two economic facts must be taken as givens in any discussion of immigration reform if we are to make any real progress towards meaningful reform:

• 1. We need immigration. Currently there are an estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants living in the US of which 7.5 million are in the workforce, with approximately a million more joining them each year. Additionally, we allow for roughly a million "legal" immigrants to enter each year. 98% of all undocumented immigrants eligible to work (excluding children and stay-at-home mothers of young children), do so, and the US unemployment rate floats around 5% or roughly 7 million people. We need these workers, it's just a fact





• 2. Undocumented immigrants can keep wages artificially low in a few select industries that rely on them for the bulk of their workforce, particularly effecting legal-resident and natuarlaized workers. Employers in these sectors, able to pay undocumented workers less, take advantage of a severely broken immigration system to exploit the most vulnerable members of society. The solution to this problem is not to eliminate the immigrant workforce in order to force wages up due to a lack of needed workers. The solution is to put these workers on a path to legalization in order that employers can no longer exploit them. Numerous studies show that once an immigrant attains legal status his wages and benefits go up and his employer begins to adhere to federal and state workplace regulations. It's a self policing system.

With these two basic premises accepted, it becomes clear what the goal of any rational immigration reform should be: Allow for a reasonable flow of new immigrants and figure out a way to allow them to enter the country legally.

What is a reasonable flow of immigration?

How do we determine what the "reasonable" amount of immigrants to allow each year should be?

For those immigrants admitted for employment reasons, the number should be determined by a floating scale that takes into account the number of available jobs, the current unemployment rate, the number of green cards issued the previously year measured against the number applied for. In other words use simple supply and demand. As long as there is a demand for increased immigration, there must be a legal way meet that demand.

At the present time we have no legal means to supply needed workers, or allow for families to remain intact, hence they are forced to enter the country illegally and live in the shadows.

Obviously we must first raise the quotas to more accurately reflect the realities of what is actually going on.

We must also eliminate the per-country cap that favors smaller nations with fewer immigrant applicants over those countries that have long traditional ties to the US.

We must raise the 5000 maximum cap on unskilled worker green cards issued each year to reflect the true needs of the national labor pool.

We need to ease restrictions on family reunification and rework the diversity "lottery" and refugee policies to better serve the needs of those who face a clear and present danger in their countries of origin.

One possible solution

Perhaps there is a better way to formulate such important and complicated policy. Perhaps we should institute an independent "immigration policy board" that is free of elected officials, made up of experts in immigration, economists, labor and immigrant advocates, that could be charged with the responsibility of formulating certain aspects of immigration policy.

At present it's basically a decision made by politicians.

As we saw during the debates over Comprehensive Immigration Reform, legislators seem to pull numbers out of thin air, check with "business" leaders, take some foreign policy considerations, think about sound bites, spin, and firing up the base, then put it all in a big bowl and mix it up and serve it to the American people as policy.

This is politics as usual, but it doesn't have to be.

There needs to be something set up independent of elected government, something similar to the way the Federal Reserve is set up, and sets interest rates. An independent "immigration policy board", charged with setting the immigration levels and working out policy. They could be the ones to determine how many of each visa class to issue each year or how many green cards etc. rather than our elected officials.

This seems to be a logical alternative to the current system. We do not allow elected officials to set the Fed interest rates because they lack the necessary expertise to do so, and we know they'd set them at 0% in election years, and 30% in off years.

The same should be true with immigration policy. Between pressure from big business, the natural tendency for politicians to pander for votes, and other political calculations, perhaps elected officials are not the best choice for formulating the nuts and bolts of immigration policy.

This policy board's mission would be to gather information, listen to testimony, call in experts, listen to lobbyists, immigrants advocates, etc., then make their recommendations for the following years "quotas". Each year they would then adjust them according to economic conditions, world events, the previous year's successes and/or failures, unemployment rates, etc.

This way the whole affair is taken out of the hands of both the politicians and the business interests that control them.

The AFL-CIO advocates a similar process in theory. They instead have called for all caps on the number of employment-based visas issued each year to be set by the U.S. Department of Labor based on economic indicators that establish the needs of particular industries, not by political compromise.

Once we have determined what reasonable levels of immigration are, then and only then can we begin to look at border security. Once we remove millions of would-be undocumented immigrants from the mix by providing them a legal path to immigration, we can formulate an effective border security plan. To do the reverse, and try to secure the border before reforming the immigration system is like trying to fix a leaky pipe without turning off the water. We need to channel our immigration through legal points of entry, before we can plug the holes in the border.

ADDRESSING THE ROOT CAUSES OF MIGRATION

We need to take a complete and comprehensive approach to immigration reform, and this includes something none of the present legislation accounts for. We need to look at the reasons why millions of people each year are compelled to risk their lives to enter this country illegally. This includes an examination of the effects of US foreign policy and trade policies that have fostered poverty and political upheaval throughout much of the third world.

Why is it that Mexico, a country with the thirteenth largest economy in the world, has large portions of it's population living in abject poverty? How have we allowed US corn exports to decimate local Mexican economies? How come NAFTA and WTO trade restrictions have been allowed to cause of the collapse of the coffee industry throughout much of Central America?

The US has power to do both great good and great harm throughout the third world with its economic and foreign policy decisions and we must start to look at the long term ramifications of these policies. Rather than allowing US business interests to dictate trade and economic policy, we need to view these policies in light of their long term effects on both foreign economies and our own.

Let's look at what globalization has done to both the US and Mexican economies. At first, under NAFTA US companies outsourced American jobs to Mexico where they could find cheaper labor and less government restriction. Over time these jobs have now been outsourced from Mexico to Asia, where even cheaper labor and less government interference can be found. As long as US economic and trade policy is based solely upon the interests of big business, and the exploitation of the current cheapest labor force, this race to the bottom will continue. Until we begin to address the true causes for the mass migration of people who live in abject poverty in countries that have more than enough resources to provide a reasonable lifestyle for its entire population, we will never get a handle on the "immigration problem"

RAISING STANDARDS FOR ALL U.S. WORKERS

Many Democrats, and particularly Progressives, look at increasing the penalties for hiring undocumented workers as a panacea for solving the "immigration crisis". This of course stems from a natural distrust of corporate America by working people ....and rightfully so. Many corporations benefit greatly from our current ineffective immigration system. It allows for abuses and exploitation of workers both immigrant and native–born.

But once again we need to look at ROOT CAUSATION when addressing worker abuse.

The problem with the exploitation of workers is at its core not a problem of lack of enforcement of immigration laws in the workplace, but rather the lack of enforcement of LABOR laws in the workplace. Unfair labor practices, failures to adhere to wage and hour regulations, unsafe working conditions, lack of employee protections, harassment or obstruction of efforts to organize ...these are not immigration problems, but rather labor problems.

In order to raise the standards for all workers, both US-born and immigrant, the labor and employment laws of this country need to be more strictly enforced.

Currently "workplace enforcement" revolves around the government rooting out unauthorized workers and deporting them. The businesses rarely receive any punishments and when they do they quickly pass those costs on to consumers through higher prices as part of the cost of doing business. But the terrible working conditions that have relegated those jobs to ones that only undocumented immigrants will accept remain the same.

This paradigm needs to shift. The government needs to shift its focus from attacking the symptom of unfair labor practices, to attacking those practices themselves.

Instead of swat teams of ICE agents storming factories and meatpacking plants looking for undocumented immigrants, we need armies of inspectors from the Department of Labor, OSHA, and other agencies, looking for labor violations and evidence of unfair labor practices. This is how you raise the standards for all US workers.

Reforming immigration policy to benefit all workers

Allowing for reasonable rates of immigration and the legalization of all current undocumented immigrants would in fact start a process by which all US workers could begin to reverse the thirty-year decline in real wages and benefits. The inclusion of 7.5 million newly legal workers to the workforce would go a long way to stem this tide. This is why the immigrant's rights movements has the support of the largest unions in the country. The Services Workers, Laborers International and the AFL-CIO have all backed comprehensive immigration reform and the legalization of workers already living in the country. They realize that if they could unionize the current immigrants already in the country and add ½ million or so new members each year from new immigrants, they could possibly revitalize the workers movement, and regain much of the power they have been lacking for the past thirty years.

At the polls, these new Americans would have a voice in formulating policies more favorable to working families. Things like universal health care, education, a living wage and an equitable tax code would move to the forefront. This is one reason Bush and his big business buddies are so enthralled with his "guest worker" program. It supplies businesses with workers, while keeping them from unionizing and more importantly eventually voting. The last thing the economic elite want is a larger working class voting block to contend with. This is why they push so had for guest worker progrmas, they want them to enter as temporary workers, to be shipped back home before they can gain political clout. Contrary to what the right-wing would have Americans believe, immigrants are not the enemy of working men and women, but rather natural allies in the struggle for a better life.

CONCLUSION

While this is far from a complete analysis, or comprehensive plan to address all the aspect of this complex issue, it does represent a starting point for understanding what a plan for meaningful immigration reform entails.

• *Formulate a reasonable, humane, fair and practical method for determining the levels of immigration going forward. Perhaps by an independent policy board free from the pressures of political expediency and business interests.



• *Address the root causes of immigration, and change US policy so that it doesn't foster and produce conditions that force millions of people each year to leave their countries of origin in order to simply survive. Tie all future trade, military, and foreign aid agreements to not only worker protections both here and abroad, but also to their ability to foster economic progress for the working class and poor in sender nations.



• *Provide a path to legalization for all current undocumented immigrants living and working in the US.



• *Secure the border by first ensuring that the vast majority of new immigrants have the ability and opportunity to legally enter the country through a legal port of entry. This would curtail the flow of immigration through illegal channels, then work to physically secure the border could take place where necessary. Only after that, interior and workplace enforcement could begin to ensure compliance.




• *Opposition to a "guest worker" program on the grounds that it provides no benefit to the American people or the immigrants themselves. It only provides big business with a disposable work force that holds down real wages and prevents immigrants from becoming a viable force in the workplace or full fledge members of society.



• *Foster an immigration policy that strengthens the middle and working class through unionization and participation in the electoral process.



• *Strict enforcement of all labor and employment laws



• *Modernize and streamline the immigration process and eliminate the backlogs for those already in the queue



• *Recognize that immigration is a vital part of maintaining a healthy and vibrant America. It is what has set this nation apart from all others since its inspection. To close our borders to new immigrants is to cut off the lifeblood that has always made this nation grow and prosper.

This, I believe, is a reasonable starting point to proceed from.

FOOTNOTES


1 "From 1850 to 1930, the foreign-born population of the United States increased from 2.2 million to 14.2 million, reflecting large-scale immigration from Europe during most of this period.1 As a percentage of total population, the foreign-born population rose from 9.7 percent in 1850 and fluctuated in the 13 percent to 15 percent range from 1860 to 1920 before dropping to 11.6 percent in 1930. The highest percentages foreign born were 14.4 percent in 1870, 14.8 percent in 1890 and 14.7 percent in 1910."
US Census Bureau; "Historical Census Statistics on the Foreign-born Population of the United States: 1850-1990"; http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0029/twps0029.html

2 "The Census Bureau estimated that the number of foreign-born people living in the United States topped 33 million and accounted for nearly 12 percent of the population in 2003--its highest share since 1930…. The foreign-born population, as defined by the Census Bureau, refers to all residents of the United States who were not U.S. citizens at birth, regardless of their current legal or citizenship status."
Congressional Budget Office; "A Description of the Immigrant Population", November 2004; http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=6019&sequence=0

3 "In 2005, 12.5 percent of wage and salary workers were union members, un-
changed from 2004, the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics
reported today. The union membership rate has declined from a high of 20.1
percent in 1983, the first year for which comparable union data are available."
US Dept of Labor News, January 20, 2006; http://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm

4 "The U.S. Department of Commerce today reported that the international deficit in goods and services trade reached a record level of $726 billion in 2005, an 18% increase over 2004. The U.S. merchandise deficit alone, which excludes services, was $782 billion, also an 18% increase."
Economic Policy Institute, February 10, 2006, "Rapid growth in oil prices, Chinese imports pump up trade deficit to new record" http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_econindicators_tradepict20060210

5 National debt as of June 21,2006: $8,309,177,355,316.66
National Debt Clock; http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock


6 "The growth of the trade deficit with China, which reached $202 billion in 2005, was responsible for the entire increase in the United States’ non-oil trade deficit. The trade deficit in manufactured products (net of refined petroleum) increased $46 billion, to $655 billion (an 8% increase)."
Economic Policy Institute, February 10, 2006, "Rapid growth in oil prices, Chinese imports pump up trade deficit to new record"; http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_econindicators_tradepict20060210

7 Major foreign holders of US treasury securities as of April 2006; Japan – $639.2 B, China -$323.3 B, UK-$166.8 B
US Dept. of Treasury/ Federal Reserve; http://www.treas.gov/tic/mfh.txt

8 "Mexican farmers say hefty agricultural subsidies in the United States give American white corn and beans an unfair advantage over the Mexican market, which depends in large part on small-scale and mostly subsistence farmers… Mexico's agriculture minister pleaded with Canada and the United States this month to reconsider the removal of the corn and bean tariffs, but U.S. Undersecretary for Agriculture J.B. Penn flatly rejected the appeal."
ABC News, "Mexico Hopeful Takes Hard Line Vs. NAFTA", June 21, 2006; http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=2089345

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