[Blog]

“Oh, you can't scare me, I'm sticking to the union, I'm sticking to the union 'til the day I die.” Union Maid, by Woody Guthrie.

Recently, the AFL-CIO issued a report titled: “Iced Out, How Immigration Enforcement Has Interfered with Workers’ Rights.” The report highlights how focusing solely on immigration enforcement by the government has resulted in unauthorized workers being subjected to increased, not less, abuses by unscrupulous employers. In detailing instances where employers called immigration authorities to raid their own facilities, the report points out that these are attempts by the employers to deal with other issues besides the authorization of their workers.  This appears to have been done to deal with complaints regarding working conditions, abuses, claims regarding injuries, and attempts to unionize, etc. Police and Immigration Authorities have been, therefore, used by employers to resolve labor disputes of various sorts. This flies in the face of prior agreements between the labor and immigration departments to avoid using immigration status as a wedge in labor disputes. State and local enforcement of federal immigration laws has complicated matters further, as the entities leading to federal immigration investigations have been exponentially increased.

The report ends with a series of recommendations for the Obama administration to improve the protections of workers and workers rights, while acknowledging the need to enforce immigration laws as well. These suggestions include: creating a Taskforce to create new policies to protect workers while also enforcing immigration laws, composed of Labor, Immigration, Enforcement, and other agencies; amending policies of ICE to address worker’s rights concerns, even in the raid or I-9 enforcement context; and creating new agreements between labor and immigration-related agencies, as well as local police agencies to ensure that immigration and labor disputes do not become unnecessarily intertwined to the detriment of workers.

“Some of us are illegal, and some are not wanted, our work contract's out and we have to move on.” Deportee, by Woody Guthrie.

The Immigration Policy Center of the American Immigration Council issued an article titled: "The Economic Blame Game, U.S. Unemployment is Not Caused by Immigration." In it, they demonstrate that there is no correlation between recent immigrant rates and unemployment rates at any level in the United States. Thus, it isn’t that immigrants are coming to the U.S. and taking jobs, but that they are impacted by unemployment to the same extent as U.S. workers. The report also details how different immigrant and native workforce populations are and how unlikely it is that they can simply be interchanged by removing the immigrant population via mass deportation. The report concludes by explaining how legalizing unauthorized workers would actually benefit the economy, rather than add to native workers’ unemployment. They site several reports from the CATO institute, the Congressional Budget Office, and the Immigration Policy Center which establish the proposed economic benefit would come from increased productivity, increased tax revenues (without increasing taxes), and demonstrated that the last legalization effort actually lead to economic benefits for immigrants allowed to legalize, and the communities where they lived. The report can be found here.

“Jesus Christ was a man who traveled through the land, a hard-working man and brave. He said to the rich, ‘Give your money to the poor,’ but they laid Jesus Christ in His grave.” Jesus Christ, by Woody Guthrie.

Stella Burch Elias has done an amazing job putting together a comprehensive argument that the Supreme Court should reconsider its decision in Lopez-Mendoza (where it found that the exclusionary rule did not ordinarily apply in immigration proceedings) because there is ample evidence of widespread constitutional violations being committed by immigration authorities.  “Good Reason to Believe”: Widespread Constitutional Violantions in the Course of Immigration Enforcement and the Case for Revisiting Lopez-Mendoza, Wisconsin Law Review. In Lopez-Mendoza, the Supreme Court said that the exclusionary rule (which dictates that evidence be deemed inadmissible) does not ordinarily apply in deportation cases, but that they might change this opinion if there were widespread evidence of constitutional violations by immigration authorities. She then proceeds to detail widespread (both geographically and institutionally) that the general circumstances surrounding immigration arrests have dramatically changed, including the increased criminalization of immigration violations, and the inability of lawsuits against the government to correct the problem.

What her work demonstrates could really be expanded to apply not just to the exclusionary rule, but also to the general treatment of all constitutional issues involving immigration. The Supreme Court has held that immigration proceedings are civil or administrative, and as such, immigrants don’t get the full constitutional protections they would receive in criminal courts. This is also why the rules of evidence don’t strictly apply, etc. But, her evidence and argument really cuts at that basic assumption. If the criminalization of immigration has progressed so far, and if the civil and administrative remedies prove inadequate, subjecting immigrants to increased criminal exposure, then it may be time to reconsider the constitutional safeguards immigrants receive in deportation proceedings, including, but not limited to the exclusionary rule.

“We died in your hills, we died in your deserts, We died in your valleys and died on your plains. We died 'neath your trees and we died in your bushes, both sides of the river, we died just the same.” Deportee, by Woody Guthrie.

The U.S. Department of State issued a report earlier this year detailing modern-day slavery, including people being trafficked into the United States for forced labor, including forced prostitution, etc. The report, titled: Trafficking in Persons Report, can be accessed on the Department of State website. Additionally, the U.S. Department of Justice enforces laws against trafficking in persons to the United States. Their report on human trafficking enforcement provisions can be accessed here, it details the increased benefits provided to victims of trafficking, increased investigations of abuses, and increased prosecutions of the criminals who continue to engage in the slave trade.

These aliens are brought into this country on false pretenses, either abusing the legal immigration process, or by illegally bringing them into the country. However, that does not mean that the legal immigration process should be halted or denigrated in response to these abuses of the system, but instead that better protections against such abuses by put in place.

“Six hundred miles to that Mexican border, they chase us like outlaws, like rustlers, like thieves.” Deportee, by Woody Guthrie.

Immigrants have sued local police agencies who have violated their rights by engaging in unauthorized or abusive immigration-related activities. In Santos v. Jenkins, No. 09-02978 (D. Md. Filed Nov. 10, 2009), the plaintiff alleges that the sheriffs were not authorized to enforce immigration laws as they had not complied with the required training, and that their actions were racially motivated. She claims to have been accosted by sheriffs deputies while eating her lunch, and asked for identification, which lead to questions regarding her immigration status, and eventual arrest. In Mora v. Arpaio, No. 09-01719 (D. Ariz. Filed August 19, 2009) the plaintiffs charge that the sheriff engaged in ethnic profiling by arrested them near (although allegedly not part of) an immigration enforcement raid. Lastly, the same sheriff’s office in Arizona was previously sued for similar activities, and their motion to dismiss the suit was denied by the court in February 2009. Melendres v. Arpaio, 07-2513, 598 F. Supp. 2d 1025 (D. Ariz). The  American Immigration Council’s Legal Action Center has more information about each of these cases, as well as other similar cases challenging immigration enforcement by local authorities.

All of these various cases and reports involve the direct relationship between immigration and labor issues. The plight of the worker in this country has long involved the necessity of workers to stay united, to bargain collectively, and to consider the interests of other workers together with their own. As immigration regains a more prominent role in the political sphere, the primary  issues will likely be the illegal employment of undocumented workers, the protection of those worker’s rights, and the need for job creation for United States workers (which may very well be helped by better, pro-business immigration policies).