America will celebrate its veterans around the nation today, honoring those who have served our nation with selflessness and bravery. Included in the millions who have served are immigrants. From the Revolutionary war to current conflicts, immigrants have joined the ranks of our military to fight for and defend America since its inception.

Just as U.S. citizens, immigrants—both legal and undocumented—residing in the United States have answered the call to defend the United States and have gone on to earn the highest honors and ranks the military offers.

Margaret Stock writes:

Immigrants who have served in the U.S. military and by so doing earned their citizenship include Alfred Rascon, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who won the Medal of Honor during the Vietnam War and later became a U.S. citizen and eventually the Director of the Selective Service System.

Immigrants also have been promoted to the highest ranks of the U.S. military. The most prominent contemporary example is General John Shalikashvili, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who came to the United States from Poland shortly after World War II.

Yet many immigrants who are serving today are facing the stress of sorely outdated immigration-system that is putting their families at risk of deportation.

The Center for American Progress writes:

In 2007, the federal government issued removal orders for the undocumented immigrant wife of Army Spc. Alex Jimenes while he was missing in action. The proceedings were halted at the request of then-Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who was spurred into action by Senator John Kerry (D-MA).

More recently, 26-year-old U.S. Army Spc. Jack Barrios returned from Iraq in 2007 suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. He was immediately confronted with deportation orders for his 23-year-old wife Frances, a Guatemalan immigrant, who was six years old when her mother illegally brought her to the United States.

Jack and Frances Barrios have a one-year-old daughter and a three-year-old son, and Frances is helping Jack deal with the hardships related to his mental disorder. Had it not been for DHS’s decision last week to grant a humanitarian parole, Frances’s only option would have been to return to a country she does not know—she grew up in Van Nuys, CA—and wait 10 years before being qualified to return as punishment for being brought here illegally as a child.

While these individual congressional and agency actions are just and have fixed a few cases, wide spread reform of our systems is needed.

Thankfully, Senators Robert Menendez (D-NJ) Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Daniel Inouye (D-HI), Richard Durbin (D-IL), Kristin Gillibrand (D-NY), and Russ Feingold (D-WI) have introduced the Military Families Act (S. 2757). This bill would allow immediate family members of active military service members to become lawful permanent residents even when the sponsoring solider has lost his or her life in service.

How many more soldiers’ wives will receive deportation orders while we await a comprehensive solution to fix our broken immigration system? Our immigrant soldiers serve with honor and duty, we in turn have a duty to them to keep their families safe and intact while they are serving and defending us all.

Photo by jpellgen.

Late on Saturday night the House passed its health care reform bill and put the ball back in the Senate’s court. The goal is to make health care more affordable and more accessible for millions of Americans. Once again, immigration became a major obstacle to the bill’s passage as immigration restrictionists and others pushed for harsher language and verification rules to exclude unauthorized immigrants from the bill’s benefits.

Overall the bill presents a mixed-bag for immigrants:

Legal Immigrants:
Lawfully residing immigrants who make too much money to be eligible for Medicaid, do not have employer-sponsored health insurance, and cannot afford to buy insurance on their own will be eligible for the affordability credits created by the House bill. This means that many more legal immigrants will be able to afford health insurance.

5-Year Bar:
The final House bill does not rescind the bar that denies federal Medicaid benefits to lawful permanent residents for their first five years. This means that legal immigrants who are working and paying taxes will not be eligible to receive the benefits of their taxes dollars for at least 5 years.

Unauthorized Immigrants:
Undocumented immigrants are already restricted from most public insurance programs, including Medicaid. The House does not include any provisions to expand their eligibility. Under the bill, unauthorized immigrants are not eligible for the affordability credits or subsidies that would make purchasing insurance more affordable. But, the House bill does not exclude undocumented immigrants from being able to buy full-price insurance with their own money in the Exchange.

House members, particularly Rep. Nydia Velazquez and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, were able to successfully block an immigration-related motion to recommit by House Republicans—a motion with the intention of forcing a tough vote on immigration that, if passed, may have resulted in the bill’s defeat.

Health care reform now moves to the Senate, where battles over the 5-year bar, verification systems, and unauthorized immigrants’ ability to purchase health insurance are likely to continue. We hope the Senate puts good public policy above symbolic, political fights over immigration and passes bill that recognizes that all Americans are better off if health care is inclusive.

Photo by justclaire.

Over the past several months, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has made concerted efforts to overhaul our flawed immigration detention system—aiming for more transparency and broadened federal oversight. Deserving of equal attention, however, is Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) loose enforcement policy, which also ensnares legal immigrants.

Last week, the L.A. Times reported that ICE wrongfully detained two legal immigrant women who were permitted to be in the country under the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). According to the article, Maria de Barrera was arrested in her Los Angeles home after ICE showed up looking for people who no longer lived at the residence. Even though she showed ICE agents her worker’s permit, she was taken to an immigration detention center until her lawyer showed up with VAWA documentation.

Another legal immigrant permitted to live in the U.S., Elvira Ayon, was arrested in Delano, CA and carted off to an immigration detention center in Arizona where she stayed for one month. Again, she was released only after her lawyer arranged for her release.

ICE spokeswoman, Virginia Kice, chalked the wrongful detentions up to ICE’s lack of access to DHS’s databases where information on immigration permits and benefits are kept. Kice also suggested that wrongful detention cases like these “don’t occur very often.”

Last April, the Associate Press ran a story about another such case involving Pedro Guzman, a 31-year-old Los Angeles native. ICE deported Guzman, who is mentally ill and illiterate, to Mexico despite the fact that he informed immigration officers of his U.S. citizenship. The AP article concluded that there are, in fact, many more cases involving wrongful detention.

In a drive to crack down on illegal immigrants, the United States has locked up or thrown out dozens, probably many more, of its own citizens over the past eight years. A monthslong AP investigation has documented 55 such cases, on the basis of interviews, lawsuits and documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. These citizens are detained for anything from a day to five years. Immigration lawyers say there are actually hundreds of such cases.

While the cases of Maria de Barrera, Elvira Ayon and Pedro Guzman are clearly not the only stories of wrongful detention or deportation, they are indicative of a much larger problem within our ineffectual, inconsistent and poorly run immigration system—a problem not solved by promises of oversight and accountability but by actual reform of our entire immigration system. Until then, innocent legal immigrants will continue to sit in immigration detention.

Photo by mandykoh.

As the U.S. experiences its highest unemployment levels in a generation and news reports document the desperation of some native-born workers who are unable to find steady work, we must ask the question whether now is really the best time to implement a legalization program.

Basic math would suggest that 16 million unemployed American workers would benefit from subtracting 12 million undocumented workers from the labor force. However, it isn’t that easy. Mass deportation is no silver bullet for solving our unemployment problem. Our economic and unemployment issues are not a matter of simple math or a zero sum game. In reality, American workers and recent immigrants workers are not easily interchangeable and removing millions of workers and consumers from our fragile economy would only make matters worse.

Moreover, what could help spur economic growth and create jobs is an aggressive legalization program for the 12 million workers without legal status in this country today. Studies have shown, again and again, that legalizing workers would move them into better paying jobs, homeownership and higher consumption of goods and services—all of which better the situation of native-born workers as well as their immigrant counterparts.

The simple math of “swapping” one worker for another just doesn’t hold up under close scrutiny.

In a recent IPC report, demographer Rob Paral took a close look at Census and Department of Labor data and found that there is a huge disparity between immigrant workers and unemployed natives, making it such that they don’t compete for jobs longterm.

Even during a time of economic recession and high unemployment, most native-born workers do not compete with most immigrants for the same jobs. This is apparent even when we compare unemployed natives with employed “recent” immigrants who came to the United States within the past decade. Unemployed natives and employed recent immigrants tend to have different levels of education, to live in different parts of the country, to have experience in different occupations, and to have different amounts of work experience. As a result, they could not simply be “swapped” for one another.

The U.S. economy will not be lifted out of recession by removing immigrant workers from the labor force. Rather, the key to recovery is creating jobs. Encouraging unemployed machinists on the East Coast to become food servers on the West Coast is not a recipe for long-term economic growth.

Furthermore, deporting 12 million employees, consumers and tenants would do further damage to our already ailing economy. The Perryman Group estimated the dynamic effects of removing all undocumented immigrants in 2008—which would result in a $551 billion loss in total expenditures and elimination of 2.8 million permanent jobs in the United States. This is in addition to huge losses of existing and potential tax contributions.

Surprisingly, what makes most sense, spurs economic growth, and creates jobs is a program that would require undocumented workers to start on a path to legalize their status.

A recent study by IPC, Economic Progress via Legalization, reviews the positive economic impact legalization had on workers. Legalization turned formerly clandestine workers into higher-paid employees. The report also documents the improvement in socioeconomic status that these workers experienced which in turn resulted in increased contributions to the U.S. economy.

Research by Dr. Sherrie Kossoudji, an economics professor at the University of Michigan, also found that after legalization, fewer immigrants sent money home and those that did, sent less. The result was higher contributions into their local communities, which meant more consumption and more jobs for U.S. workers.

Even the libertarian CATO institute found that legalizing undocumented workers in the United States would have significant economic benefits for the country. It concluded that continuing to spend scarce resources on enforcement alone and creating more restrictive immigration laws would actually hurt the U.S. economy.

So while it is far more expedient to blame undocumented immigrants for our unemployment problems rather than critically assessing and addressing the reasons for native-unemployment (outsourcing, education levels and institutional failures), in the long-term we will have failed our economy and the ranks of the unemployed unless we address practical solutions that will get our economy and workers back on their feet.

Photo by AstridWestvang.

A report issued this week by the City Bar Justice Center highlights one of the most serious flaws of the removal process: noncitizens are not appointed a lawyer to represent them. The report focuses on the efforts of the City Bar Justice Center and other nonprofit organizations to increase access to legal counsel at the Varick Federal Detention Facility in Manhattan. According to the report, a significant portion of the detainees housed at Varick had possible meritorious claims to relief from removal, such as asylum or an avenue for obtaining a green card.

The report notes:

Significantly, almost none of the immigrants we interviewed had any knowledge of the specific provisions of the law under which they might have a defense to removal. While there is a law library at the Varick facility, very few of the detainees mentioned having used it or being able to do legal research on these complex remedies on their own. In many cases, we were the only lawyers they had spoken to about their immigration case.

Without lawyers, noncitizens face the daunting and often insurmountable task of navigating a complicated set of procedural rules and an even more complicated set of immigration statutes, regulations, and court decisions. Given the gravity of removal—which can range from permanent separation form family in the U.S. to being returned to a country where a person fears for his life—the important role that lawyers play in helping to protect the rights of noncitizens cannot be overstated.

Yet, last year, 60% of the individuals who were compelled to appear in immigration court did so without lawyers. For some individuals, the cost of retaining a lawyer is prohibitive. Cost, however, is not the only impediment. As the report indicates, other factors also limit access to counsel. Although some detainees had been granted bonds, an astonishing 90% of those interviewed were not able to post the bond and thus, remained in jail. If the government set reasonable bonds for individuals who are not deemed a security or flight risk, more people would be released from jail and would have increased access to legal counsel. In addition, the report notes that some detainees are transferred to other detention facilities, which interferes with their relationships with lawyers. Transfers also make it more difficult to retain a lawyer in the first place, particularly when it mean moving to a distant and often remote location where there are few lawyers and even fewer pro bono resources.

Ultimately, as the report concludes, all indigent detainees should be assigned counsel. Access to counsel is at the very core of our legal system and is integral to ensuring that all noncitizens facing removal are afforded a fair process and a meaningful opportunity to be heard.

Photo by Noize Photography.

In October, the restrictionist group Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) released another report singing the praises of the 287(g) program. In The 287(g) Program: Protecting Home Towns and Homeland, the authors ignore the evidence and arguments put forward by law enforcement experts—such as the Police Foundation, the Major Cities Chiefs Association, and the International Association of Chiefs of Police—and dismisses them as “national advocacy organizations.” In doing so, CIS puts itself forward as apparent “law enforcement experts,” adding to their impressive resume that includes biblical scholar and environmental expert.

Among the truth-defying assertions made by CIS:

CIS Assertion: 287(g) agreements result in cost savings for localities.

FACT: While Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) covers the cost of training deputized local officers and some detention costs, ICE does not pay for implementation of the program or any lawsuits that may arise due to civil rights violations. Local communities are responsible for the high costs related to the immigration enforcement activities. A report by the Brookings Institute found that Prince William County, Virginia, had to raise property taxes and take from its “rainy day” fund to help fund their 287(g) program. Their local law enforcement of immigration, which cost $6.4 million in its first year, is projected to cost $26 million over five years. They eventually slashed $3.1 million from the budget that was intended to buy video cameras for police cars to protect themselves against allegations of racial profiling. Arizona’s Sheriff Joe Arpaio created a $1.3 million deficit in just three months, much of it due to overtime for immigration enforcement.

CIS Assertion: There have been no documented instances of 287(g) jurisdictions rounding up people on the basis of appearance or ethnicity.

FACT: Multiple credible news sources have reported that Sheriff Joe Arpaio has conducted large-scale operations without any evidence of criminal activity, often in Hispanic neighborhoods or sites where day laborers convene, and has vowed to continue his sweeps, regardless of what ICE says. Arpaio has also created a citizen posse to hunt undocumented immigrants. Beyond Arpaio, a report from North Carolina found that 287(g)’s are being used to “purge towns and cities of ‘unwelcome’ immigrants.”

CIS Assertion: There have been no complaints filed or documented cases of racial profiling.

FACT: Again, Sheriff Arpaio is example #1. Nearly 3,000 lawsuits have been filed against Arpaio, and the Department of Justice is currently investigating accusations of rampant racial profiling and civil rights abuses by his deputies. The Department of Justice is also investigating Arpaio. There have been other mistakes and lawsuits as well. A lawsuit was filed on behalf of a disabled U.S. citizen who was mistakenly identified as a Mexican national and transferred to an ICE detention center and later deported. Another lawsuit has been filed on behalf of Juana Villegas after she was detained and shackled to a bed while giving birth.

CIS Assertion: The chilling effect is a myth. Immigrants are not fearful of cooperating with police and reporting crimes.

FACT: Law enforcement officials and community leaders have stated time and time again that trust with immigrant communities is crucial to preventing and investigating crimes and maintaining safe communities, but when police are viewed as immigration agents, immigrant communities fear cooperating. A North Carolina report found that 287(g)’s have “created a climate of racial profiling and community insecurity” in communities across North Carolina. In 2003, the Tampa Tribune reported that local police believed that some members of the community had information on a murder, but declined to come forward for fear of immigration-related repercussions. Clearwater Police Department’s Hispanic Outreach Officer William Farias said he “wasn’t surprised people were hesitant to talk… cultural differences and fear of deportation often keep undocumented immigrants from coming forward.”

CIS Assertion: 287(g) is a powerful tool for reducing crime.

FACT: While some local politicians have touted 287(g) as a solution to their crime problems, a Justice Strategies report found that 61% of jurisdictions with 287(g)’s had a violent crime index lower than the national average, and 55% witnessed an overall decrease in violent crimes from 2000 to 2006. Furthermore, 61% had a property crime index lower than the national average, and 65% saw an overall decrease in property crimes from 2000 to 2006. The conservative Goldwater Institute published a report documenting the Maricopa County, AZ 287(g) has failed to protect the community. They found that, though the MCSO budget has increased at four times the rate of the county’s population, violent crimes increased nearly 70%, and homicides increased 166% between 2004 and 2007. Response times to 911 calls have increased, arrest rates have dropped, and thousands of felony warrants have not been served.

Apparently, the fact that 287(g) programs are costing localities millions to implement isn’t relevant to CIS’s myopic report, nor is the fact that crime-solving activities are being compromised or that trust between police and community is being eroded. What is important to CIS, however, is the propagation of the same old restrictionist myths that support a “deport them all” immigration enforcement strategy.

Photo by limonada.

A decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) last week provides yet more evidence that broken laws create broken government. By refusing to protect eligible applicants for adjustment of status from deportation, the Board eased the way for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to deport someone whose legitimate green card application is pending with United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

This BIA decision runs counter to several federal court rulings that immigrants in this situation are entitled to apply for adjustment of status. The American Immigration Council’s Legal Action Center litigated those cases and filed an Amicus Curiae (“Friend of the Court”) brief before the BIA. While the BIA’s decision directly affects only one person, Maria Yauri, of California, it sets a precedent that puts hundreds of people at risk of being deported before they can adjust to legal status.

What’s the issue? The BIA’s decision allows ICE to deport people at the same time their legitimate applications for adjustment of status are pending before USCIS. Ms. Yauri asked the BIA to reopen her old deportation case. Reopening the case would have protected her from deportation, but deportation would have meant automatic denial of her adjustment application. The BIA ruled on a technicality: it will not reopen old deportation orders in these cases because USCIS, not the BIA, is deciding the adjustment application. The BIA dismissed her concern about ICE deporting her with a one-sentence statement that could be viewed either as extremely naïve or cynically uncaring.

Ironically, DHS already granted Ms. Yauri’s adjustment application before the BIA issued this decision, mooting the case. The BIA should have declined to rule on it. But because of this decision, other adjustment applicants in Ms. Yauri’s situation can be deported. Deportation should not be a game of chance that depends upon the speed with which various federal agencies operate.

It makes no economic, practical, or moral sense for our government to deport parents and spouses of U.S. citizens who are eligible under our laws, who have already followed all the requirements, and who are waiting for the government to act. In these cases, Congress already has decree that these family members should remain. The immigration agencies should act to protect, rather than endanger, other immigrants in Maria Yauri’s situation.

Photo by jovike.

ICED OUT: How Immigration Enforcement Has Interfered with Workers’ Rights, a new publication by the AFL-CIO, American Rights at Work Education Fund, and the National Employment Law Project (NELP), tells the often ignored story of our country’s broken immigration system and the collateral damage immigrants and U.S. workers experience when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) prioritize enforcement over workers’ rights.

Our broken immigration system gives unscrupulous employers an incentive to hire unauthorized workers and exploit them—often resulting in depressed wages and working conditions for all workers in that workplace.  The focus on immigration enforcement—which has been so pervasive over the last several decades—has meant that labor law violations are not pursued as aggressively as immigration enforcement.

The report contains an impressive number of examples of immigration enforcement trumping the labor rights of immigrant and U.S citizen workers.  In some cases, this has meant willfully ignoring the severe violations of labor laws in a workplace, and instead focusing on arresting workers.  In other cases, immigration enforcement officials have not respected the investigations into labor law violations being conducted by other government agencies.  In most cases, unauthorized workers have been detained and deported, while employers have not been held accountable for their unscrupulous behavior.

For example, the authors documented several cases in which employers called either local police or ICE to detain their own workers after the workers had attempted to organize or complained about poor working conditions. According to the report:

[These] cases are troubling both because local police stepped in on the side of employers in what are clearly civil labor disputes, and because the police dropped charges as soon as ICE responded.  These actions suggest an underlying agenda to prioritize the deportation of otherwise law-abiding immigrant workers over protecting their labor rights.

In other cases, ICE has conducted surveillance of picket lines or other labor activities, resulting in a chilling effect on all workers, regardless of immigration status.  Furthermore, ICE has masqueraded as other government agency officials, including Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) agents, to lure workers into a “meeting” where they are then arrested.

The report also documents important cases in which ICE had previous knowledge of an ongoing labor dispute or organizing campaign, yet moved forward with workplace raids.  The best known case is Agriprocessors in Postville, Iowa, in 2008.  At the time of the ICE raid, at least three state and federal labor agencies were investigating egregious labor violations, and an organizing campaign was underway at the plant.  ICE was aware of these activities when it raided the plant and arrested 600 workers.  ICE prosecuted the workers as criminals when in fact many of them were potential victims of horrendous labor conditions and crimes perpetrated by the employer.

ICED OUT is yet another important reminder of the need to fix our failing immigration system.  When unscrupulous individuals are allowed to take advantage of immigration laws—through labor violations, intimidation of their own workforce, and the prevention of union organizing—something is very wrong with the system. While enforcement will certainly be a necessary part of a reformed immigration system, the Administration must also make enforcement of labor laws a priority-for the good of all workers.

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This past week, ImmigrationImpact highlighted aspects of a recent Immigration Policy Center (IPC) report, Breaking Down the Problems, What’s Wrong With our Immigration System?. The report highlights the problems faced by American families, businesses, and workers, all caught in a broken immigration system. But the report also addresses the long-term effect of our broken immigration laws on government. Put simply, broken laws equal broken government.

For more than a decade, Congress has attempted to “fix” our broken immigration system by pouring money into border walls, detention beds, and stepped up enforcement actions against workers. But every dollar spent on the deportation side of the equation means a dollar not spent on improving immigration services, keeping fees down, and processing applications quickly and efficiently. Congress has frequently increased the amount of money for line items like detention beds and fencing above the agency request simply because it looks good and sounds tough. But that political calculation translates into something else on the agency side.

People believe that if you give them money, you must approve of what they are doing. So, if you give an agency more money for detention beds you are going to get more detention beds, whether or not they are needed. And once you have the beds, you don’t have to spend as much time weighing whether or not someone really should be detained because you have the resources. And once you have the resources, well, it becomes that much easier to arrest anybody with an immigration violation whether or not they are a threat. And so on and so on.

This happens on the services side of the immigration house as well. By law, USCIS must fund its operations out of user fees, which means that the costs of updating computer systems and improving customer service is borne by the customers themselves. In this case, the customers are legal immigrants applying for citizenship, or U.S. citizens petitioning to bring their families to the U.S. Congress can appropriate additional funds if it wants to, but until recently, most appropriated money has gone to expanding E-verify, the web-based employment verification system housed at USCIS. Properly applied, E-verify should be a tool to help businesses and workers streamline verification issues, but that’s not why it was getting so much money. Instead, E-verify has become the darling of restrictionists who tout it as the way to end illegal immigration once and for all. In other words, spending money on E-verify instead of say, reducing naturalization fees, makes Congress look tougher.

Shifting priorities back to what really matters—maintaining a fair, humane, balanced immigration system—is a time consuming and difficult process, but the Obama administration and Congress have taken some steps in the right direction. President Obama recently signed the 2010 DHS appropriations bill, which included 11 million dollars to foster immigrant integration, 5 million dollars to cover the costs of adjudicating applications from military members, and 50 million dollars to help offset the costs of refugee and asylum processing.

This is a tiny amount in a $42.7 billion dollar budget, but it is a major recognition that there’s more to life than deportations. It’s also recognition that voters want more than a government that bloats budgets and feigns toughness. They want real solutions and they want a system that works.

Photo by kandyjaxx.

By TYLER MORAN*

While most employers are law-abiding, some unscrupulous employers have a secret weapon for keeping down wages and working conditions—our broken immigration system. Bad apple employers hire undocumented immigrants, subject them to unsafe working conditions, pay them less than the market wage, or don’t pay them at all. If undocumented workers file a labor complaint or try to form a union, the employer will threaten them with deportation or even call DHS to have the workers deported. Then the workers are whisked into detention or out of the country before they can seek remedies for the labor violations. Most employers don’t get punished for their misconduct, which puts unscrupulous employers at a competitive advantage over law-abiding employers.

Why is this bad for all workers, including U.S. citizens? Easy-to-exploit undocumented immigrants under the constant threat of deportation are forced to accept sub-standard working conditions. This spills over to authorized workers who must also accept these conditions or risk losing their jobs. This also undercuts union organizing. Undocumented coworkers have fewer legal avenues for redress of labor violations and far less incentive to participate in collective efforts to improve conditions at the workplace.

A recent report by the National Employment Law Project found a slew of labor and employment law violations in low-wage industries in three of the nation’s largest cities:

• At least 26% of workers surveyed were paid less than the legally required minimum wage the previous week, 60% of whom were underpaid by more than $1 per hour.

• More than a quarter of workers surveyed worked more than 40 hours the previous week and 76% of whom were not paid the required overtime rate.

• 41% of workers surveyed had illegal deductions taken out of their paychecks for reasons such as damage, loss, work-related tools or materials.

• 43% of workers who filed a complaint to their employers or attempted to form a union suffered illegal retaliation from their employers—such as being fired or suspended, cut wages and hours and threats of deportation.

• Of the 8% of workers surveyed who filed a serious injury claim, 50% experienced illegal employer reactions.

The Drum Major Institute argues that all workers benefit from a strengthening of workplace rights for immigrants. In fact, they find that undocumented workers’ ability to improve their own working conditions would benefit all workers by making jobs more desirable, which translates into more jobs that can support a middle-class standard of living. The Immigration Policy Center also reports that lack of legal status makes unauthorized workers extremely vulnerable to abuse by unscrupulous employers, and at the same time jeopardizes the competitiveness of those employers who try to follow the law.

As immigration reform hovers on the horizon, we should learn a lesson from the failure of our current broken immigration system and ineffective worksite enforcement policy. Not only does current policy fail to address the economic incentive that employers have to hire undocumented workers, but it has allowed unscrupulous employers to gain an unfair advantage and use immigration law to drive down the wages and working conditions of all workers.

Worksite enforcement will be part of comprehensive immigration reform. However, the real answer to “enforcement” at the worksite is making sure all workers can exercise their labor rights, increasing enforcement of labor and employment laws, and closing the gaping loophole that allows immigration enforcement to trump labor law enforcement. Policymakers need to take on this critical issue. Otherwise, the employment rights of all of us are at risk.

*Tyler Moran is Policy Director at the National Immigration Law Center.

Photo by victoriapeckham.