The debate on immigration reform in the Congress began in earnest this week when Senate hearings on the issue began. On offer are a half dozen or so bills that range from bad to draconian.
We’ve discussed in a previous blog the McCain-Kennedy bill, certainly the best of the lot that’s been filed in the Senate. SEIU, and a few other unions, have formed a coalition with the US Chamber of Commerce and other business interests to support passage of the bill. SEIU argues that it’s the best that can be expected in the current political environment.
But a new omnibus bill sponsored by Senator Arlen Specter promises to be the centerpiece of the current hearings, since Specter is the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee where the hearings are being held. The bill includes amnesty provisions for some of the 11 million undocumented workers currently in the US, along with a number of extremely repressive measures directed against undocumented workers, and a guest worker program.
Specter’s guest worker program is more restrictive than the guest worker program in McCain—Kennedy. It would allow businesses to recruit workers for 3 year stints with a 3 year renewal period, after which they would have to return to their home countries. Workers who were unemployed for 3 weeks would be deported. Remaining in the US without a visa would be a felony. The social security administration would issue all US workers a work permit and enforce violations. (For an analysis of Specter’s bill and other bills filed this week check out David Bacon’s article.)
( By comparison, McCain—Kennedy would allow guest workers to change jobs while in the US, to be unemployed for up to 60 days before being deported, and to remain in the US after their renewal period has ended to apply for permanent status)
The other bills before the Senate Judiciary Committee are even more repressive than Specter’s bill and much closer in spirit to the immigration bill that passed the House in December. That bill sponsored by the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee James Sensenbrenner (R-WI), calls not only for the criminalization of undocumented migrant workers, but also for the building of a 700 mile long fence along the US-Mexican border.
The bad news is that in the present political climate any bill that passes the Congress and gets Bush’s signature is certain to be bad for workers. The good news is that a split in the Republican Party between the hard Right and business interests that employ large numbers of undocumented workers is likely to stall action until after the election. While the delay may or may not improve chances for a better outcome, it at least opens up new opportunities to expand the debate.
We’ve written before about a growing immigration backlash and its consequences for labor. Demagogues on the hard right of the Republican party are gearing up to exploit the unease about immigration to shore up their sagging support in the country as a whole. They may find a willing audience among union members, especially low wage union members—both white and African-American—worried about their declining wages and insecure jobs. The possibility exists of one part of the labor’s rank and file demanding the deportation of the other half. This would, of course, shatter labor’s strategy of organizing low-wage industries.
Labor should stop being a fellow traveler in the immigration debate and instead step out with its own worker friendly immigration program.
Such a program must begin with the recognition that migration is a global issue. There are some 170 million migrant workers, world-wide, including 11 million undocumented workers in the US. The massive migration of workers into the US has created an integrated hemispheric-wide labor market, while the laws and institutions which regulate it have remained national. That needs to change.
Even as they argued otherwise, US political and business elites have consistently promoted policies—like those enshrined in NAFTA—that cause workers to migrate in search of work.
Jeff Faux writes in his new book, The Global Class War, on the arguments made by proponents of NAFFE during the debate about is passage in 1994:
“….Said President Clinton to the White House audience[at a bi-partisan meeting to support NAFTA], ‘And there will be less illegal immigration because more Mexicans will be able to support their children by staying home.’ Added ex-president Jerry Ford, ‘We don’t want a huge flow of illegal immigrants into the United States from Mexico….If you defeat NAFTA, you have to share responsibility for increased immigration into the United States, where they want jobs that are presently being held by Americans.’ If Congress does not approve NAFTA warned Jimmy Carter, ‘The illegal immigration will increase, American jobs will be lost.’
The reality is that NAFTA directly contributed to a massive migration of Mexican workers laid off from domestic Mexican industries shut-down because they could not survive under NAFTA and farmers driven off the land because they could not compete against giant US agri-business. In 1995, a year after NAFTA’s passage there were about 2.5 million Mexican undocumented Mexican workers in the US, today there are at least 10.5 million. And as journalist Harold Myerson points out, they have come despite a significant increase in border enforcement. The real sucking sound was US industry sucking workers north.
More than a decade later this Congress recently passed the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) which, like NAFTA, ratifies by treaty the very policies that have led to a massive and growing migration to the US of Central American workers in search of work.
A move by Latin American governments to launch a joint effort to campaign against repressive US immigration reforms—which we recently reported on—signals a growing recognition that immigration must be addressed by all of the countries involved including those countries that send migrants and those that receive them.
The US labor movement should follow suit and convene meetings with unions and social movements from throughout the Americas to come up with a common agenda on immigration reform. It is not enough to let global elites dominate this conversation.
Such an effort should advance development strategies to help workers remain in their home countries and create a transnational bill of rights insuring equality to workers in all labor markets regardless of immigration or employment status.
Work such as the Alternatives for the Americas agenda of the Hemispheric Social Alliance could serve as the basis for thinking about an integrated public policy agenda in the Americas.
In addition, worker friendly US immigration reforms must do two other things. First, back a general amnesty for workers currently in the US. Fortunately, all of the US labor movement is on record in support of an amnesty.
Secondly, address the real concerns of workers—especially low-wage workers—that immigration is a threat to their livelihoods. We’ve heard many in the debate over immigration dismiss these worries as racist or nativist. Those making these charges are usually comfortably positioned and do not have to compete for scarce jobs at falling wages. Labor must tackle this issue—and the deterioration of jobs and wages in the US—head-on if it is to be a credible voice in the debate. Otherwise labor will open the door to xenophobia.
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