Starting Over

George Bush’s immigration bill is returning Dracula-like to the floor of the Senate. In the unlikely event that it passes it faces an uncertain future in the House where there is intense opposition to key provisions of the bill from different constituencies.  Bush likely does not have the political capital to overcome opposition from the anti-immigrant Republican Right that wants no truck with legalization and Democratic progressives who think the bill is too draconian.

Bush’s efforts on behalf of the bill—from high profile raids to show he’s tough on enforcement to attacks on Republican opponents of the bill—spotlights the long-time split in the Republican party between a corporate wing that wants access to more skilled and unskilled guest workers and a nativist base that wants to send undocumented workers home and lock down the borders. Bush—who does not face re-election—is squarely in the corporate camp.

The original Kennedy-McCain bill introduced in the last Congress set the basic framework for the current debate. It proposed a “grand bargain”: amnesty for millions of undocumented immigrants in exchange for a business friendly guest worker program.  And to deflect some of the attacks of anti-immigrant critics, the bill also included punitive enforcement and border security provisions. It was a Faustian deal from the start. When the reform debate resumed in the current Congress the amnesty provisions were weakened (indeed the very word amnesty has been banished from the debate) and the guest worker and punitive provisions were strengthened. But the terms of the bargain had been set: limited legalization for increased repression.

 

It’s time to start over.

The “grand bargain” is neither grand nor a bargain.

Passage of this bill will mean more raids and repression and more tragedy as millions of immigrants now in the country who are unable to meet the cost and criteria for a temporary visa are forced deeper into the shadows. Meanwhile business will be free to bring in hundreds of thousands of guest workers at substandard wages and working conditions on a “lose your job, lose your visa” basis. The task, according to many immigrant rights advocates, is to kill the bill and use the next two years to build a consensus for genuine reform.

As David Bacon writes,

“Many organizations outside DC did not support this approach [“the grand bargain”] to immigration reform. Instead, they called for a positive agenda focusing on human and workplace rights, legal status and equality. They proposed reforms that didn't criminalize migration, work or the border itself, and that instead protected families and communities. The National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights urged that "we work for a different "starting point" for immigration reform that protects the rights of all immigrant families, workers and communities.

“The beltway lobbying strategy started by asking what employers and a Republican administration would be willing to accept. Groups like NDLON, [National Day Laborer Organizing Network] however, proposed building a popular movement to change the political terrain in Washington, like the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Responding to lobbyists who called the Senate bill the only chance to reform immigration law for years, NDLON said "We know the struggle for justice and immigration reform requires a long view of history, and we will not be pressured into accepting an insufficient compromise simply for sake of political expediency. We owe it to this and future generations to pass a bill that we can all be proud of."

"The best way to guarantee the rights and wages of all workers in this country," added the AFL-CIO's John Sweeney, "is to give every immigrant the opportunity to become a citizen, with all the rights and duties that entails. At the same time, Congress must revise our immigration system so that in the face of labor shortages, future foreign workers may enter this country not as dispensable units of production but as permanent residents with the same rights and protections as all other US workers."

Real immigration reform

John Sweeney’s call for equal justice for all workers provides a clear goal to strive for as the reform movement regroups for the next round in the fight. 

Here are some steps for a fresh start:

Broaden the movement. The immigrant based rights movement has done a fine job mobilizing immigrants. But it has neither the social standing nor the social power to force enactment of significant reforms. It needs help. While many unions have done an excellent job providing moral and financial support to the movement and mobilizing immigrant members for rallies and other activities, they have not mounted a significant campaign among the non-immigrant members or the general public. They must do so now. Immigrant rights advocates must not cede the established working class to the right-wing nativists. US workers—partly because many have immigrant roots—can be an ally in the fight for just reforms. Polls taken this month show 63% of Americans support amnesty for undocumented immigrants that pay fines and learn English.  But fears that immigrants take jobs and decrease wages need to be taken seriously. The immigration reform movement should emphasize the labor rights of immigrant workers both to protect their human dignity and to protect the wages and working conditions of established workers.

Make stopping the raids a priority. The current immigration problem is a result of conscious action—and inaction—on the part of governments throughout the hemisphere, of businesses looking for cheap labor, of workers looking for jobs wherever they can find them, of consumers looking for cheaper goods. To single out the most vulnerable—immigrant workers and their families—as scapegoats for an entire system that has been allowed to develop outside the law violates any accepted standard of decency. A rational debate on immigration reform cannot be conducted with the immigration authorities ready to storm plant gates. The fear engendered by the raids will mean that immigrant workers will be reluctant to report abuses or to organize. The raids are in large measure a cynical attempt to satisfy the hard right and to make the need for a guest worker program more urgent. Interestingly, there may be grounds here for building a broad alliance with some businesses if the current immigration bill is defeated since they too will face disruptions from raids. 

The debate about reforms must be hemispheric in scope. People leave their villages and their countries and take the perilous trip north because there are no jobs or opportunities at home. Policies supported by the US and institutionalized in treaties like NAFTA are a key factor pushing migrants north. NAFTA helped push million of peasants off the land in Mexico and forced many Mexican companies out of business because they were unable to compete with cheaper imports. While NAFTA was touted as a way to slow northward migration, it has done the opposite. The giant sucking sound that many thought NAFTA would produce turned out to be less from jobs going south than from workers heading north. With massive political change going on in Latin America, it’s time to take a fresh look at ways new hemispheric economic policies can make it possible for people to live decently at home without being dependent on migration or remittances from the US or elsewhere.

In some industries and some localities there is already a hemispheric labor market. What’s needed now are laws and regulations that guarantee immigrant workers the basic human and labor rights needed to let them work and live in dignity. Unions like the Farm Labor Organizing Committee [FLOC] are now organizing across borders, signing farm workers in Mexico before the come to the US. Efforts at cross border cooperation, like this, need to be expanded if organized labor is to adequately represent its membership.

Dan La Botz reports on another important step in the direction of creating a hemispheric approach to immigration reform: the convening of a “Migrant Summit” in May in Morelia, Michoacán. The Summit brought together hundreds of migrant groups, non-governmental organizations, labor union officials, academics, government officials and politicians to discuss migrant issues and immigration reform. It “….concluded with a call to reform immigration laws in both sending and receiving countries and to recognize the rights of migrants.” [Read his account]. Meetings like this—convened by labor unions and others with broad constituencies—should be replicated throughout the hemisphere and they should tackle the issues facing both migrants and established workers as they try to fashion a hemispheric immigration reform regime that benefits everyone.

Increased border security fails to keep undocumented immigrants out, but it does keep them in. Reform advocates need to stop pandering to the enforcement crowd and take them on in a policy debate beginning with the myth that increasing border enforcement is part of the solution. The facts speak otherwise. As Princeton sociologist Douglas Massey has shown, border security actually increases the number of undocumented workers in the US, making it more expensive and riskier for them to return to their homeland.  Effectively sealing the border would require a massive attack on civil liberties and unacceptable economic and political costs in the US and abroad—and its primary effect would be to keep even more undocumented immigrants from returning home.

Any comprehensive immigration program will be the result of a compromise among workers—both immigrant and established—employers, and politicians. The result will not be perfect, but it can be satisfactory. Employers need immigrant workers; workers need jobs. The interests of both are opposed to the right-wing anti-immigrant ideologues.  But it’s time to junk the existing narrow debate that revolves around a limited amnesty, a fortress America, and a guest worker program. A comprehensive plan is needed that addresses the concerns of all the stakeholders in the US and the sending countries.

A program can be developed that represents the interests of established US workers, undocumented immigrants, and Latin Americans. Their interests can be meshed with those of US employers on this issue. The claims of nativist ideologues to speak for American workers can be discredited. If the groundwork for such a program is laid now, the alliance of immigrant and established workers can seize the initiative in shaping progressive immigration legislation in the next few years.

M.O.