Key to Immigration Reform: Fairness

by Tula Connell, Mar 27, 2006

After a weekend, which saw hundreds of thousands of supporters of immigrant workers rally in Los Angeles, Denver and elsewhere, members of a wide array of immigrant coalitions, faith-based organizations and community groups are gathering on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., to support the nation’s long history of providing sanctuary for refugees, according to the low-wage worker advocacy group Interfaith Worker Justice. 

This week, the U.S. Senate considers several immigration reform bills, including a version similar to one passed by the U.S. House of Representatives last December that would make it a federal crime to assist immigrant workers—even so much as handing a child a piece of candy. If the bill passes, undocumented workers could be immediately rounded up and deported, no matter how long they have lived and worked in the United States.

Meeting in Los Angeles over the weekend, the executive board of the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement (LCLAA) asserted that the immigration legislation now under debate requires a comprehensive approach that goes beyond border enforcement.

Milton Rosado, national president of LCLAA, an AFL-CIO constituency group, said:

LCLAA will not support an immigration proposal that does not guarantee a path to legalization for undocumented workers that are currently in the United States. LCLAA opposes any legislation that tries to establish a program that promotes the violation of undocumented workers’ rights.

In an op-ed in today’s New York Daily News, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson describes how undocumented workers are under constant threat of deportation even as employers cheat them out of due wages.
 
Chavez-Thompson, whose parents were immigrant farm workers, knows firsthand about the working conditions of those seeking a just workplace:

They work the most dangerous jobs—among foreign-born workers, workplace fatality has increased by an alarming 46 percent between 1992 and 2002. When immigrant workers try to correct these injustices by forming unions, they are harassed, intimidated and terminated. When all else fails to break a union drive, employers simply call in the immigration authorities and everyone gets deported for standing up for basic rights.

Immigration reform that does not reflect a fair approach ultimately will adversely affect us all. Writes Chavez-Thomspson:

Criminalizing undocumented workers makes them easy prey for unscrupulous employers. That in turn drives down working standards for all Americans and creates an undemocratic, two-tiered society.

Read Chavez-Thompson’s full op-ed and see the recent AFL-CIO Executive Council resolution: Responsible Reform of Immigration Laws Must Protect Working Conditions for all Workers in the U.S.
 

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