Labor and
Immigration
reform
The Labor Center
University of Iowa

This is an Historic Opportunity
for Reform
Debate over largest-
scale overhaul of
immigration system
in almost 50 years.
Chance for millions
of aspiring citizens
to gain fair treatment
and workers’ rights.

PART I:
PUTTING THIS MOMENT IN THE
CONTEXT OF LABOR’S HISTORY

A Nation Built by Immigrants….
What do you know about your ancestors? Nation of origin?

2 Large Waves of Immigration
Source: Migration Policy Institute. Source: The 2011 and 2010 data are from the US Census Bureau's American
Community Surveys, the 2000 data are from Census 2000 (see www.census.gov). All other data are from
Gibson, Campbell and Emily Lennon, US Census Bureau, Working Paper No. 29
1860-1920 1970-2010

Why do People Move?
“Push Factors”
• War
• Famine
• Poverty
• Persecution
“Pull Factors”
• Jobs
• Land
• Family ties
• Security
Or forced migration – slavery, trafficking

In 1800s, Immigrants Recruited

Coming “legally”: 1st Wave
What was the official
process for immigrating to
the U.S. from 1790 – 1920?
Varied, but in general:
• Few Restrictions*
• No Waiting for Entry
• All Authorized to Work
Immigration “legal” – union activities often “illegal”
*Race-based restrictions by late 1800s*

Bring me your tired, your poor…
Watch clip and consider:
• Stereotypes vs reality of
immigrant workers
• Role of railroads in regard
to displaced workers
• Friction between workers
– what were the options?
• How does this turn out?

Fear and Racism Leads to Exclusion

What about unions of the time?
•Respect for senior workers:
pass on skills of the trade
•Control over pace of work:
craft knowledge limited spvr role
•Union leverage: limiting access
to knowledge of trade skills
•Pride in craftsmanship
After years of struggle, degree of truce with employers
By 1900s, AFL craft unions had gained a foothold; mostly white
men, power derived from control over skills
What did the rise of mass production mean for them?

Mass production undermined the
foundation of early union power
•Women, children, new
immigrants, hired as
operators
•Machines, supervisors
control pace of work
•Union leverage based on
skills is diminished
•Work treated with less
respect and lower pay
Employers emboldened, adopt aggressive stance

What Could Unions Do?
Two Major Choices Were:
Fight to Protect the Shrinking Craft System
•Protect craft workers against industrial trends
•Try to exclude women and minorities from jobs
•Try to restrict immigration
Organize “unskilled” industrial workers
•Include women, recent immigrants, African-Americans
and challenge social and racial barriers
•Re-define craft jurisdictions
•Link up with community allies to survive attacks
Which approach do you think they embraced? Why?
Both, to some extent, but mostly the first until 1930s

Struggles by immigrant workers began
to change what was politically possible

PART II:
U.S. IMMIGRATION TODAY

Today: 214m global migrants
What forces are dislocating millions of workers today?

Example: NAFTA (1994)
• decreased by 18% in the three years
before NAFTA's implementation.
• Increased more than 61% in the first
eight years of NAFTA
According to Pew Hispanic Center, the annual #
of Mexican immigrants to the U.S. . .
Why would immigration from Mexico increase as
jobs fled from the U.S. to Mexico?

Mexico – Millions Displaced
– Estimated 1.5 to 2.5
million Mexicans forced
off their farms
– Extreme rural poverty
rose from 35% to 55%
NAFTA allowed subsidized U.S.
agribusiness to flood Mexican market

Wages fell in cities, financial
deregulation damaged economy
Meanwhile, in the cities…
• Falling wages as farmers
flooded urban labor markets
• Devalued peso from financial
deregulation and speculation
• Jobs shift to China in 2001, when it joins WTO
• Unions and labor rights under attack by
multinational corporations and government allies

At Border, U.S. Employers “Pulled”
“Are you looking for work and not
finding it? IBP… plant in Perry,
Iowa…
Immediate, permanent work with
potential for advancement…
$8.00 to start, you can earn up to $10.80
in little time…
IBP pays for bus trip, first month of rent
and security deposit…
We are interviewing at the Texas
Workforce Commission.”1999 ad in El Paso Times

Immigrants arrived to a U.S. with
diminished unions & protections

Coming “legally”: 2nd Wave
FYI – An estimated 45% of undocumented immigrants
did not enter the US illegally. (Pew Hipanic Center, May 22, 2006)

What “line”?
What is the current process,
why so many undocumented?
Exercise:
• In groups, select immigration
attorney and assign others
prospective immigrant roles.
• Take turns presenting your
situation to the attorney to
find out your options.

Best chance: family of U.S. citizens and
permanent residents (as of Sept. 2013)
1st Preference: Unmarried adult children of a U.S. Citizen
2A Preference: Spouses and minor children of LPR
2B Preference: Unmarried adult children of LPR
3rd Preference: Married adult children of a U.S. Citizen
4th Preference: Brothers and sisters of a U.S. Citizen over 21
Family-
Sponsored
All Charge-
ability Areas
Except Those
Listed
CHINA-
mainland born
INDIA MEXICO PHILIPPINES
F1 15SEP06 15SEP06 15SEP06 08SEP93 08MAY01
F2A C C C C C
F2B 15FEB06 15FEB06 15FEB06 22FEB94 22JAN03
F3 22JAN03 22JAN03 22JAN03 15MAY93 22DEC92
F4 22JUL01 22JUL01 22JUL01 08OCT96 15FEB90

• Employment-based immigration
• Refugee and asylum status
• Certain defenses to removal
• Living in U.S. >10 yrs + extreme hardship
• U Visa: VAWA or victim of crime
• Long residence
• Living in U.S. since before Jan 1, 1972
• Diversity visa lottery
• Limited number every year
Other options are much more rare…

Lawful status justice. . .
abuses of “guest workers”

Bottom line: globalization means
• Corporations travel
without restriction
• Rich investors and CEOs
travel without restriction
• Workers are stripped of
rights in every country, and
pitted against each other
when they are displaced

Common myths vs truth
In groups, decide which is
the one false statement in
the quiz.
How do these facts compare
to common anti-immigrant
myths?
Why are we being told these
things?

FROM “ENFORCEMENT ONLY”
TO DIGNITY AND JUSTICE

Militarization of the Border
Number of border
patrol agents doubled
in past decade, up
nearly 10x since 1980:
 1980: 2,268 agents
 2011: 21,444 agents

Imprisonment and Deportation
In 2011:
 429,247 people held
in ICE detention
 391,953 people
deported from U.S.
Source: Congressional Research Service, US
Immigration Policy: Chart Book of Key Trends
2013; ICE, “ERO Facts and Statistics”

More $ on immigration than all
federal law enforcement combined
What does this mean for workers?

Result: Employers Game the System
Case Study:
Josue Diaz and his co-workers
protested illegal and unsafe working
conditions at a construction site in
Texas.
Employer called police and Immigration
and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Law enforcement officials didn’t enforce
workers’ rights or penalize the
employer. They arrested the workers.

Result: Fear and Family Separation

Result: Fueling Racist Policies
Prisoners in Arpaio’s “tent city” wear pink T-shirts that
read “Clean(ing) and Sober” while working on a chain gang
2012: Arizona officials confiscate Chicano history
books from Tucson school

Who Gains from AZ’s New Laws?
• Corrections Corporation of
America executives believe
immigration detention is their
next big market.
• In 2010, at an ALEC meeting
with CCA executives, Pearce
drafted what became SB 1070.
• Of 36 co-sponsors, 30 received
donations from prison industry
NPR, Oct 28, 2010. “Prison Economics Help Drive Ariz. Immigration Law

In response, young immigrants
and allies are organizing

Today: Unions Are Building
Broad Alliances for Justice
Fight to Restore the Pre-Globalization Economy
•Use same strategies against larger multinationals
•Try to exclude and deport immigrants
•Leave huge swaths of the economy unorganized
Build New Coalitions to Confront Injustice
•Unite with recent immigrants, fight for rights for all
workers, confront civil rights backlash
•Build cross-border alliances
•Link up with community allies to survive attacks

October: Nationwide Protests

Labor’s “Citizenship Now” Demands
 Clear path to citizenship for all 11 million
undocumented workers
 Future immigration based on family unity
and real labor shortages – improve, don’t
expand, guest worker programs
 Strengthen workers’ rights to organize and
stand up to abusive employers
 Sensible border control, not militarization
or moving goalposts to prevent citizenship

Naturalization
Process
• After 3 yrs LPR
Recent Gang of 8 Bill (S. 744)
Path to Citizenship:
Registered
Provisional
Immigrant Status:
• In U.S. by 12/31/2011
• No criminal record
• $500/$500 in fees
• Renewed in 6 yrs if
employed, above
poverty level
• Back tax payments
LPR(Green Card):
• After 10 yrs as RPI
• No criminal record
• Employed regularly
• 125% of poverty
• US civics
• English language
• All prior visa
applications filled
• Border “triggers”
• $1000 in fees

Recent Gang of 8 Bill (S. 744)
Future Immigration:
• Removes the annual cap on some family visas,
eliminates several other visa categories
• New “W visa” worker program – not tied to one
employer, prevailing wage, self-petition for green card
• New “merit-based” visa programs – considers
education, US employer needs, US citizen relative, age
• Expansion of several existing temporary “guest
worker” programs

Recent Gang of 8 Bill (S. 744)
Border control:
• Increase surveillance at southern border and
extend the existing fence
• Apprehend 90% of those who try to enter
• Mandatory Electronic Employment Eligibility
Verification for all U.S. employers
• Electronic system to ID those entering and
exiting U.S. through air and sea ports

Recent Gang of 8 Bill (S. 744)
Strengthen Workers’ Rights:
• Organizing protection: partial “Hoffman
Plastics” fix for workers fired for union activity
• Defending against abusive employers:
more protections for workers fired in violation
of labor laws, or for exposing worker abuses
(temporary ability to remain, U visas, potential
for fines/jail in large-scale abuse cases)

What’s next on road to reform?
1. U.S. Senate
100 Total
55 Democrats
45 Republicans
2. U.S. House of
Representatives
435 Total
200 Democrats
233 Republicans
3. President
Obama
So far, only one House bill includes a path to
citizenship – H.R. 15, introduced October 2, 2013.

The opposition to a path to
citizenship? Example:
"You're going to have to have a
program that assures those farms
and those processing plants that
there will be workers, because if
you give them legal status, they can work
anywhere in the United States - they're not going
to necessarily work at the hardest, toughest,
dirtiest jobs.“
Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-VA

Meanwhile, Community-Based
Initiatives: Car Wash Campaign
Video: 3:50 min

Meanwhile, Community-Based
Initiatives: Restaurant Organizing

Meanwhile, Community-Based
Initiatives: Fast Food Strikes

Workers’ Center Movement
• Safe community spaces
and hub for resources
• Educate about rights
• Organizing and leadership
development
• Join with community allies
to shift balance of power
Over 100 worker centers have been
established across the U.S. in past 20 years:

Rebuilding Worker Strength?
California unions grow, bucking U.S. trend
Latino workers, demanding respect in a precarious job environment,
helped boost the state's unionized workforce by 100,000 in 2012.
January 24, 2013|By Alana Semuels, Los Angeles Times
The latest snapshot of the U.S. working class shows that unions
are in trouble, their ranks thinning amid a backlash against
organized labor and a still sputtering economy.
But California and a few nearby states in the Southwest are
showing a vastly different picture — labor's ranks are on an
upswing. The Golden State's union organizers signed up more
than 100,000 new members last year, while the nation as a whole
shed 400,000, according to data released Wednesday.

Help Forge a New Future
“Once social change begins, it
cannot be reversed.
You cannot uneducate the
person who has learned to read.
You cannot humiliate the person
who feels pride.
You cannot oppress the people
who are not afraid anymore.
We have seen the future, and
the future is ours”
– Cesar Chavez