Thread: Groups call for balance in labor, immigration laws

Tuesday, October 27, 2009 at 12:16 AM



Groups call for balance in labor, immigration laws

Workplace immigration raids during the Bush administration interfered with ongoing labor investigations and allowed employers to exploit workers who complained about conditions on the job, labor groups said in a report released Tuesday.

By SUZANNE GAMBOA



WASHINGTON —
Workplace immigration raids during the Bush administration interfered with ongoing labor investigations and allowed employers to exploit workers who complained about conditions on the job, labor groups said in a report released Tuesday.

The stepped-up immigration enforcement came at the expense of rigorous enforcement of labor protections that are guaranteed to all workers regardless of immigration status, the groups said.

"The single-minded focus on immigration enforcement without regard to violations of workplace laws has enabled employers with rampant labor and employment violations to profit by employing workers who are terrified to complain," said the authors of the report by the AFL-CIO, National Employment Law Project and American Rights at Work Education Fund.

The groups called on the Obama administration to balance immigration and labor law enforcement.

They recommend a return to the type of agreement forged in 1998 between the Labor Department and the now-defunct Immigration and Naturalization Service. It established rules for cooperation but prohibited immigration enforcement from trumping labor law enforcement to ensure immigrant employees would not fear complaining about problem employers.

"You can do both. You can enforce immigration laws and you can protect the workers who are being victimized by unscrupulous employers," said Julie Martinez Ortega, American Rights at Work research director.

Martinez acknowledged that the Obama administration has ended high-profile raids. Homeland Security Department spokesman Matt Chandler said work site enforcement policy distributed to Immigration and Customs Enforcement in April emphasizes targeting immigrants who have committed crimes and focuses on employers who knowingly hire people who cannot legally work in the country to "target the root cause of illegal immigration."

Among the disruptive enforcement actions highlighted by the labor groups:

- Agriprocessors slaughterhouse in Postville, Iowa, in 2008, where at least three state and federal labor agencies were investigating when ICE raided the plant.

- Pilgrim's Pride plants in five states in 2008, where a union recruiting campaign was ongoing and a law firm was developing a wage-and-hour lawsuit against the company when ICE raided.

- Arrests and detention of several day laborers in Port Arthur, Texas, in 2008. They had complained to their employer for failing to pay their promised $13 an hour wage for demolition work after Hurricane Ike hit the Texas coast. The workers were evicted from the refinery where they were housed and the employer tipped off local police and ICE.

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, said the Bush administration work site raids helped further worker protections.


The 2008 raid at the Agriprocessors plant came after repeated reports of violations that never resulted in action against the employer. The raid "burst open all the problems that were there," said Krikorian, whose center supports tougher immigration reform.

He said the report is "background music" for labor's ultimate objective of winning legalization for illegal immigrant workers.

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This doesn't make any sense at all! If they get the illegals out of those jobs and hire Americans, we solve two problems at one time. We get the illegals out of our nation and give those jobs to American citizens who don't have to be afraid to complain about workplace violations because they're not ALREADY here illegally. These people are either very, very stupid...or they think American citizens are!

"You can do both. You can enforce immigration laws and you can protect the workers who are being victimized by unscrupulous employers,"

Why not fine employers that hire illegals. Fine, illegals for tax fraud. Stop giving illegals any goods and services for them or their anchors. And deport as many illegals as possible. And use the kinds of skills our military uses to protect borders in the middle eastern countries they are fighting in , and apply those skills on our borders.

Hire American only! Help our businesses and our people instead of giving our money to obama friends and enemies of America.

Among the disruptive enforcement actions highlighted by the labor groups:

Very weak points they made.

#1 "were being investigated..." Doesn't mean they found anything and they didn't have enough proof to take any action.

#2 "union recruiting campaign was ongoing" & "a law firm was developing a wage-and-hour lawsuit" The raid did not make either magically go away and it sounds more like neither had a leg to stand on to begin with. That union, is probably still recruiting illegal aliens all over the place so if you want to know where they are working, follow them around.

#3 "employer tipped off local police and ICE" Pure speculation.

In all of the above raided locations the problems begin and end with illegal aliens and if they weren't in the workforce, none of the above mentioned labor issues wouldn't even be an issue. They are the reason for the alleged problems.

Dixie

This little territorial battle between agencies ignores a very important thing: without the proper documentation a foreign national is not allowed to work. And even with documentation that the foreign national presents, how many employers actually check if it is fraudulent?