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ISR Issue 53, May–June 2007
The truth about the STRIVE act
On immigration, Democrats take a step to the right of their constituents
By JUSTIN AKERS CHACÓN
LAST NOVEMBER'S congressional house-cleaning should have swept away any illusion that the average American voter was marching in lockstep with the anti-immigrant drumbeat. The congressional Immigration Reform Caucus, a collection of ninety-four conservative representatives leading the charge toward restriction, was brought to heel by a string of defeats and the categorical rejection of their appeal to elevate immigration into a new Cold War.
Right-wing Republicans lost some of their momentum, as well as key positions of power within congressional committees. James Sensenbrenner, the architect of the notorious “HR 4437” and former chair of the influential House Judiciary Committee (which governs most immigration issues), was unceremoniously dumped from his post. In the Senate, the leadership also changed hands, with Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) assuming the chair of the Immigration, Border Security, and Citizenship Subcommittee. It seemed as though the Democrats were now poised to shift momentum on the issue, and craft a new progressive vision for immigration reform, and dispel the haunting image of encroaching “Fortress America.”
Since the elections, key Democrats have shifted away from the hopes of their constituencies in the immigrant rights movement. Instead, the Democrats have moved decisively to the right; courting the Bush administration and conservative opponents-hat in hand-to forge a compromise palatable to the ultra-conservatives in the Republican Party. The STRIVE Act (“Security Through Regularized Immigration and a Vibrant Economy”; also known as the Gutierrez-Flake bill), represents these efforts at realignment, with resuscitated elements of the discredited Sensenbrenner bill and the absence of an amnesty clause in exchange for a guest-worker program. Top-heavy with punitive measures, it's designed to be “an offer the far Right can't refuse.”
The bill, co-authored by liberal Democrat Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), aims to reconcile the fundamental interests of Corporate America, which include a new guest-worker program and the internal militarization of immigration policy. To facilitate this, it aims to accomplish what the Sensenbrenner bill could not: that is, to besiege, detain, and expel the undocumented population with an “enforcement through attrition” strategy, allowing only a portion (and all future migrants) to re-enter, not as permanent residents, but as “conditional non-immigrants” or “new workers” denied basic democratic rights.
Not only does the proposal completely ignore the causal factors of worker displacement in Mexico and Central America (with the exception of a symbolic “study” of Mexican poverty), it seeks to take advantage of the desperation of workers increasingly dislocated by neoliberal policies regionally driven by the U.S. government. If passed, this bill will fundamentally transform the structure of labor and civil rights for working people in the U.S. for years to come, leading us down a dark path.
Myths and realities of the STRIVE Act of 2007
Myth: The STRIVE Act is a humane alternative to the Sensenbrenner bill.
Reality: The STRIVE act is based on the same premise as the Sensenbrenner bill, to eradicate the undocumented population through the implementation of low-intensity conflict. This doctrine, adapted from U.S. counterinsurgency strategy employed in Latin America and more recently in Iraq, is based on the use of military tactics to regulate and control civilian populations in a “war zone.”
The starting point of the STRIVE Act is to “achieve operational control of the international borders of the United States.” In other words, both external and internal aspects of immigration policy are to be further militarized as a pre-condition, before any program of regularization of the existing immigrant population (or future flows) can take place, a process that could take years. If realized, this would entail a rapid and pervasive militarization of the border regions and in targeted immigrant communities on a scale that evokes images of Israel and Palestine, or around the “Green Zone” in Baghdad.
The plan for external militarization, includes:
- Doubling the number of Border Patrol agents (to about 24,000) by 2012. The proposal emphasizes the recruitment of former military personnel with experience in border enforcement in war zones such as Iraq and Afghanistan;
- Increase of 1,200 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to investigate “immigration crimes”;
- Increase of 100 helicopters and 250 power boats to monitor crossing points;
- Massive infusion of military technology, including unmanned aerial vehicles, tethered aerostat radars, cameras, poles, sensors, satellites, radar coverage, and other technologies to create a “smart border” (which will reinforce and supplement the pending 700-mile border wall);
- Construction of border control facilities to monitor and house agents along the border, including the construction of all-weather roads and the acquisition of additional vehicle barriers.
The internal militarization would include:
- The development of a national biometric database (Automated Biometric Fingerprint Identification System [IDENT]) to monitor and track all immigrants in the United States;
- Integration of a national database “Electronic Employment Verification System” to track the presence of immigrants in the workplace;
- Funding for computer databases for each agent, radios, GPS systems, night-vision equipment, body armor, and more patrol vehicles (one per three agents);
- The creation of at least twenty new federal detention facilities with space to house at least an additional 20,000 detainees;
- “Illegal entrants,” those who cross the border without papers will be criminalized and subject to six months in prison for first offense; two years for second offense; and five years for the third offense;
- Use of forged passports or false visas can result in a fifteen-year jail sentence;
- Increased employer sanctions. Employers knowingly hiring an undocumented worker are subject to a fine of $5,000 and a term of imprisonment up to three years;
- Increase of 2,200 agents specifically designated for “workplace enforcement.”
Under this strategy, a future existing undocumented population would be gradually ensnared by an expansive repressive apparatus, with the institutionalization of raids, workplace monitoring, and localized enforcement.
Myth: Passage of the STRIVE Act will curtail the intervention of the military or local law enforcement in immigration enforcement.
Reality: The plan allows for the federal government to “deputize” local law enforcement agencies to work with immigration agents in conducting operations in areas within 100 miles from the border and in “high impact areas,” any community across the nation where immigrants are concentrated. It also grants state governors in the southern border regions the right to dispatch state National Guard troops to play a temporary, supporting role in border enforcement.
Furthermore, the STRIVE Act protects the right of state and local authorities to engage in immigration enforcement, declaring that “law enforcement personnel of a State, or a political subdivision of a State, have the inherent authority of a sovereign entity to investigate, apprehend, arrest, detain, or transfer to Federal custody (including the transportation across State lines to detention centers) an alien for the purpose of assisting in the enforcement of the criminal provisions of the immigration laws of the United States in the normal course of carrying out the law enforcement duties of such personnel.” (Section 240D[a])
Myth: The STRIVE Act contains an amnesty clause.
Reality: Despite the overheated rhetoric decrying the STRIVE Act's “amnesty clause,” there are no features of this plan that grant an immediate path to citizenship. In fact, the architects were careful to implant multiple layers of obstruction to legalization, ensuring that the path to legalization is tightly constricted, tenuous, and subject to forces beyond the control of the immigrant population. This clause, instead of recognizing and rewarding immigrants for their substantial contribution to the U.S. economy as it should, subjects undocumented immigrants to a series of punitive measures as a precondition to partial legalization.
Title VI of the legislation, entitled (Legalization of Undocumented Individuals) sets the standards by which the existing undocumented population can become “conditional non-immigrants,” a special transitional category that is subject to numerous constraints.
First of all, the majority of the nation's 11-13 million undocumented persons (those between twenty-one and sixty-five, not in the military, disabled, or a single head of household) will have to leave the country within ninety days of the application process. Second, they must pay at least a $2,000 fine, pay back taxes, and show proof of presence and consistent employment before and since June 1, 2006. Current law makes those who use fraudulent documents for employment (roughly 75 percent of all current undocumented workers) inadmissible for legalization. While the proposal grants immigration officials the right to override this provision, it does not make it mandatory, only subject to the individual agent or agency. It further precludes those with a felony, or three misdemeanors.
These first clauses will undoubtedly exclude a portion of the existing population, including those who fear losing their job undertaking the process, who cannot afford the thousands of dollars of fees, transportation, housing costs, and lost pay; and those who either came into the country after June 1, temporarily left the country after that period, or were unemployed (or unable to prove employment) during that period. Ultimately, individual immigration agents, who are trained to find reasons for denial of applications, will have the authority to determine compliance.
For those able to satisfy these requirements, they will not get a Green Card (legal permanent residence). Instead they will receive “conditional non-immigrant status,” a six-year waiting period for which they maintain consistent employment, learn fluent English, and be placed in “the back of the line” behind millions of existing backlogged petitions (currently wait-lists are estimated to be at least five to seven years, although the STRIVE Act does contain clauses to expedite the process). Current law requires at least five years of residency before attaining citizenship. All told, if an immigrant worker does manage to complete all steps, she or he can look forward to citizenship only after the passage of at least fifteen years, such an onerous time-frame that bill co-sponsor Jeff Flake has used it as a selling point to conservative detractors as proof that citizenship will be elusive. While many may be legalized over time, many, perhaps millions, will fall by the wayside and be casualties of the process.
The “conditional non-immigrant” status will make workers dependent on their jobs-and thus more compliant with poor working conditions and lower wages, as employers could hold termination of employment, and thus residency, over their heads. Coupled with the annual infusions of the “new worker” program, this process will create a large and sustained tier of non-citizen workers bound to and dependent on employers for their well-being.
Myth: The “new worker” program gives more protections than traditional guest-worker programs
Reality: The “new worker” program is a re-packaging of the already discredited guest-worker programs of the past and present. Under the proposal, migrant laborers can find temporary employment in the U.S. for two three-year terms. Each year, 400,000 (up to a cap of 600,000 in succeeding years) potential workers are selected after paying a contracting fee of up to $1,500 and passing a health exam. While they are entitled to “prevailing wages,” the proposal is suspiciously vague or silent about the enforcement mechanisms to prevent employer abuse, which is the hallmark of previous guest-worker proposals.
For example, while in the country, the worker is bound to one employer, and required to work for the entire duration of the contract. Any cessation of employment can be determined a breach of contract, allowing the employer to have the worker ejected from the country. While the worker can leave an abusive employer, it is only if she or he can secure another job in advance with another employer who must officially offer them work and be registered with the government to participate in the program. If a worker leaves a worksite without notification, they are deemed “illegal” and subject to deportation if they are not re-integrated into a registered worksite after sixty days. All temporary workers will be tracked into an “Alien Employment Management System” so they will be retrievable if they leave a worksite. Furthermore, the proposal does not express the right to join a union or engage in collective bargaining, which leaves workers vulnerable to employers that violate the provisions of the agreement.
It is the denial of the freedom of movement, assembly, and to engage in genuine collective bargaining by immigrant guest workers that make this proposal so appetizing for employers. According to a recent study of current guest-worker programs by the Southern Poverty Law Center,
These workers, though, are not treated like “guests.” Rather, they are systematically exploited and abused. Unlike U.S. citizens, guest workers do not enjoy the most fundamental protection of a competitive labor market-the ability to change jobs if they are mistreated. Instead, they are bound to the employers who “import” them. If guest workers complain about abuses, they face deportation, blacklisting or other retaliation.
Unlike the old bracero system and current guest-worker programs, the STRIVE Act would deliver workers into virtually every sector of the productive economy. Employers hope to leverage their control over guest workers to lower the wage threshold across the economy and to arrest and reduce a union presence in their worksites. There is also no guarantee for a path to citizenship for guest workers who spill their sweat building the economy. Under the proposal, guest workers can “get in line” for permanent residency but only after jumping through a series of constricting hoops. First, they must work continuously for the two- to three-year term and apply, leave the country, pay a $2,000 fee, and provide evidence of a job to return to in the United States. If they are approved they then receive a two-year “conditional non-immigrant status,” for which they must learn fluent English and work consistently to be able to petition for legal permanent residency (which may take several years depending on the backlog).
The bipartisan and multi-sectional support for the bill reveals how central “comprehensive immigration reform” (a militarized guest-worker plan) is to capital's goal of disempowering labor in the United States. Where the Republican Party was defeated by the mass immigrant rights movement of last spring, the baton has since passed to a Democratic-controlled Congress to salvage Corporate America's vision. For those committed to a different vision-one based on full legalization for all, the democratization of society, and the empowerment of working families-the struggle continues in the streets and workplaces across America.
Justin Akers Chacón is the author, with Mike Davis, of No One is Illegal (Haymarket, 2006).
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