Immigration debate

New "compromise" for employers

By SHAUN HARKIN

HUNDREDS OF thousands of immigrants and their supporters took to the streets to demand an end to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids, calling for legalization for all undocumented immigrants, and to say “we are workers, not criminals.” Though the protests were smaller than last year, the size of the demonstrations was impressive given the yearlong repressive backlash against immigrants.

Escalating ICE raids and deportations have aimed to terrorize and intimidate immigrant communities. Highly visible ICE raids, like those carried out at Swift and Co. meatpacking plants across the country in December last year, have the twin aims of appeasing the right wing and forcing employers, unions, and immigrants to accept a corporate dominated, enforcement-heavy framework to solve the immigration “problem.”
Liberal immigrant rights organizations tied to the Democratic Party have played a role in dampening turnouts at demonstrations, emphasizing lobbying over protest on the grounds that protest would only incense the Right and make it difficult to pass “comprehensive immigration reform.”

In Chicago, more than 250,000 marched, by far the largest mobilization on May Day. A number of factors contributed to this. First, various organizations overcame differences in order to mobilize the largest possible numbers in defense of immigrants and to amplify the call for action. In many other cities, May Day actions were fragmented by competing events called by different organizations. Second, rallies organized to support Illinois Democratic Party Congressman Luis Gutiérrez’s immigration reform proposal, the STRIVE Act, H.R. 1645, indirectly played a role in creating momentum for May Day. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, an ICE raid in Chicago’s predominantly Mexican neighborhood of Little Village on April 24 caused a surge of anger and outrage that organizers immediately channeled towards the May Day march. Instead of the media broadcasting scenes of desperate immigrants fleeing from ICE officers, as has often happened, local television stations and newspapers broadcast activists and community members taking over nearby streets and marching through the neighborhood while the raid was in progress. This response was crucial and illustrates the importance of creating emergency or rapid response networks that can mobilize immigrant rights supporters on short notice.

Now the focus has shifted from the streets to debates in the halls of Congress. Drawn-out and hyped negotiations conducted in a media-driven atmosphere of suspense and secrecy resulted in the announcement on May 17 of a new immigration compromise bill. Heavy involvement by the Bush White House with a small number of senators from both parties produced what has been dubbed the “grand bargain.” Bush, with sinking poll numbers, is desperate to see Congress deliver something he can sign into law by the end of the summer. If there’s no immigration bill by then, it’s unlikely any legislation will pass before the 2008 presidential campaign. Bush has made “reshaping” the immigration system a top priority, but the process is straining the Republican Party, producing, according to the New York Times “an unusually intense backlash from conservatives who form the bulwark of his remaining support, splintering [Bush’s] base and laying bare divisions within a party whose unity has been the envy of Democrats.” Some of Bush’s strongest supporters are attacking his immigration plans for offering “amnesty” for immigrants, and some ultra-conservative Web sites have even called for Bush’s impeachment.

The cleavage emanates from the party’s attempt to bridge the interests of big business and the hard Right that wants to seal the border.

Right-wing vitriol aside, there’s absolutely nothing for supporters of immigrant rights to celebrate in the latest Senate compromise, proposal S. 1348. The content flows from the needs of Corporate America and is enforcement heavy to suit the “war on terror” gospel and the anti-immigrant, “know-nothing” crowd.

The most onerous provisions have been well documented by critics and include: a move away from the family-based immigration system to one based on skills; a massive new guest-worker program with no possibility for permanent residency, unaffordable fees, an impractical and punitive “touchback” to the country of origin, a very long wait—up to eight years—to apply for permanent residency; a point system that favors the well-educated over poor and working-class immigrants; absurdly high fees to achieve legalization status; and further militarization of the border and enforcement in general, including hundreds of miles of fencing and walls; and 20,000 (amended up from 18,000 in the original proposal) more Border Patrol agents. Worse, none of the legalization provisions in the bill are slated to go into effect until after the draconian provisions have been deemed effective. (For a comprehensive breakdown of the Senate proposal see the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law analysis at http://bordervoz.org/featuredarticle1.html.)

The response from immigrant rights advocates has been overwhelmingly negative. The new Democratic Party-dominated Congress has raised expectations that a more pro-immigrant, less punitive legislative deal would be possible. This has not been the case. Immediately after the unveiling of the proposal, Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ), described as “a key negotiator in closed door Senate meetings on immigration reform,” distanced himself, saying he could not support the proposal because of “the limitations in the family reunification program, the temporary nature of the worker program, and the unrealistically high fees that undocumented immigrants would have to pay.”

Liberal pro-immigrant advocacy organizations that have defended earlier bipartisan reform efforts felt compelled to criticize the new compromise. For example, Cecilia Muñoz, senior vice president for the National Council of La Raza, one of the most conservative and corporate-oriented advocacy organizations, said, “We want to see an immigration reform debate on the Senate floor. We want to see this move forward. But we are wildly uncomfortable with a lot of what we’re hearing.”

Criticism from elsewhere has been much sharper. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney’s statement is worth quoting at length,

Unfortunately, the immigration deal announced today does not address the roots of the immigration crisis. And it abandons long-standing U.S. policy favoring the reunification of families and protecting workers by limiting the size and the scope of guest-worker programs—which frequently amount to virtual servitude, where workers’ fates are tied to their employers and their workplace rights are impossible to exercise. The proposal unveiled today includes a massive guest-worker program that would allow employers to import hundreds of thousands of temporary workers every year to perform permanent jobs throughout the economy.

Without a real path to legalization, the program will exclude millions of workers and thus ensure that America will have two classes of workers, only one of which can exercise workplace rights. As long as this two-tiered system exists, all workers will suffer because employers will have available a ready pool of labor they can exploit to drive down wages, benefits, health and safety protections and other workplace standards.