This weekend, the Cambridge organization Centro Presente brought together legal immigrants, illegal workers and immigration experts to educate all those involved about the rights immigrants have in this country. They likely needed it. Though a century ago most immigrants entered the country legally — there were few restrictions on how many people entered, from Europe at least — the laws now are hard even for lawyers specializing in the field to follow. Many immigrants working illegally in the United States face conflicting messages from groups informing them of their rights and hard-line immigration officials bent on ensuring the millions of illegal immigrants who work in the country leave, no matter how unrealistic this goal.
A year ago this month, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents streamed into a New Bedford leather goods factory suspected of hiring illegal immigrants and arrested hundreds of workers. As swiftly as the agency moved to detain many women from Central America working at the plant, immigrants’ rights groups and the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals criticized the agency for rashly detaining them without regard for their own health or their children’s, according to a March 5 Associated Press article.
The incident punctuated a problem many immigrants’ rights groups try hard to prevent: faced with a double standard posed by businesses demanding immigrant labor and a federal government forbidding immigrants who do not comply with a convoluted visa process, many immigrants who work here illegally also avoid supporting public safety for fear of deportation. State and local governments have tried to prevent this by allowing immigrants to drive as licensed residents rather than without training or insurance. They have allowed health care and public service workers to provide their services without asking for proof of citizenship.
Though the immigration issue has faded from the headlines since John McCain sewed up the Republican nomination, the issue should remain a top priority for both parties. Democrats cannot pretend to address foreign affairs without tackling a prime issue for both Americans’ pocketbooks and immigrants’ rights. The Republican nominee should speak frankly to his constituents about the realities of immigration.
To say cities and towns aid “lawbreakers” by providing safe haven for these workers is a gross simplification. No state or municipal government should undermine its own laws and ordinances by supporting those who break the law. But governments at the state and local level regularly resist enforcement of federal laws when they believe U.S. law oversteps its bounds and does not serve their interests. In modern times, state and local governments have undermined enforcement of drug laws, unfunded educational mandates and now immigration rules. Still, the double standard remains.
For all the talk about forbidding “amnesty” to illegal immigrants who broke federal law by entering the country, far too little of the immigration discussion focuses on the demand side of the labor equation: Employers who hire some or all of their staffs from the torrent of illegal immigrants coming into the country do so with impunity as state, local and even federal agencies stand by, for one reason – the economy would slow significantly without the cheap labor immigrant workers provide.
A major complaint about the North American Free Trade Agreement argues that the accord allows Canada, the United States and Mexico to trade everything from T-shirts to cars but still puts up a barrier to labor, allowing workers to continue earning much more in the United States than in Mexico, which contributes more to illegal immigration here than any other country. This trade imbalance is found in many other nations with which the United States has entered into free trade agreements. Some goods require workers to ply their trades in the United States. As long as we offer high wages, immigrants will continue to enter the country by any means necessary.
Of course, no solution will be ideal until Congress enacts a long overdue overhaul of immigration laws in this country. Without a law that provides an easy path to citizenship for the millions of immigrants looking to work here – and not just those with university educations or family connections in the United States – the nation will remain stuck between two unhealthy alternatives: enforce immigration laws at the expense of the U.S. economy, or allow a large group to remain underground, where they are vulnerable to exploitation and other threats to public safety. Until Congress enacts comprehensive immigration reform that recognizes immigration is an inevitable factor in the U.S. economy, the federal government’s convoluted set of statutes will continue causing problems on both sides of our borders.
