People make their own history, but they do not make it as they please;
they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under
circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.
—Karl Marx, “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte,” 1852
While the government officials developing and
enforcing U.S. immigration policy will change on January 20, the
economic system in which they make that policy will not. As fear sweeps
through immigrant communities in the United States, understanding that
system helps us anticipate what a Trump administration can and can’t do
in regard to immigrants, and what immigrants themselves can do about it.
Over the terms of the last three presidents, the most visible and
threatening aspect of immigration policy has been the drastic increase
in enforcement. President Bill Clinton presented anti-immigrant bills as
compromises, and presided over the first big increase in border
enforcement. George W. Bush used soft rhetoric, but sent immigration
agents in military-style uniforms, carrying AK-47s, into workplaces to
arrest workers, while threatening to fire millions for not having
papers. Under President Barack Obama, a new requirement mandated filling
34,000 beds in detention centers every night. The detention system
mushroomed, and over 2 million people were deported.
Enforcement, however, doesn’t exist for its own sake. It plays a
role in a larger system that serves capitalist economic interests by
supplying a labor force employers require. High levels of enforcement
also ensure the profits of companies that manage detention and
enforcement, who lobby for deportations as hard as Boeing lobbies for
the military budget.
Immigrant labor is more vital to many industries than it’s ever been
before. Immigrants have always made up most of the country’s farm
workers in the West and Southwest. Today, according to the U.S.
Department of Labor, about 57% of the country’s entire agricultural
workforce is undocumented. But the list of other industries dependent on
immigrant labor is long—meatpacking, some construction trades, building
services, healthcare, restaurant and retail service, and more.
Protest in front of Oakland City Hall against the election of Donald Trump as U.S. President.
Credit: All photos © David Bacon (dbacon.igc.org).
During the election campaign, candidate Donald Trump pledged in his
“100-day action plan to Make America Great Again” to “begin removing the
more than two million criminal illegal immigrants from the country” on
his first day in office. In speeches, he further promised to eventually
force all undocumented people (estimated at 11 million) to leave.
In a society with one of the world’s highest rates of
incarceration, crimes are often defined very broadly. In the past, for
instance, under President George W. Bush federal prosecutors charged
workers with felonies for giving a false Social Security number to an
employer when being hired. He further proposed the complete enforcement
of employer sanctions—the provision of the 1986 Immigration Reform and
Control Act that forbids employers from hiring workers without papers.
Bush’s order would have had the Immigration and Customs Enforcement
agency (ICE) check the immigration status of all workers, and required
employers to fire those without legal immigration status, before being
blocked by a suit filed by unions and civil rights organizations.
Under President Obama, workplace enforcement was further
systematized. In just one year, 2012, ICE audited 1600 employers. Tens
of thousands of workers were fired during Obama’s eight years in office.
Given Trump’s choice of Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions as Attorney
General, greater workplace enforcement is extremely likely. Sessions has
been one of the strongest advocates in Congress for greater immigration
enforcement, and has criticized President Obama for not deporting
enough people. Last year he proposed a five-year prison sentence for any
undocumented immigrant caught in the country after having been
previously deported.
Industry Needs Immigrants
Both deportations and workplace firings face a basic obstacle—the
immigrant workforce is a source of immense profit to employers. The Pew
Hispanic Center estimates that, of the presumed 11 million people in the
country without documents, about 8 million are employed (comprising
over 5% of all workers). Most earn close to the minimum wage (some far
less), and are clustered in low-wage industries. In the Indigenous Farm
Worker Survey, for instance, made in 2009, demographer Rick Mines found
that a third of California’s 165,000 indigenous agricultural laborers
(workers from communities in Mexico speaking languages that pre-date
European colonization) made less than minimum wage.
The federal minimum wage is still stuck at $7.50/hour, and even
California’s minimum of $10/hour only gives full-time workers an annual
income of $20,000. Meanwhile, Social Security says the national average
wage index for 2015 is just over $48,000. In other words, if employers
were paying the undocumented workforce the average U.S. wage it would
cost them well over $200 billion annually. That wage differential
subsidizes whole industries like agriculture and food processing. If
that workforce were withdrawn, as Trump threatens, through deportations
or mass firings, employers wouldn’t be able to replace it without
raising wages drastically.
As president, Donald Trump will have to ensure that the labor needs
of employers are met, at a price they want to pay. The corporate
appointees in his administration reveal that any populist rhetoric about
going against big business was just that—rhetoric. But Hillary Clinton
would have faced the same necessity. And in fact, the immigration reform
proposals in Congress from both Republicans and Democrats over the past
decade shared this understanding—that U.S. immigration policy must
satisfy corporate labor demands.
During the Congressional debates over immigration reform, the
Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) proposed two goals for U.S.
immigration policy. In a report from the CFR-sponsored Independent Task
Force on U.S. Immigration Policy, Senior Fellow Edward Alden stated, “We
should reform the legal immigration system so that it operates more
efficiently, responds more accurately to labor market needs, and
enhances U.S. competitiveness.” He went on to add, “We should restore
the integrity of immigration laws, through an enforcement regime that
strongly discourages employers and employees from operating outside that
legal system.” The CFR, therefore, coupled an enforcement regime—with
deportations and firings—to a labor-supply scheme.
Immigrants, workers, union members, people of faith and community
activists demonstrated in Silicon Valley, calling for a moratorium on
deportations and the firing of undocumented workers because of their
immigration status.
This framework assumes the flow of migrating people will continue,
and seeks to manage it. This is a safe assumption, because the basic
causes of that flow have not changed. Communities in Mexico continue to
be displaced by 1) economic reforms that allowed U.S. corporations to
flood the country with cheap corn and meat (often selling below the cost
of production—known as “dumping”—thanks to U.S. agricultural subsidies
and trade agreements like NAFTA), 2) the rapacious development of mining
and other extractive concessions in the countryside, and 3) the growing
impoverishment of Mexican workers. Violence plays its part, linked to
the consequences of displacement, economic desperation, and mass
deportations. Continuing U.S. military intervention in Central America
and other developing countries will produce further waves of refugees.
While candidate Trump railed against NAFTA in order to get votes
(as did Barack Obama), he cannot—and, given his ties to business, has no
will to—change the basic relationship between the United States and
Mexico and Central America, or other developing countries that are the
sources of migration. Changing the relationship (with its impact on
displacement and migration) is possible in a government committed to
radical reform. Bernie Sanders might have done this. Other voices in
Congress have advocated it. But Trump will do what the system wants him
to do, and certainly will not implement a program of radical reform.
H-2A Guest Workers
The structures for managing the flow of migrants are already in
place, and don’t require Congress to pass big immigration reform bills.
In Washington State alone, for instance, according to Alex Galarza of
the Northwest Justice Project, the Washington Farm Labor Association
brought in about 2,000 workers under the H-2A guest worker program in
2006. In 2013, the number rose to 4,000. By 2015, it grew to 11,000. In
2016, it reached 16,000. That kind of growth is taking place in all
states with a sizeable agricultural workforce.
The H-2A program allows growers to recruit workers outside the country
for periods of less than a year, after which they must return to their
country of origin. Guest workers who lose their jobs for whatever
reason—whether by offending their employer, or not working fast enough,
for example—have to leave the country, so joining a union or protesting
conditions is extremely risky. Growers can only use the program if they
can show they can’t find local workers, but the requirement is often
unenforced.
The program for foreign contract labor in agriculture is only one
of several like it for other industries. One study, “Visas, Inc.,” by
Global Workers Justice, found that over 900,000 workers were brought to
the United States to work every year under similar conditions. The
number is growing.
In the context of the growth of these programs, immigration enforcement
fulfills an important function. It heralds a return to the bracero era,
named for the U.S. “guest worker” program that brought millions of
Mexican farmworkers to the United States between 1942 and 1964. The
program was notorious for its abuse of the braceros, and for pitting
them against workers already in the United States in labor competition
and labor conflict. In 1954 alone, the United States deported over a
million people—while importing 450,000 contract workers. Historically,
immigration enforcement has been tied to the growth of contract labor,
or “guest worker” programs.
Arresting people at the border, firing them from their jobs for
not having papers, and sending people to detention centers for
deportation, all push the flow of migrants into labor schemes managed to
benefit corporations. The more a Trump administration pushes for
deportations and internal enforcement, the more it will rely on
expanding guest worker programs.
The areas where programs like H-2A are already growing were heavy
Trump supporters. In eastern Washington, a heavily Trump area,
immigration agents forced the huge Gebbers apple ranch to fire hundreds
of undocumented workers in 2009, and then helped the employer apply for
H-2A workers. While the undocumented workers of eastern Washington had
good reason to fear Trump’s threats, employers knew they didn’t have to
fear the loss of a low-wage workforce.
Deportations and workplace enforcement will have a big impact on
unions and organizing rights. Immigrant workers have been the backbone
of some of the most successful labor organizing of the last two decades,
from Los Angeles janitors to Las Vegas hotel workers to Republic
Windows and Doors in Chicago. At the same time, the use of the E-Verify
database under President Obama often targeted workers active in labor
campaigns like Fight for $15, as did earlier Bush and Clinton
enforcement efforts.
Unions and immigrant communities have developed sophisticated
tactics for resisting these attacks, and will have to use them
effectively under Trump. Janitors in Minneapolis fought the firing of
undocumented fast-food workers in Chipotle restaurants. The
International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) teamed up with
faith-based activists, immigrant-rights groups, and environmentalists to
stop firings of undocumented workers in Bay Area recycling facilities,
winning union representation and higher wages as a result. The same
unions and community organizations that have fought enforcement in the
workplace have also fought detentions and deportations.
Immigrant Latino workers from the Woodfin Suites hotel in
Emeryville, Calif., and their supporters protest after hotel managers
fired 20 workers, accusing them of lacking legal immigration status.
These efforts will have to depend on more than a legal defense. The
Supreme Court has already held that undocumented workers fired for
organizing at work can’t be rehired, and their employers don’t have to
pay them back pay.
Border Enforcement
Trump’s threatened enforcement wave extends far beyond the
workplace. He promised increased enforcement on the U.S.-Mexico border,
expanding the border wall, and increasing the number of Border Patrol
agents beyond the current 25,000. Immigration enforcement already costs
the government more than all other federal law enforcement programs put
together.
Trump proposed an End Illegal Immigration Act, imposing a
two-year prison sentence on anyone who re-enters the U.S. after having
been deported, and five years for anyone deported more than once. Under
President Obama, the United States deported more than two million
people. Hundreds of thousands, with children and families in the United
States, have tried to return to them. Under this proposed law, they
would fill the prisons.
One of Trump’s “first day” commitments is to “cancel every
unconstitutional executive action, memorandum and order issued by
President Obama.” This promise includes Obama’s executive order giving
limited, temporary legal status to undocumented youth brought to the
United States by their parents (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals,
or DACA). DACA has been attacked by the right-wing ideologues advising
Trump’s transition team since Obama issued his order.
The 750,000 young people who gained status under DACA—the
“Dreamers”—have been one of the most active sections of the U.S.
immigrant-rights movement. But they had to give the government their
address and contact information in order to obtain a deferment, making
them vulnerable to deportation sweeps. Defending them will likely be one
of the first battles of the Trump era.
Trump further announced that on his first day in office he will
“cancel all federal funding to Sanctuary Cities.” More than 300 cities
in the United States have adopted policies saying that they will not
arrest and prosecute people solely for being undocumented.
Many cities, and even some states, have withdrawn from federal
schemes, notably the infamous “287(g) program,” requiring police to
arrest and detain people because of their immigration status. Trump’s
proposed order would cancel federal funding for housing, medical care,
and other social services to cities that won’t cooperate. As attorney
general, Sessions can be expected to try to enforce this demand. After
the election, many city governments and elected officials were quick to
announce that they would not be intimidated.
The Dreamers especially see direct action in the streets as an important
part of defending communities. In the push for DACA, youth
demonstrations around the country sought to stop deportations by sitting
in front of buses carrying prisoners to detention centers. Dreamers
defended young people detained for deportation, and even occupied
Obama’s Chicago office during his 2012
re-election campaign.
In detention centers themselves, detainees have organized hunger
strikes with the support of activists camping in front of the gates.
Maru Mora Villapando, one of the organizers of the hunger strikes and
protests at the detention center in Tacoma, Wash., says organizers
cannot just wait for Trump to begin his attacks, but have to start
building up defense efforts immediately. She advocates pressuring the
Obama administration to undo as much of the detention and deportation
machinery as possible before leaving office. “We don’t want him just to
hand over the keys to this machine as it is right now,” she warns.
The success of efforts to defend immigrants, especially
undocumented people, depends not just on their own determination to take
direct action, but on support from the broader community. In
Philadelphia, less than a week after the election, Javier Flores García
was given sanctuary by the congregation of the Arch Street United
Methodist Church after being threatened by federal immigration agents.
“Solidarity is our protection,” urged the Reverend Deborah Lee of the
Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity in California. “Our best defense
is an organized community committed to each other and bound together
with all those at risk. ... We ask faith communities to consider
declaring themselves ‘sanctuary congregations’ or ‘immigrant welcoming
congregations.’”
But while many workers may have supported Trump because of anger
over unemployment and the fallout from trade agreements like NAFTA, they
also bought his anti-immigrant political arguments. Those arguments,
especially about immigrants in the workplace, even affect people on the
left who opposed Trump himself. Some of those arguments have been made
by Democrats, and used to justify enforcement measures like E-Verify
included in “comprehensive immigration reform” bills. One union
activist, Buzz Malone, wrote a piece for In These Times arguing for
increased enforcement of employer sanctions, although he envisioned them
more as harsher penalties for employers who hire the undocumented.
“Imprison the employers ... and all of it would end,” he predicted. “The
border crossings would fizzle out and many of the people would leave on
their own.”
What Is to Be Done?
To defeat the Trump enforcement wave, immigrant activists in
unions and communities will have to fight for deeper understanding and
greater unity between immigrants and U.S.-born people. Workers in
general need to see that people in Mexico got hit by NAFTA even harder
than people in the U.S. Midwest—and their displacement and migration
isn’t likely to end soon. In a diverse workforce, the unity needed to
defend a union or simply win better conditions depends on fighting for a
country and workplace where everyone has equal rights. For immigrant
workers, the most basic right is simply the right to stay. Defending
that right means not looking the other way when a coworker, a neighbor
or a friend is threatened with firing, deportation, or worse.
The rise of a Trump enforcement wave spells the death of the
liberal centrism that proposed trading increased enforcement and labor
supply programs for a limited legalization of undocumented people. Under
Trump, the illusion that there is some kind of “fair” enforcement of
employer sanctions and “smart border enforcement” will be stripped away.
Sessions will have no interest in “humane detention,” with codes of
conduct for the private corporations running detention centers. The idea
of guest worker programs that don’t exploit immigrants or set them
against workers already in the United States will face the reality of an
administration bent on giving employers what they want.
So in one way the Trump administration presents an opportunity as
well—to fight for the goals immigrant rights advocates have
historically proposed, to counter inequality, economic exploitation, and
the denial of rights. As Sergio Sosa, director of the Heartland Workers
Center in Omaha, Nebr., puts it, “we have to go back to the social
teachings our movement is based on—to the idea of justice.”
DAVID BACON is a journalist and photographer
covering labor, immigration, and the impact of the global economy on
workers. He is author of several books, including Illegal People: How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants
(Beacon Press, 2009).
SOURCES: “Donald
Trump’s Contract with the American Voter” (donaldjtrump.com); Chico
Harlan, “The private prison industry was crashing—until Donald Trump’s
victory,” Wonkblog, Washington Post, Nov. 10, 2016
(washingtonpost.com); U.S. Immigration and Customs Envorcement,
“Delegation of Immigration Authority Section 287(g) Immigration and
Nationality Act” (ice.gov); Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity
(im4humanintegrity.org); Community Initiatives for Visiting Immigrants
in Confinement, “End the Quota” (endisolation.org); Jens Manuel
Krogstad, Jeffrey S. Passel, and D’Vera Cohn, “Five facts about illegal
immigration in the U.S.,” Pew Research Center, Nov. 3, 2016
(pewresearch.org); Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Foreign-Born Workers:
Labor Force Characteristics, 2016,” May 19, 2016 (bls.gov); Jie Zong and
Jeanne Batalova, “Frequently Requested Statistics on Immigrants and
Immigration in the United States,” Migration Information Service, April
14, 2016 (migrationpolicy.org); “Selected Statistics on Farmworkers,”
Farmworker Justice, 2014 (farmworkerjustice.org); “Indigenous Mexicans
in California Agriculture,” Indigenous Farmworker Study
(indigenousfarmworkers.org); “U.S. Immigration Policy Task Force
Report,” Council on Foreign Relations, August 2009 (cfr.org); “Visas,
Inc.: Corporate Control and Policy Incoherence in the U.S. Temporary
Foreign Labor System,” Global Workers Justice Alliance, May 31, 2012
(globalworkers.org); “H-2A Temporary Agricultural Workers,” U.S.
Citizenship and Immigration Services (uscis.gov); Buzz Malone, “Stop
Blaming Immigrants and Start Punishing the Employers Who Exploit Them,”
Working In These Times (blog), Nov. 15, 2016 (inthesetimes.com); David Bacon, Illegal People (Beacon Press, 2008); David Bacon, The Right to Stay Home
(Beacon Press, 2013); David Bacon, author interviews with Alex Galarza,
Maru Mora Villapando, Deborah Lee, and Sergio Sosa (2016); Mae M. Ngai,
Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America (Princeton University Press, 2004); Ronald L. Mize and Alicia C. Swords, Consuming Mexican Labor: From the Bracero Program to NAFTA (University of Toronto Press, 2010).
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This man is not norma
