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Report Claims That Immigration Enforcement Is Undermining Workers' Rights

"Iced Out: How Immigration Enforcement Has Interfered with Workers? Rights," a report jointly issued on October 27 by the AFL-CIO, American Rights at Work and the National Employment Law Project and co-authored by Ana Avendaño, Rebecca Smith and Julie Martinez Ortega, concludes that an overseeing government entity is needed to moderate the enforcement of the nation?s immigration laws at the workplace and to ensure that workplace rights are not impeded by overzealous enforcement. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)?s current practice of conducting workplace raids during ongoing labor disputes and/or in the face of wage and hour violations puts all workers at risk, the report argues.
The reports cites numerous case studies in which ICE and state and local law enforcement agencies working in tandem with ICE have ignored specific policy?known as ICE Special Agents Field Manual 33.14(h)?which was designed to mitigate against this problem. The policy requires investigators to obtain approval from a Director when it appears that ICE was tipped-off about the presence undocumented workers as a tool in a labor dispute. "Iced Out" argues that this policy should be meaningfully revived and fully disseminated throughout the agency and state and local law enforcement offices in order to bring to an end the perverse climate in which employers unjustly benefit from hiring undocumented workers and keep them from asserting their rights by threatening to call immigration.

"Iced Out" identifies instances where ICE agents conducted surveillance of picket lines, and/or conducted immigration raids on the heels of wage and hour litigation?activities which, its authors, believe have send a clear message to employees that if they complain about working conditions they may face deportation. One example cited, involved the conduct of a particularly egregious raid at a plant in Iowa. According to the report, ICE agents had received letters from union leaders informing them that there was a labor dispute in process at the plant so that ICE would comport with their policy of not conducting immigration enforcement actions during such times. However, one week after receipt of this letter ICE raided the plant. Many of those arrested and detained in the raid were in fact eligible for U or V non-immigrant status* as a result of the illegal and unsafe working conditions at the plant. Instead of providing these workers with the resources to obtain lawful status, the 306 workers arrested were turned over to the U.S. Attorney?s Office to face criminal charges for working with false papers.

The report concludes with recommendations that seek to balance important goals of enforcing workplace rights and the U.S. immigration laws. By returning to the policy of not allowing immigration enforcement to inhibit the enforcement of labor laws, the authors hope to prevent abusive workplaces in which some employers take advantage of undocumented workers and exploit their fear of deportation during labor disputes.

*U is a nonimmigrant classification for victims of certain crimes who are willing to assist government officials in the investigation of the criminal activity. V is a nonimmigrant status created to allow families to stay together while waiting for the processing of immigrant visas.

Full post as published by Masliah & Soloway on November 03, 2009 (boomark / email).