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Resisting False Choices & Getting to a Truly Humane Immigration Policy
By David Sirota
Created 04/20/2009 - 10:06am
In the debate over immigration, interest groups like the Chamber of Commerce would have us believe that there are only two positions: Either you are a tolerant and good person who supports "reform" or you are an evil racist who wants to build a wall at our southern border. Likewise, genuine xenophobes and racists would have us believe you are either a patriot who supports "border security" and wants to preserve "our culture" (read: white culture) or you hate America and are a traitor.
These are (obviously) oversimplified frames, and for a reason: Racists want to polarize the debate on nationalistic terms, and Big Money interests want to use immigration "reform" - most prominently through a so-called "guest worker program" - to create a permanent underclass of immigrants to economically exploit.
IMHO, this latter strategy is most dangerous, because whereas racists/xenophobes are pretty open about their xenophobia (and whereas polls show most Americans want tolerance in our immigration policy), Big Money is wrapping exploitative policies in the patina of human rights and tolerance.
To understand how such exploitation works - and how it is hidden under the veneer of supposed "pro-immigration" tolerance - read this excerpt from Rochester Institute of Technology professor Ron Hira's excellent op-ed in Businessweek [1]. His piece is specifically on the H-1B program, one existing version of a so-called "guest worker" program:
The H-1B is a temporary work permit, one that allows participating foreigners to be mistreated. The visa, remember, is held by the employer, not the worker. That considerably diminishes the H-1B holder's bargaining power for better wages and working conditions.
Some H-1B workers are eventually sponsored for permanent residency, but, again, this is at the discretion of their employers. Because the number of guest workers far exceeds the number of available employment-based green cards, H-1B workers can get stuck where they are for as long as 10 years, with no ability to switch employers or even get a promotion.
Because guest-worker program proposals vest the immigrant's immigration status in the hands of the employer, the immigrant is effectively an indentured servant. The immigrant cannot ask for a raise, better working conditions, or - godforbid - to join a union without fear of not only being fired by the employer, but of also being thrown out of the country by the employer.
While it's certainly true that an ugly racist element opposes all efforts to increase the number of immigrants in the United States, it's also very true that you can oppose this specific kind of "reform" on grounds that are the opposite of racist - on grounds that this kind of "reform" is horrible for immigrants because it relegates them to a permanently disempowered underclass. On top of that, of course, it forces domestic workers to compete in a wage-cutting competition with workers who have far fewer basic rights to demand better pay.
The idea that you either have to be for inhumane policies or you are a racist is a false choice - and the good news is that a new progressive consensus seems to be coalescing around immigration principles that are both pro-immigrant/anti-racist and humane.
The Hill newspaper [2] reports that organized labor has (IMHO, rightly) "opposed the current guest worker program on the grounds that some employers use it to exploit foreign employees at the expense of U.S. workers they would otherwise have to provide better pay and conditions to." But now, labor has unified in support of "a national commission to determine the number of permanent and temporary workers allowed across the border every year, which the labor groups said would be 'based on labor market shortages that are based on actual and real needs.'"
I'm not sure I completely agree with this framework - we are a nation of immigrants, and I don't think only economic factors should determine how much legal immigration we allow. Why? Because people often want to immigrate to the United States for non-economic reasons - Jews in World War II Europe, for instance, wanted to immigrate here to escape death at the hands of the Nazis.
That said, the fact that organized labor - parts of which have been reluctant to support increased immigration - is coming to the table on this issue is real progress in rejecting the attempt by both Big Money and racists to ramrod this debate into a false choices.
As the debate over immigration heats up, progressives have to watch out for sleight-of-hand - specifically, for moneyed interests that are portraying their immigration proposals as "humane." The truth is, most of these moneyed interests don't care whether the policy is humane at all - all they care about is using immigration policy to hurt both domestic and foreign workers, and therefore drive down labor costs.
And so to close, I just want to reiterate the most important point: You can oppose specific kinds of "reform" - specifically, so-called "guest worker" proposals - on grounds that are the opposite of racist - on grounds that this kind of "reform" is horrible for immigrants because it relegates them to a permanently disempowered underclass. A truly positive immigration reform package would be one that increased legal immigration levels and made sure that those coming into our country have exactly the same economic rights and economic leverage as domestic workers. That's good for everyone.
