Benefits of Granting Undocumented Workers Legal Status
Granting unauthorized immigrants permanent legal status would help them to pursue and accept jobs for which their skills are well suited, and they would be less restricted to particular sectors of the economy, such as agriculture, construction, and hospitality. For example, about half of the workers in the US dairy industry are immigrants, and most of them are unauthorized. Without legal status, they have limited opportunities for job mobility. In addition to employment opportunities, evidence suggests that legalization also encourages unauthorized immigrants to improve their language skills, complete additional education, and improve their overall health. Offering permanent legal status to unauthorized workers would allow workers to be more productive and it would generate gains in various aspects of the economy. Some people argue that increasing social programs and extending them to unauthorized workers would come at a significant cost for the government, however, the productivity of newly legalized immigrants would increase, which would expand economic output and benefit everyone in the US. Additionally, increasing the wages of immigrants and their compliance with tax requirements would increase their contributions to public sector finances. Ultimately, enabling unauthorized workers to gain legal status and fully engage in the workforce would benefit them, as well as society as a whole (Rouse et al. 2021).
(Spectrum News 2022)
Discrimination in the Workplace
Most unauthorized workers occupy low-wage jobs in agriculture, construction, food-service, domestic work, and day labor. Unfortunately, federal laws like the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) limit the rights and protections of unauthorized workers. Because of this, employers often use the threat of immigration enforcement to intimidate undocumented workers so that they are reluctant to report abusive treatment. Undocumented workers are subject to various forms of workplace discrimination including exploitation, dangerous working conditions, wage theft, and physical and emotional abuse. The IRCA highlights the psychological distress, depression, and vulnerability to disease that undocumented immigrants face while being exposed to this treatment and these working conditions. Some factors that contribute to this discrimination are negative media portrayal, anti-immigrant sentiment, ethno-racial profiling, and criminalization (Quijano n.d.).
The IRCA does not allow employers to knowingly hire unauthorized workers and it requires that employers collect immigration status information on all employees through the use of Form I-9s. However, the IRCA does not prohibit undocumented workers from serving as independent contractors. Therefore, between weak enforcement of hiring laws and the independent contractor loophole, undocumented workers frequently have low paying, and often dangerous jobs, with employers that are able to avoid the legal responsibility of offering overtime pay and protections in case of injury. Additionally, undocumented workers often work without the basic rights of breaks, food, or water. Unfortunately, workers are often too fearful to draw attention to unfair labor practices because they fear that their employers will deport them (Quijano n.d.).
Technically, undocumented workers have some rights and protections. There are federal and state laws in place to prevent workplace discrimination and correct employer violations. Additionally, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the Department of Labor (DOL), the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) are supposed to enforce workplace protections regardless of immigration status. Undocumented workers are also legally entitled to minimum wage, overtime pay, breaks, and anti-discrimination laws. But despite laws, many undocumented workers are denied these rights. Continued systemic failures to enforce employer sanctions and limit the involvement of immigration services in labor disputes still discourage undocumented workers from challenging unfair labor treatment (Quijano n.d.).
Considered Essential Workers but Treated as Third Class Citizens
The pandemic highlighted how important undocumented immigrants are to the workforce and the economy, which contradicts the unfortunate treatment and consideration of undocumented immigrants as third-rate citizens. It is a moral failure to call undocumented workers essential without providing them with legal status. Immigrants represented a substantial and critical part of America’s essential COVID-19 workforce. Immigrant essential workers made up approximately 20% of the total US essential workforce and they served the medical, agricultural, and food-service industries, in addition to others. Due to the relatively low unemployment in many essential sectors, the loss of undocumented essential workers would be devastating for future COVID-19 economic recovery. Additionally, failing to address the lack of legal status of undocumented immigrants in the US could endanger the lives of immigrants, as well as the health and lives of Americans who rely on their essential services (Forward US 2020).
Unfortunately, undocumented workers have been more likely to contract COVID-19 since more than two-thirds of all undocumented workers serve in frontline jobs, which is a considerably higher share than other immigrant groups and people born in the US. The nature of their work did not allow these frontline workers to work from home, which caused thousands of them to die. But, despite this, undocumented immigrants have continued to work on the front lines and perform essential services such as providing home healthcare services, cleaning medical facilities, and building temporary hospitals and clinics. Ultimately, immigrant workers are indispensable and the US continues to rely on them to combat the pandemic and assist in the long-term recovery. Therefore, undocumented immigrants should be provided certainty of their future in the US, rather than being subject to deportation. Allowing undocumented workers to gain legal status would be a way to recognize the critical work that millions of essential workers do and it would help to improve the lives of all Americans (Forward US 2020).
An Effort to Offer Undocumented Workers Legal Status
(UFW Foundation 2019)
The Farm Workforce Modernization Act (FWMA) was a proposed bill that would give farmworkers a path to citizenship, but it was killed by Congress. The FWMA had already been passed in the House multiple times, and all the Democrats in the Senate were willing to add the bill to the omnibus package that was to be passed before the end of the session in late December 2022, but they could not secure the ten Republican votes that were necessary to overcome the filibuster. The bill failed because it was a major compromise between farmworker advocates and the agriculture industry. These two groups have very different needs and neither group liked the whole package very much. Some farmworker advocates opposed this bill because they claimed that it did not go far enough to grant rights to farmworkers, and the agriculture industry failed to recognize that without undocumented immigrants, the agricultural economy in the US would cease to function, and the domestic food supply would disappear. Even with the current number of undocumented immigrants, farmers are struggling to get enough workers to plant, tend, and pick their crops at the rates that they’re willing to pay. Farmworker groups want to secure the right to live and work in the US for the undocumented workers that are already here and for those that are yet to come, but grower groups just want to keep bringing in more guestworkers (Held 2023).
The FWMA would have been a revolutionary bill because it would have established a program that would allow undocumented immigrants to apply for a temporary worker status that would have allowed them to travel within and outside the US. This would then allow workers to start on a pathway toward permanent residency by working for an additional four to eight years in agriculture, depending on how long they had already been working on US farms (Held 2023). This bill would have improved the lives of thousands of undocumented workers and it would have strengthened the US economy and food supply. It is crucial that farmworker advocates and the agriculture industry learn to cooperate and support a similar bill in the future.
Effects of Racial Profiling and Hypervigilance
(Burnett 2019)
In general, the prejudice against first-generation immigrants is fueled by anti-immigrant sentiment that is often tied to the idea that immigrants are stealing jobs and other resources. Stereotyping first-generation immigrants leads to racial profiling and criminalization. Social systems constantly criminalize undocumented immigrants because they are deemed undeserving of support and opportunities. Additionally, immigrants’ pre-migration hardships and trauma are often disregarded, even though they are the conditions that originally forced them to migrate. Forms of political and cultural discrimination are also exacerbated by institutional and structural discrimination because people in power are unwilling to follow current laws or stand up for the fair treatment of immigrants because they are seen as outsiders. As a result, first-generation immigrants not only lack knowledge of workplace laws and protections, but also lack access to resources and community networks because of the language and cultural barriers that they face. Finally, the constant threat of employer retaliation and the possibility of ICE raids at home and at work have a profound negative impact on undocumented immigrants. These threats cause immigrants to be hypervigilant, which may help them to avoid adverse consequences. However, hypervigilance can also cause harmful effects. For example, research has shown that hypervigilance and mistrust can impair learning and increase underperformance (Quijano n.d.).
Works Cited
“Advocates Call for More Protections for Undocumented Workers.” Spectrum News NY1. Spectrum News. Accessed May 11, 2023. https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/politics/2022/10/01/advocates-call-for-more-protections-for-undocumented-workers.
Burnett, John. “Employers Struggle with Hiring Undocumented Workers: ‘You Cannot Hire American Here’.” NPR. NPR, August 21, 2019. https://www.npr.org/2019/08/21/752336132/employers-struggle-with-hiring-undocumented-workers-you-cannot-hire-american-her.
Held, Lisa. “Congress Killed a Bill to Give Farmworkers a Path to Citizenship. What Comes next?” Civil Eats, February 22, 2023. https://civileats.com/2023/02/22/congress-killed-a-bill-to-give-farmworkers-a-path-to-citizenship-what-comes-next/.
“Immigrant Essential Workers: Crucial to Covid-19 Recovery.” FWD.us. Forward US, December 22, 2020. https://www.fwd.us/news/immigrant-essential-workers/.
Quijano, Josselyn Andrea Garcia. “Workplace Discrimination and Undocumented First-Generation Latinx Immigrants.” Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice. Accessed May 8, 2023. https://crownschool.uchicago.edu/student-life/advocates-forum/workplace-discrimination-and-undocumented-first-generation-latinx.
Rouse, Cecilia, Lisa Barrow, Kevin Rinz, and Evan Soltas. “The Economic Benefits of Extending Permanent Legal Status to Unauthorized Immigrants.” The White House. The United States Government, November 30, 2021. https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-materials/2021/09/17/the-economic-benefits-of-extending-permanent-legal-status-to-unauthorized-immigrants/.
“Farm Workers and Advocates Help Forge Compromise Bill Providing Legal Status to Immigrant Farm Workers during Months of Tough Talks with Growers & Lawmakers from Both Parties.” UFW Foundation. UFW Foundation, October 30, 2019. https://www.ufwfoundation.org/fwma_oct_30_press_release.