Amy Taylor

Open Letter to the Newly-elected Populists in Congress

November 2006

Dear Senator-elects and Representative-elects:

Many of you stressed your concerns for Middle Class Americans in your campaigns -- concerns about the growing gap between the rich and poor in this country, concerns about the wage level of the average worker, concerns about how globalization has affected the supply of stable jobs for our nation's economy. In addressing immigration reform, many of you did not go into great detail when discussing your opinions, while others of you stressed the need for border security and increased employer sanctions to stem the flow of illegal immigration.

The chief concern of the Drum Major Institute, when approaching immigration reform, is also middle class Americans, and those striving to achieve middle class status. We offer our framework for evaluating immigration reform legislation to you because we think it will speak directly to your priorities.

We all seem to agree that Congress has failed to adequately address immigration reform over the past few years. Despite clear voter concern on the issue, and massive mobilizations last spring, the only legislation to actually make it out of both houses was the so-called "Fence Bill." We think you will agree with us that an enforcement-only approach will not fix our immigration problems. More border patrol and a virtual fence will not stop immigrants from coming here. The truth is that immigrants are not coming here because it is easy to get in. Between 1990 and 2005, the U.S. Border Patrol was tripled in size along the southern border. Funding has also been increased tenfold between 1986 and 2002. Still, the undocumented population of the United States doubled in size during that period. No matter how high the fence is, as long as there are economic opportunities and a demand for a low-wage workforce, immigrants will come. Furthermore, immigration raids hurt American workers and families by causing economic devastation to local economies because we rely so heavily on immigrant workers to keep our nation strong. Without this crucial labor force, plants will be forced to close and local business will suffer.

In order to truly address our immigration crisis while looking out for American workers, we must make sure that our labor system's needs are aligned with out immigration policy. First of all, it is crucial to recognize the important role that immigrants play in our economy. Second, we must ensure the workplace rights of immigrants in order to prevent employers from luring immigrants here and then taking advantage of them by denying them fair pay, safe working conditions and other important workplace rights --thereby creating a race to the bottom with their American counterparts who are much harder to exploit. We must strive to put an end to having a perpetual underclass capable of bringing down wages across entire industries.

Immigrants are vital to our economy. They contribute to our economic growth as workers, entrepreneurs, tax payers and consumers. Not only do we rely on the goods and services produced by immigrants, immigrants cook and pick our food, take care of our children, build our houses and program our computers, but they also stimulate new economic growth and support existing businesses through their strength as a consumer market. Immigrants contribute to economic growth by starting small businesses and attracting investment capital from their countries of origin. Perhaps even more importantly, many analysts predict that as baby-boomers begins to retire, there may be a shortage of workers paying into the Social Security system to support the new retirees. Immigrant workers, who are, on average, younger and have more children than the American population as a whole, will help keep our Social Security program robust. Restricting the flow of immigrants would stymie the important contributions of immigrants to our economy.

The second element of our framework requires strengthening the workplace rights of immigrant workers. Currently, the exploited underclass of immigrant workers benefits corporations who profit from their reluctance to demand fair pay and safe working conditions. As long as immigrant workers are living under the constant threat of retaliation and deportation, they are seen as compliant workers (and cheap workers) for big business. An enforcement-only policy that offers no realistic chance at legalization for millions of undocumented workers will merely perpetuate this underclass by keeping immigrant workers underpaid and unprotected in the workplace, and thus, more desirable for many unscrupulous employers.

Comprehensive immigration reform could work to protect the wellbeing of all workers -- immigrant and American alike by allowing immigrants already here to come out of the shadows to demand fair compensation and safe working conditions. It would ease the alliance between immigrant workers and labor unions eliminating much of the fear of retaliation that immigrant workers currently feel when they stand up to their employers. Immigrant workers would not universally accept sub-par wages if they could enforce their workplace rights -- like the right to overtime and to earn the minimum wage. Real reform would thus eliminate the incentive for employers to choose immigrant workers over the native born. It would allow immigrant workers who are here and working hard, to stay here and to continue to benefit our economy by creating jobs, creating consumer demand, starting small business and paying into our Social Security system. But, they would compete on an even playing field with all other workers eliminating much of the resentment that exists today on behalf of native-born workers struggling to make ends meet. They would continue to play the vital role in our economy that they already play --and that we need them to play.

Amy Taylor: Author Bio | Other Posts
Posted at 9:00 AM, Nov 29, 2006 in Immigration
Permalink | Email to Friend