The Amendment to Remove Legalization Provisions from the Immigration Bill strikes language from the proposed Senate immigration bill that would have created a new category of “Z visas” available to immigrants living in the United States illegally. In the immigration bill, undocumented immigrants present in the U.S. before 2007 could qualify for temporary legal residency (the Z visa), and ultimately get in line for citizenship after passing a background check, demonstrating efforts to learn English and U.S. civics, and paying substantial fines. This amendment would have eliminated the entire Z visa section of the bill, removing the only means for millions of undocumented immigrants currently living and working in the U.S. to legalize their immigration status. The result would be an immigration bill that maintains the status quo for undocumented immigrants while de facto endorsing their mass deportation.
The Middle-Class Position:
The Middle Class Opposes. The American middle class relies on the economic contributions of immigrants. While the overall immigration bill this amendment is attached to recognizes these contributions and would allow them to continue under the Z visa program, this amendment eliminates that pathway to legalization. Instead, by taking out the bill’s only means for otherwise law-abiding undocumented immigrants to remain in the country legally, the amendment effectively endorses a policy of imprisoning and deporting the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants currently helping to support the economy as workers, entrepreneurs, taxpayers and consumers. This mass deportation is the explicit aim of many of the bill’s supporters. But imprisonment and deportation is not only a bad policy for the middle class but also a tremendously expensive and ultimately unworkable one. Many undocumented immigrants would still evade deportation, while others would continue to enter the country illegally. Attempting to enforce such an unworkable policy would further drain scarce enforcement resources.
Equally important is the way this legislation would exacerbate the threat that undocumented workers pose to the wages and workplace conditions of aspiring middle-class Americans. Because unscrupulous employers can threaten to have their undocumented employees deported at any time, these immigrants are particularly vulnerable to exploitation in the workplace. This underground workforce competing in the labor market with American citizens perpetuates a "race to the bottom" in which employers, especially those in industries requiring unskilled labor, are driven to reduce wages and benefits and degrade employee working conditions in an effort to compete with companies that employ undocumented workers under substandard conditions. While this legislation seeks to drive undocumented immigrants out of the workplace completely, the more likely effect would be that they remain in the country but are driven further underground, increasing their vulnerability and further undermining middle-class wages and working conditions.
From the Experts:
“Those who claim it would be wrong to provide a means for legalization of the undocumented conveniently overlook that it is employers, consumers, homeowners, building owners and many others who have benefited from the hard work of undocumented workers. We all benefit when they clean our offices and hotel rooms, care for our children, and tend to our family members when they are sick or in need. The people who oppose immigration reform never acknowledge that they are demanding stiff sanctions for the immigrant while supporting ‘amnesty’ for those who have benefited from their hard work.”-Fred Feinstein, University Of Maryland School Of Public Policy (May 23, 2007)
“The current [immigration] system is unworkable – it has become a blueprint for exploitation of all workers, both U.S. and foreign-born. As long as this broken system persists, ALL workers will suffer because employers will be able to turn to a ready pool of exploitable workers to drive down wages, benefits, health and safety protections and other workplace standards for ALL workers… The best way to guarantee the rights and wages of all workers in this country is to give every immigrant the opportunity to become a citizen, with all the rights and duties that entails.”–Richard Trumka, Secretary-Treasurer, AFL-CIO (January 20, 2007)
“It is easy to focus on the charge that undocumented immigrants have broken the rules in order to get here. We do not need to condone violations of our immigration laws. But as we do in most other circumstances, we should also look at why these individuals broke the rules. Motives count. And most of these 12 million people have broken the rules not to “steal jobs,” to live off the government, or to take advantage of anyone else. Instead, most of them have been motivated, to the point where many have even risked their lives to come here, by the desire to escape economic or political hardships that few native-born Americans today could fully understand. And they are all too often enticed here by employers who are perfectly happy to use and abuse them in the process.”-Wade Henderson, President, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (May 3, 2007)
Beyond this Bill:
While this amendment would have been unequivocally bad for the American middle class, the larger immigration bill debated by Congress was more of a mixed bag. By offering legal status to currently undocumented workers, allowing them to work openly and exercise full rights in the workplace, the bill represented an advance over the status quo. However, the temporary worker program in the bill would have had a negative effect, threatening to undermine middle-class wages and working conditions by institutionalizing the two-tiered labor market. (See DMI’s more detailed analysis of the larger bill) Legislation that truly aims to strengthen and expand the American middle class must both bolster the critical contribution that immigrants make to our economy as workers, entrepreneurs, taxpayers and consumers and strengthen the rights of immigrants in the workplace.
Percentage of Americans who support the earned legalization provisions of the immigration bill, which this amendment would eliminate: 67
Amount undocumented immigrants are estimated to have contributed in federal taxes between 1996 and 2003: nearly $50 billion
Percentage of workers in one study whose employers found out their immigration papers were falsified yet who were not fired until they complained about workplace conditions: 25
Percentage who were not fired until they tried to organize a union: 21
The Discussion on DMIBlog
Here’s the face of “enforcement only” immigration policy:
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