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WHAT TRUMP CAN AND CAN’T DO TO IMMIGRANTS  
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David Bacon
January 7, 2017
Dollars & Sense
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_ In the wake of Trump’s first election to the presidency, David
Bacon’s perspectives on the economic context of immigration policy
and how Trump can—and can’t—shape it are still relevant after
his re-election victory. _

Protest in front of Oakland City Hall against the 2016 election of
Donald Trump as U.S. President., Credit: All photos © David Bacon
(dbacon.igc.org).

 

_People make their own history, but they do not make it as they
please;
they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under
circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past._
—Karl Marx, “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte,” 1852

While the government officials developing and enforcing U.S.
immigration policy will change on January 20, the economic system in
which they make that policy will not. As fear sweeps through immigrant
communities in the United States, understanding that system helps us
anticipate what a Trump administration can and can’t do in regard to
immigrants, and what immigrants themselves can do about it.

Over the terms of the last three presidents, the most visible and
threatening aspect of immigration policy has been the drastic increase
in enforcement. President Bill Clinton presented anti-immigrant bills
as compromises, and presided over the first big increase in border
enforcement. George W. Bush used soft rhetoric, but sent immigration
agents in military-style uniforms, carrying AK-47s, into workplaces to
arrest workers, while threatening to fire millions for not having
papers. Under President Barack Obama, a new requirement mandated
filling 34,000 beds in detention centers every night. The detention
system mushroomed, and over 2 million people were deported.

Enforcement, however, doesn’t exist for its own sake. It plays a
role in a larger system that serves capitalist economic interests by
supplying a labor force employers require. High levels of enforcement
also ensure the profits of companies that manage detention and
enforcement, who lobby for deportations as hard as Boeing lobbies for
the military budget.

Immigrant labor is more vital to many industries than it’s ever been
before. Immigrants have always made up most of the country’s farm
workers in the West and Southwest. Today, according to the U.S.
Department of Labor, about 57% of the country’s entire agricultural
workforce is undocumented. But the list of other industries dependent
on immigrant labor is long—meatpacking, some construction trades,
building services, healthcare, restaurant and retail service, and
more.

During the election campaign, candidate Donald Trump pledged in his
“100-day action plan to Make America Great Again” to “begin
removing the more than two million criminal illegal immigrants from
the country” on his first day in office. In speeches, he further
promised to eventually force all undocumented people (estimated at 11
million) to leave.

In a society with one of the world’s highest rates of incarceration,
crimes are often defined very broadly. In the past, for instance,
under President George W. Bush federal prosecutors charged workers
with felonies for giving a false Social Security number to an employer
when being hired. He further proposed the complete enforcement of
employer sanctions—the provision of the 1986 Immigration Reform and
Control Act that forbids employers from hiring workers without papers.
Bush’s order would have had the Immigration and Customs Enforcement
agency (ICE) check the immigration status of all workers, and required
employers to fire those without legal immigration status, before being
blocked by a suit filed by unions and civil rights organizations.

Under President Obama, workplace enforcement was further systematized.
In just one year, 2012, ICE audited 1600 employers. Tens of thousands
of workers were fired during Obama’s eight years in office. Given
Trump’s choice of Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions as Attorney General,
greater workplace enforcement is extremely likely. Sessions has been
one of the strongest advocates in Congress for greater immigration
enforcement, and has criticized President Obama for not deporting
enough people. Last year he proposed a five-year prison sentence for
any undocumented immigrant caught in the country after having been
previously deported.

Industry Needs Immigrants

Both deportations and workplace firings face a basic obstacle—the
immigrant workforce is a source of immense profit to employers. The
Pew Hispanic Center estimates that, of the presumed 11 million people
in the country without documents, about 8 million are employed
(comprising over 5% of all workers). Most earn close to the minimum
wage (some far less), and are clustered in low-wage industries. In the
Indigenous Farm Worker Survey, for instance, made in 2009, demographer
Rick Mines found that a third of California’s 165,000 indigenous
agricultural laborers (workers from communities in Mexico speaking
languages that pre-date European colonization) made less than minimum
wage.

The federal minimum wage is still stuck at $7.50/hour, and even
California’s minimum of $10/hour only gives full-time workers an
annual income of $20,000. Meanwhile, Social Security says the national
average wage index for 2015 is just over $48,000. In other words, if
employers were paying the undocumented workforce the average U.S. wage
it would cost them well over $200 billion annually. That wage
differential subsidizes whole industries like agriculture and food
processing. If that workforce were withdrawn, as Trump threatens,
through deportations or mass firings, employers wouldn’t be able to
replace it without raising wages drastically.

As president, Donald Trump will have to ensure that the labor needs of
employers are met, at a price they want to pay. The corporate
appointees in his administration reveal that any populist rhetoric
about going against big business was just that—rhetoric. But Hillary
Clinton would have faced the same necessity. And in fact, the
immigration reform proposals in Congress from both Republicans and
Democrats over the past decade shared this understanding—that U.S.
immigration policy must satisfy corporate labor demands.

During the Congressional debates over immigration reform, the Council
on Foreign Relations (CFR) proposed two goals for U.S. immigration
policy. In a report from the CFR-sponsored Independent Task Force on
U.S. Immigration Policy, Senior Fellow Edward Alden stated, “We
should reform the legal immigration system so that it operates more
efficiently, responds more accurately to labor market needs, and
enhances U.S. competitiveness.” He went on to add, “We should
restore the integrity of immigration laws, through an enforcement
regime that strongly discourages employers and employees from
operating outside that legal system.” The CFR, therefore, coupled an
enforcement regime—with deportations and firings—to a labor-supply
scheme.

[Immigrants, workers, union members, people of faith and community
activists demonstrated in Silicon Valley, calling for a moratorium on
deportations and the firing of undocumented workers because of their
immigration status.<br /> ]

IMMIGRANTS, WORKERS, UNION MEMBERS, PEOPLE OF FAITH AND COMMUNITY
ACTIVISTS DEMONSTRATED IN SILICON VALLEY, CALLING FOR A MORATORIUM ON
DEPORTATIONS AND THE FIRING OF UNDOCUMENTED WORKERS BECAUSE OF THEIR
IMMIGRATION STATUS.

This framework assumes the flow of migrating people will continue, and
seeks to manage it. This is a safe assumption, because the basic
causes of that flow have not changed. Communities in Mexico continue
to be displaced by 1) economic reforms that allowed U.S. corporations
to flood the country with cheap corn and meat (often selling below the
cost of production—known as “dumping”—thanks to U.S.
agricultural subsidies and trade agreements like NAFTA), 2) the
rapacious development of mining and other extractive concessions in
the countryside, and 3) the growing impoverishment of Mexican workers.
Violence plays its part, linked to the consequences of displacement,
economic desperation, and mass deportations. Continuing U.S. military
intervention in Central America and other developing countries will
produce further waves of refugees.

While candidate Trump railed against NAFTA in order to get votes (as
did Barack Obama), he cannot—and, given his ties to business, has no
will to—change the basic relationship between the United States and
Mexico and Central America, or other developing countries that are the
sources of migration. Changing the relationship (with its impact on
displacement and migration) is possible in a government committed to
radical reform. Bernie Sanders might have done this. Other voices in
Congress have advocated it. But Trump will do what the system wants
him to do, and certainly will not implement a program of radical
reform.

H-2A Guest Workers

The structures for managing the flow of migrants are already in place,
and don’t require Congress to pass big immigration reform bills. In
Washington State alone, for instance, according to Alex Galarza of the
Northwest Justice Project, the Washington Farm Labor Association
brought in about 2,000 workers under the H-2A guest worker program in
2006. In 2013, the number rose to 4,000. By 2015, it grew to 11,000.
In 2016, it reached 16,000. That kind of growth is taking place in all
states with a sizeable agricultural workforce. The H-2A program allows
growers to recruit workers outside the country for periods of less
than a year, after which they must return to their country of origin.
Guest workers who lose their jobs for whatever reason—whether by
offending their employer, or not working fast enough, for
example—have to leave the country, so joining a union or protesting
conditions is extremely risky. Growers can only use the program if
they can show they can’t find local workers, but the requirement is
often unenforced.

The program for foreign contract labor in agriculture is only one of
several like it for other industries. One study, “Visas, Inc.,” by
Global Workers Justice, found that over 900,000 workers were brought
to the United States to work every year under similar conditions. The
number is growing. In the context of the growth of these programs,
immigration enforcement fulfills an important function. It heralds a
return to the bracero era, named for the U.S. “guest worker”
program that brought millions of Mexican farmworkers to the United
States between 1942 and 1964. The program was notorious for its abuse
of the braceros, and for pitting them against workers already in the
United States in labor competition and labor conflict. In 1954 alone,
the United States deported over a million people—while importing
450,000 contract workers. Historically, immigration enforcement has
been tied to the growth of contract labor, or “guest worker”
programs.

Arresting people at the border, firing them from their jobs for not
having papers, and sending people to detention centers for
deportation, all push the flow of migrants into labor schemes managed
to benefit corporations. The more a Trump administration pushes for
deportations and internal enforcement, the more it will rely on
expanding guest worker programs.

The areas where programs like H-2A are already growing were heavy
Trump supporters. In eastern Washington, a heavily Trump area,
immigration agents forced the huge Gebbers apple ranch to fire
hundreds of undocumented workers in 2009, and then helped the employer
apply for H-2A workers. While the undocumented workers of eastern
Washington had good reason to fear Trump’s threats, employers knew
they didn’t have to fear the loss of a low-wage workforce.

Deportations and workplace enforcement will have a big impact on
unions and organizing rights. Immigrant workers have been the backbone
of some of the most successful labor organizing of the last two
decades, from Los Angeles janitors to Las Vegas hotel workers to
Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago. At the same time, the use of
the E-Verify database under President Obama often targeted workers
active in labor campaigns like Fight for $15, as did earlier Bush and
Clinton enforcement efforts.

Unions and immigrant communities have developed sophisticated tactics
for resisting these attacks, and will have to use them effectively
under Trump. Janitors in Minneapolis fought the firing of undocumented
fast-food workers in Chipotle restaurants. The International Longshore
and Warehouse Union (ILWU) teamed up with faith-based activists,
immigrant-rights groups, and environmentalists to stop firings of
undocumented workers in Bay Area recycling facilities, winning union
representation and higher wages as a result. The same unions and
community organizations that have fought enforcement in the workplace
have also fought detentions and deportations.

[Immigrant Latino workers from the Woodfin Suites hotel in Emeryville,
Calif., and their supporters protest after hotel managers fired 20
workers, accusing them of lacking legal immigration status.]

IMMIGRANT LATINO WORKERS FROM THE WOODFIN SUITES HOTEL IN EMERYVILLE,
CALIF., AND THEIR SUPPORTERS PROTEST AFTER HOTEL MANAGERS FIRED 20
WORKERS, ACCUSING THEM OF LACKING LEGAL IMMIGRATION STATUS.

These efforts will have to depend on more than a legal defense. The
Supreme Court has already held that undocumented workers fired for
organizing at work can’t be rehired, and their employers don’t
have to pay them back pay.

Border Enforcement

Trump’s threatened enforcement wave extends far beyond the
workplace. He promised increased enforcement on the U.S.-Mexico
border, expanding the border wall, and increasing the number of Border
Patrol agents beyond the current 25,000. Immigration enforcement
already costs the government more than all other federal law
enforcement programs put together.

Trump proposed an End Illegal Immigration Act, imposing a two-year
prison sentence on anyone who re-enters the U.S. after having been
deported, and five years for anyone deported more than once. Under
President Obama, the United States deported more than two million
people. Hundreds of thousands, with children and families in the
United States, have tried to return to them. Under this proposed law,
they would fill the prisons.

One of Trump’s “first day” commitments is to “cancel every
unconstitutional executive action, memorandum and order issued by
President Obama.” This promise includes Obama’s executive order
giving limited, temporary legal status to undocumented youth brought
to the United States by their parents (Deferred Action for Childhood
Arrivals, or DACA). DACA has been attacked by the right-wing
ideologues advising Trump’s transition team since Obama issued his
order.

The 750,000 young people who gained status under DACA—the
“Dreamers”—have been one of the most active sections of the U.S.
immigrant-rights movement. But they had to give the government their
address and contact information in order to obtain a deferment, making
them vulnerable to deportation sweeps. Defending them will likely be
one of the first battles of the Trump era.

Trump further announced that on his first day in office he will
“cancel all federal funding to Sanctuary Cities.” More than 300
cities in the United States have adopted policies saying that they
will not arrest and prosecute people solely for being undocumented.

Many cities, and even some states, have withdrawn from federal
schemes, notably the infamous “287(g) program,” requiring police
to arrest and detain people because of their immigration status.
Trump’s proposed order would cancel federal funding for housing,
medical care, and other social services to cities that won’t
cooperate. As attorney general, Sessions can be expected to try to
enforce this demand. After the election, many city governments and
elected officials were quick to announce that they would not be
intimidated. The Dreamers especially see direct action in the streets
as an important part of defending communities. In the push for DACA,
youth demonstrations around the country sought to stop deportations by
sitting in front of buses carrying prisoners to detention centers.
Dreamers defended young people detained for deportation, and even
occupied Obama’s Chicago office during his 2012 re-election
campaign.

In detention centers themselves, detainees have organized hunger
strikes with the support of activists camping in front of the gates.
Maru Mora Villapando, one of the organizers of the hunger strikes and
protests at the detention center in Tacoma, Wash., says organizers
cannot just wait for Trump to begin his attacks, but have to start
building up defense efforts immediately. She advocates pressuring the
Obama administration to undo as much of the detention and deportation
machinery as possible before leaving office. “We don’t want him
just to hand over the keys to this machine as it is right now,” she
warns.

The success of efforts to defend immigrants, especially undocumented
people, depends not just on their own determination to take direct
action, but on support from the broader community. In Philadelphia,
less than a week after the election, Javier Flores García was given
sanctuary by the congregation of the Arch Street United Methodist
Church after being threatened by federal immigration agents.
“Solidarity is our protection,” urged the Reverend Deborah Lee of
the Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity in California. “Our best
defense is an organized community committed to each other and bound
together with all those at risk. ... We ask faith communities to
consider declaring themselves ‘sanctuary congregations’ or
‘immigrant welcoming congregations.’”

But while many workers may have supported Trump because of anger over
unemployment and the fallout from trade agreements like NAFTA, they
also bought his anti-immigrant political arguments. Those arguments,
especially about immigrants in the workplace, even affect people on
the left who opposed Trump himself. Some of those arguments have been
made by Democrats, and used to justify enforcement measures like
E-Verify included in “comprehensive immigration reform” bills. One
union activist, Buzz Malone, wrote a piece for In These Times arguing
for increased enforcement of employer sanctions, although he
envisioned them more as harsher penalties for employers who hire the
undocumented. “Imprison the employers ... and all of it would
end,” he predicted. “The border crossings would fizzle out and
many of the people would leave on their own.”

What Is to Be Done?

To defeat the Trump enforcement wave, immigrant activists in unions
and communities will have to fight for deeper understanding and
greater unity between immigrants and U.S.-born people. Workers in
general need to see that people in Mexico got hit by NAFTA even harder
than people in the U.S. Midwest—and their displacement and migration
isn’t likely to end soon. In a diverse workforce, the unity needed
to defend a union or simply win better conditions depends on fighting
for a country and workplace where everyone has equal rights. For
immigrant workers, the most basic right is simply the right to stay.
Defending that right means not looking the other way when a coworker,
a neighbor or a friend is threatened with firing, deportation, or
worse.

The rise of a Trump enforcement wave spells the death of the liberal
centrism that proposed trading increased enforcement and labor supply
programs for a limited legalization of undocumented people. Under
Trump, the illusion that there is some kind of “fair” enforcement
of employer sanctions and “smart border enforcement” will be
stripped away. Sessions will have no interest in “humane
detention,” with codes of conduct for the private corporations
running detention centers. The idea of guest worker programs that
don’t exploit immigrants or set them against workers already in the
United States will face the reality of an administration bent on
giving employers what they want.

So in one way the Trump administration presents an opportunity as
well—to fight for the goals immigrant rights advocates have
historically proposed, to counter inequality, economic exploitation,
and the denial of rights. As Sergio Sosa, director of the Heartland
Workers Center in Omaha, Nebr., puts it, “we have to go back to the
social teachings our movement is based on—to the idea of justice.”

_DAVID BACON is a journalist and photographer covering labor,
immigration, and the impact of the global economy on workers. He is
author of several books, including Illegal People: How Globalization
Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants (Beacon Press, 2009)._

* Immigrants
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* Donald Trump
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* deportations
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* H2A guest workers
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