The scapegoat of illegal immigration

[AlphaCentauri]

In October, The Associated Press profiled a young Guatemalan immigrant mother living in South Carolina named Magdalana facing deportation following yet another workplace raid by immigration authorities. This time, it was the House of Raeford plant in Greenville, S.C., where hundreds of suspected undocumented immigrants were arrested.

The raid comes on the heels of several others in past months, including Howard Industries in Laurel, Mississippi August 2008 and Agriprocessors in Postville, Iowa May 2008.

Amid heated reactions to the raids, available on countless blogs and letters to the editor, there seems to be a resounding call for moral conviction and respect for the law. Americans, as one supporter of the raids expressed, are hardworking and law-abiding, while undocumented immigrants like Magdalana are not. They, the writer argues, should have to "pay the price" for breaking our immigration laws. Deportation, we are told, is only fair and just.

Undocumented workers have labor force participation rates that surpass those of legal immigrants and native-born Americans. Workers like Magdalana are employed in some of the most dangerous positions, working long hours and earning low wages. While eligible for many of the same protections as native-born workers, these workers have only recently received the formal support of unions, and often fear filing claims against their employers.

Some companies, such as Agriprocessors, are even fond of hiring undocumented workers, claiming ignorance of their status, and later arguing that these same workers should not have the right to organize. While courts have supported such arguments in the past, on Nov. 18, the Supreme Court refused to hear Agriprocessors v. NLRB, maintaining a lower court's ruling that gives undocumented immigrants the right to organize.

This blow came soon after the Agriprocessors plant was forced to file bankruptcy, leaving 40 percent of the demand for kosher turkeys unmet during last week's Thanksgiving holiday. Businesses claim that they cannot compete in the U.S. marketplace without cheap immigrant labor. So Americans are faced with a serious dilemma in a period of economic downturn: What is the price we are willing to pay for fairness? Who should be made to "pay the price"?

Businesses have come to depend on inexpensive immigrant labor, the enforcement of employer sanctions is virtually non-existent, and wage and hour violation fines have simply become the "cost of doing business." Post-9/11 fervor still dictates our "national security" priorities, and cities across the nation are asking residents for additional resources to go after these "illegal immigrant lawbreakers." But, Americans don't seem to clamor for organized labor and the enforcement of our labor laws. Instead, we fixate on the scapegoat of illegal immigration.

In an era when private sector union membership is at an all-time low 7.5 percent, basic federal and state workplace protections are the only recourse for workers like Magdalana, and many other non-union low-wage workers as well. Yet in 2008, the U.S. government spent more on immigrant detention bed space $250.4 million than it did on the all enforcement of wage and hour standards only $187.1 million. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spent another $200 million on the "Comprehensive Removal and Detention of Aliens."

As we consider where our tax dollars should go, we should also take a hard look at our role as consumers. Cheap labor makes possible the inexpensive goods and services Americans have come to expect and demand. Alas, there is no free lunch. These are made possible only by massive job outsourcing as the devastated U.S. manufacturing industry can attest to, as well as the implicit importing of undocumented labor spurred largely by lack of economic opportunity in sending countries.

Short of a major overhaul of our immigration laws, immigration raids are likely to continue, with little legal recourse for mothers like Magdalana. Meanwhile, we as Americans must consider which law-breakers we want to punish, and what price we are willing to pay for justice and at whose expense.

http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/opinion/ci_11161418