WORKERS' RIGHTS & IMMIGRATION REFORM

An important new study powerfully demonstrates the need for comprehensive immigration reform from the perspective of the rights of workers and their families as well as service to the common good.


The report entitled “Iced Out: How Immigration Enforcement has Interfered with Workers’ Rights” was written by the AFL-CIO. It establishes the fact that despite United States Supreme Court protection of undocumented immigrants under the National Labor Relations Act, (See Sure-Tran, Inc v. NLRB, 467 U.S. 883, at 892 (1984)), immigration enforcement without due consideration of workplace law violations allows employers to violate the rights of workers without fear of prosecution. In fact, attempts by workers to secure their rights often have been and continue to be met with deportation or the threat thereof. Examinations of substandard wages and other workplace abuses under existing labor laws are buried by the deportation of the workers involved.

One consequence of this practice is that business owners trying to do the right thing often end up resorting to slashing the wages of their own workers in order to remain competitive with the bad actors.

This perverse, not to mention immoral, race to the bottom will cease only when comprehensive reform becomes a reality and laws pertaining to employers and employees alike are fairly enforced. Arizonans for Immigration Reform encourages conversations about these morally and economically challenging realities.