Conflicting Commitments: The Politics of Enforcing Immigrant Worker Rights in San Jose and Houston

[Excerpt] This book examines how immigrant workers\u27 rights are enforced in practice, how claims are channeled, and why and how advocates take on particular battles. In the chapters that follow, I draw on an in-depth comparative case study of two immigrant-receiving destinations—San Jose, California, and Houston, Texas—to examine the dynamics of enforcing immigrant worker rights. I consider how certain solutions become commonly understood as appropriate responses to a given issue that affects immigrant laborers, and which actors take on responsibility for the advancement of particular worker problems. For example, why does a construction worker who has been cheated of a week\u27s pay in San Jose get funneled to a local legal aid clinic and eventually a state agency to file a formal claim, while his counterpart working in one of Houston\u27s sprawling track developments will struggle to find any lawyer willing to serve him and will perhaps never set foot in a government office to file a claim? Why do the San Jose police have little to offer this worker, while in Houston any police officer is required to make a theft-of-service report when asked? How is it that if this nonunionized worker were to call the South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council in San Jose, he would be advised to call the California Department of Labor Standards Enforcement or seek out a local legal aid clinic, while in Houston the Harris County AFL-CIO Council would be more likely to encourage him to pay a visit to city hall, the federal building, or perhaps even a worker center to help organize a direct action, depending on his situation? And how do we understand the vastly different support immigrant workers will find from their consulates in these two cities? The goal of this book is to help answer these questions and expand our understanding of how immigrant worker rights are enforced and advanced. I situate the rights of immigrant workers in the space between both labor standards enforcement and immigration control, two conflicting jurisdictions whose implementation can vary widely, depending on their local political context. I then look beyond government bureaucrats to understand how enforcement strategies are influenced by local intermediaries who may have diverse interests in the advancement of immigrant worker rights. These include local elected officials, who can either intensify or mitigate the surveillance of undocumented immigrants and promote or stymie the interests of workers; civil society actors, who have direct knowledge of and access to immigrant workers, and who work in diverse ways to advance their rights; and consular institutions, whose unique combination of political legitimacy, institutionalized resources, and unfettered support for their emigrant population creates a unique pathway for rights enforcement

Narratives of Deservingness and the Institutional Youth of Immigrant Workers

This article speaks to the special issue’s goal of disrupting the deserving/undeserving immigrant narrative by critically examining eligibility criteria available under two arenas of relief for undocumented immigrants: 1) the 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which provides temporary deportation relief and work authorization for young adults who meet an educational requirement and other criteria, and 2) current and proposed pathways to legal status for those unauthorized immigrants who come forward to denounce workplace injustice, among other crimes. For each of these categories of “deserving migrants,” I illuminate the exclusionary nature each of these requirements, which pose challenges especially for those workers who have limited education. As such, I argue for the importance of an institutional perspective on youth. Specifically, I demonstrate how the educational criteria required by DACA privileges a select few individuals who have access to formal educational institutions as deserving, while ignoring other empowering but non-traditional models of worker education. I also examine those mechanisms that reward workers who come forward to contest employer abuse. These include the current U-Visa program, which opens a path to legal status for those select claimants who have been harmed by employer abuse and aid criminal investigations (e.g. Saucedo, 2010). In a similar vein, some advocates and legal scholars have proposed a pathway to citizenship for those workers involved in collective organizing (e.g. Gordon, 2007, 2011). I weigh the benefits and exclusivity of each pathway for addressing the precarity of the millions of undocumented immigrants currently in the United States. In doing so, I highlight how institutions have unevenly incorporated immigrant workers, creating wide categories of vulnerability that go ignored. That is, demographically young immigrants are often privileged as deserving, as are those institutionally mature workers who have been successfully incorporated by civic organizations and legal bureaucracies. Meanwhile, institutionally young immigrants—those who have been excluded from these spaces—are framed as undeserving. As a result, rather than to see legal status as a pathway to incorporation, it is extended as a reward for those who have surpassed longstanding barriers

Between Support and Shame: The Impacts of Workplace Violations for Immigrant Families

Purpose - This study examines the conditions that lead to workplace violations for low-wage immigrant workers, and how family life shapes their decision to speak up. I also highlight how both employer abuse and the claims making process can impact individuals and their families. Methodology/approach - This research adopts a mixed-method approach that includes a survey of 453 low-wage workers seeking pro bono legal assistance and 115 follow-up interviews with claimants. I also conduct a five-year ethnography of both a monthly state workshop provided for injured workers and a pro bono legal aid clinic in a predominantly Latino agricultural community on the California central coast. Findings - Beyond the material effects of lost income, the stress of fighting for justice can have negative emotional impacts that intersect with complex family dynamics. While families can be an important source of support and inspiration during this time, the burden of the breadwinner can also temper workers’ willingness to engage the labor standards enforcement system. Transnational obligations can further introduce a demobilizing dual frame of reference for workers who often hide their abuse from family members abroad who depend on them. Research implications - Workplace abuse and the actual process of legal mobilization can have far-reaching effects on the families of low-wage immigrant workers, suggesting the need for a more holistic understanding of the claims making experience. Originality/value - This chapter tracks the challenges that workers face even once they have come forward to fight for their rights, and the multiple effects on families and children

Re-Conceptualizing the Economic Incorporation of Immigrants: A Comparison of the Mexican and Vietnamese

Using data from the 2000 5 per cent Integrated Public Use Microdata Series, this article advocates three shifts in our theoretical and empirical approaches to understanding immigrant economic incorporation. First, through a comparison of Mexican and Vietnamese immigrants, these findings highlight the importance of an immigrant population’s relationship to the state for economic outcomes, and cautions against analyses that aggregate the foreign-born population. Second, through a joint analysis of unemployment and poverty outcomes, these findings call for researchers to be specific about the varied aspects of ‘‘economic incorporation’’ and distinguish between factors that drive labor market access, and those that foster material well-being. Lastly, by examining three state economic, demographic and policy variables, this article promotes an approach that takes human capital into account, while also heeding the immigrant context of reception

Precarity and Agency through a Migration Lens

This special issue leverages the migrant experience to better understand precarity and agency in the contemporary world. By way of introduction, we examine the broader bodies of literature on precarity and agency, relate them to research on migration, and link them to the contributions in the special issue. Laying a foundation for further research, we illuminate three approaches to study the precarity-migration-agency nexus: an industry-specific approach, a sending country/deportee approach, and a collective action approach. We conclude with a critical analysis of freedom and national borders, considering the \u27open borders\u27 movement, postnational citizenship, and opposition to marketization

An Institutional Examination of the Local Implementation of the DACA Program

In June 2012, President Barack Obama created the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program to offer qualified young undocumented immigrants a two-year renewable stay of deportation and the ability to apply for a work permit. DACA is a federal administrative directive, not a congressional law, and unlike the last major legalization program in 1986, no federal resources have been allocated for its implementation. The case of DACA thus raises questions about how new rights granted by executive prosecutorial discretion are actually implemented in local communities and how they are experienced by the intended beneficiaries in different localities. More specifically, how have different stakeholders, including local government officials, legal service providers, advocacy organizations, funders, consulates, and labor unions, integrated (or not) DACA into their mission, programming, and resource allocation? What collaborations have formed between these different stakeholders around the DACA program? What challenges do they face along the way and how are they addressing these challenges

How Local Stakeholders are Implementing the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program

In June 2012, President Obama instituted the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which suspended deportations and authorized work permits for an estimated 1.76 million eligible young undocumented immigrants. As one of the most significant recent shifts in policy, this executive immigration action has been hotly contested. Conservatives decry it as presidential overreach, while immigrant advocates say it does too little to stop deportations. Broader congressional solutions have been elusive and the U.S. Supreme Court has blocked a 2014 policy that would have protected more undocumented immigrants, including the parents of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents. As arguments over immigration reach new levels of toxicity in the 2016 elections, it is important to consider how the implementation of Deferred Action is faring. An array of stakeholders has worked hard to carry out this program, especially local governments, nonprofit service providers, unions, advocacy organizations, and foreign consulates. How have these stakeholders managed implementation and what lessons do their experiences hold for future immigration reform initiatives? We found answers by interviewing about 270 institutional informants in the San Francisco Bay Area, the Greater Houston Area, and the New York City Metro Area

Trump’s ‘Immployment’ Law Agenda: Intensifying Employment-Based Enforcement and Un-authorizing the Authorized

This article considers President Trump’s immigration efforts through an immployment law lens. Immployment is a conceptual frame that reminds us to consider (1) immigration policy’s impacts on employers and the employment-based rights of workers, and (2) employment and labor law’s impacts on immigration policy. It draws from available enforcement data to argue that Trump’s regime is intensifying the use of workplace-based immigration enforcement tools such as audits of employer records and arrests of workers at their place of work. While his predecessors used these tools too, Trump is simultaneously pursuing both high profile worker arrests and bureaucratic audits as key tools of a more aggressive immigration enforcement strategy. The Trump administration is also deviating from his predecessors by un-authorizing large groups of authorized workers. The article focuses its attention primarily on one such targeted group, workers with Temporary Protected Status (TPS), who may soon lose their authorization. It also uses interviews with two dozen immigrant worker advocates in the New York City metropolitan area to convey the ways that the threat of workplace-based immigration enforcement and unauthorization efforts are consequential for workers and the government compliance and benefits regimes that rely on voluntary participation of immigrant workers

Moving Beyond the Client Role: Helping Human Service Organizations Identify Program Participant’s Assets

Human service agencies have traditionally provided services to a population considered in need of those services. Program participants are often seen solely as passive recipients of food, housing, health care, case management, etc. However, community developers, program evaluators, human service/development staff and administrators, as well as researchers are finding that involving program participants in the planning and administration of programs and research results in better programs, program utilization, and empowerment of program participants (Nichols 2002; Papineau and Kiely 1996)

When Do Papers Matter? An Institutional Analysis of Undocumented Life in the United States

This article assesses how two key institutions differentially shape immigrants’ relationship to their rights in American society. We draw on over 200 in-depth interviews to argue that there is a stark difference between how schools encourage undocumented youth to view themselves as equal members of US society and how undocumented workers are marginalized in the workplace. We find that even as schools track and stratify students, they also foster a culture of meritocracy between documented and undocumented youth. Schools ultimately render immigration status irrelevant as undocumented youth learn to navigate the primary institution of this stage of their lives. Conversely, immigration status is central to the experience of undocumented workers, who develop a particular set of survival skills that help them live and work successfully in the United States without being detected while also erecting a barrier between themselves and any additional rights they may be afforded