Two interesting articles in the new issue of the “Boston Review”:http://bostonreview.net/. “Joe Carens”:http://bostonreview.net/BR30.3/carens.html makes a political-theoretical argument that we have an obligation to grant citizenship to most immigrants and their children. “Jennifer Gordon”:http://bostonreview.net/BR30.3/gordon.html argues on practical grounds that those who want strong trade unions should be in favour of granting citizenship rights to undocumented immigrants. She writes about how these workers are exploited in sweatshop situations, and how the threat of alerting immigration authorities is used to enforce compliance and to squash union membership drives. On the one hand, this means that the workers who are most vulnerable to exploitation and most in need of union representation are extremely hard for unions to reach. While new forms of protection – worker centers – have sprung up, they’re structurally disadvantaged and only cover a small number of undocumented immigrants. On the other, the existence of a large working population which has no choice but to accept the conditions that they are offered weakens the bargaining power of organized labour more generally. As Gordon writes:
bq. A serious attack on the very worst work in this country will require immigration reform to allow undocumented workers to legalize their status, removing the greatest source of their vulnerability to exploitation; a genuine commitment to enforcing the worker-protection laws that currently languish on the books; and a significant investment in new forms of organizing—including worker centers.
{ 11 comments }
Matt 06.14.05 at 9:50 am
I’ve only had a chance to skim the atricles, as I must go to work now. But, it seems like a false dilema to say we must grant “citizenship rights” or else have illegal immigrants who are exploited by the system. A well worked out guest-worker program is also an option. It’s not a popular option among liberals, in part becuase it’s had such a terrible result in places like Germany, but it would be quite different in the US since citizenship is granted to anyone born here (no long-term non-citizens like in Germany) and can be made to work in other ways, too. Much of the best work on the subject is done by Howard Chang, at Penn Law, who’s homepage has the citations:
http://www.law.upenn.edu/cf/faculty/hchang/
(Chang had been a student of Carens’ at one point, but differs with him on many issues, including guest workers.) I storngly recommend Chang’s writings on this to people. Are guest-worker programs unfair? Not obviously, unless you assume some pretty serious points- that free movement is the default, that the social contract isn’t the proper system for political justification etc. Note that we have a quite successful guest-worker program for academics- the J-visa for exchange, and it seems to not be a serious problem. (I hope I’ll not regret anything said here when I’ve had a chance to read the articles more carefully!)
abb1 06.14.05 at 10:04 am
Isn’t there a fallacy here somewhere: you grant citizenship rights to the undocumented workers, they’ll immediately move up the ladder for new undocumented workers to take their place. So, what have you acheived?
EW 06.14.05 at 10:30 am
Precisely. Nothing is achieved. Ask Spaniards and the result of their “amnesties for illegals”. More unqualified North Africans.
Bob B 06.14.05 at 11:12 am
We have just had an interesting angle on immigration from the Governor of the Bank of England:
“Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England, weighed into the debate about immigration last night when he strongly hinted that the influx of workers from eastern Europe over the past year had helped to limit increases in interest rates. . . ”
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,11026,1505986,00.html
Jonathan 06.14.05 at 11:55 am
And don’t neglect the Chomsky and Zinn articles while you’re there.
Slocum 06.14.05 at 12:58 pm
The article seems a bit nonsensical from the start:
Discussions of immigration policy often focus on borders: on who should be allowed into a country. I want to focus instead on the people who have already arrived, especially those who are likely to stay—on the men, women, and children who have crossed political boundaries to live in states of which they are not citizens.
But, of course, any policies we put in place to cover those who have already arrived will also affect those who are thinking about coming. If anyone who manages to get here can automatically claim citizenship, then many more will come. This is virtually equivalent to a completely open borders policy, since nobody who manages to sneak over the border is ever deported. On the other hand, if we establish a cut off date, then the problem of illegal immigration will quickly reestablish itself and nothing will have been achieved.
mc 06.14.05 at 2:57 pm
Thanks matt, for the ref to Chang. The broad outline of the argument (in his paper ‘The Immigration Paradox’, Feb 2003) was no surprise – it was the argument the UK Labour government was following when, in early 2004, it defied pressure from right-wing newspapers and the Conservative Party to join the rest of the old EU (except Ireland) in reneging on our promise to open our labour markets to workers from the new EU states – choosing instead to combine opening our labour market as promised with introducing additional restrictions on benefits.
For contemporary coverage see:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/eu/story/0,7369,1141347,00.html
[sorry, don’t know how to insert a link properly]
But of course no one (including the Guardian) fully grasped the argument, so it is good to see it being advanced by independent academics, where it might stand a better chance of being taken in good faith.
However, while I think this was a good solution in this particular case (EU enlargement), I share the concerns of those, discussed by Chang, who doubt the long-term viability – practical and legal – of guest-worker programmes. But in terms of legal viability I say this with the UK/EU legal framework in mind. Perhaps the US legal framework is significantly different.
jacob 06.14.05 at 5:43 pm
I haven’t yet read the articles in question, but the argument isn’t new. It’s no coincidence that those unions that are interested in organizing–especially organizing low-wage service workers–are also pushing for amnesty or other ways of ensuring that immigrants are protected. The policy of the AFL-CIO changed roughtly ten years ago after a committee headed by the then-president of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees union, and SEIU and Unite Here have continued pushing for immigration reform, particularly in the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride.
Real American 06.15.05 at 9:15 am
Well if we grant everyone the rights that I was BORN with in this country. And give it to some guy from any country that came here and broke the law doing it, is an outrage. If people are willing to work in the sweat shops or poor standard living since they have no status here. then thats what they get. They pay no taxes, they pay now dews. They just work off of the backs of real americans. Yes you may state that we all come from other places in the world. But we all did it the right way. We need to turn away any ileagle person from everything from heathcare to shoping markets to everything. US State ID’s should be shown everywhere you go. with out it you cant buy a single thing. make it much harder on those who break the law to get in. To me 1mil of ileagles starving to death with show a message saying that if your not going through the system we have set up you will not make it here and you will not pass go.
Matt 06.15.05 at 5:39 pm
Real,
Given the rather large number of very obvious spelling mistakes in your post I’m tempted to say nothing, since I can’t help but wonder if it’s a parody. But, I’ll point out one thing- many, perhaps most illegal aliens do pay taxes, and they do this while receiving fewer benefits. For example, many illegal aliens pay social security taxes, since they are working with fake social security cards (or real ones that belong to others.) They also pay other taxes if they make enough to pay them at all. But, they’ll not collect social security nor do they get tax returns, so, if anything, they pay more taxes total than do many American workers. I don’t intend this as an argument for any position in particular, but only to point out that the claim that “ileagl [sic] aliens” “pay no taxes” is demonstrably false, and that you have shown yourself to be an ignorant fool.
Darren 06.16.05 at 4:39 am
“Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England, weighed into the debate about immigration last night when he strongly hinted that the influx of workers from eastern Europe over the past year had helped to limit increases in interest rates. . .”
Isn’t this the reason, ie along with the Chinese and Indian labour force, for the world wide low interest rate phenomenon?
Also, there are three factors of production: land, labour and capital. One of the factors has just got massively cheaper which has had an observable effect on the cost of the other – does that mean that the system is a lot richer?
If the system is a lot richer; how come I’m not sharing in the spoils? Is it ‘cos the system has a huge malfunction within it: viz, fiat currency?
Anway, in answer to the original post … “we have an obligation to grant citizenship to most immigrants and their children” – better to take citizenship away from everyone. Except, of course, for the greedy who wish to live at the expense of others; the others being the non-citizens.
Comments on this entry are closed.