Stand Up for the Rights of Immigrant Workers

Immigrants helped build this country and continue to play a central role in our union. Since its inception UE’s aim has been to fight for all worker rights, regardless of status. Employers and the politicians that represent them seek to exploit divisions between immigrant and native-born workers, driving down wages and stripping away hard-won workers’ rights.

Over the past 20 years, Democrats and Republicans have raced with each other on who can most brutally attack immigrant workers. During President Donald Trump’s first term, there was a concerted effort to punish asylum seekers and new immigrants through twisted, illegal, and immoral policies. Nearly every aspect of immigration policy was redesigned in an explicit effort to reduce the number of non-white people in the U.S., from placing new arrivals into literal concentration camps to turning immigration judicial proceedings into kangaroo courts where individuals have no hope of prevailing.

Despite hope that immigrants’ rights would improve with the inauguration of former President Joe Biden, Biden continued and expanded Title 42, an archaic public-health order which allows the expulsion of most adult migrants without access to the asylum process, purportedly due to the Covid-19 public health emergency, although cases were much lower in the countries of origin for most of these migrants. Title 42 expired and Biden reinstituted Title 8. While Title 8 has more pathways to asylum, it can be just as burdensome as Title 42. For example, Title 8 is more punitive for those caught crossing the border. The current situation is untenable, shelters and detention centers are at capacity, with it being reported that there are shelters who turn away at least ten families with children every day. Those seeking an interview for asylum are forced to use an app called CBP One, which immediately excludes asylum seekers with older cellphones or without cellphones at all. Other problems with this app include facial recognition biases harming those with darker skin, giving applicants appointments thousands of miles away, and separating families by giving them different appointments.

In this current term, Trump has taken brazen action brutally attacking immigrant workers with vicious, high-profile Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids; abductions and detention of international workers like Mahmoud Khalil and Rumeysa Ozturk; the illegal deportation and months-long detention of Kilmar Abrego Garcia; the forced self-deportation of UE Local 300 member Momodou Taal; the deaths of Jaime Alanis García and Carlos Roberto Montoya Valdez; renewed McCarthyite threats of internments and deportations of both citizen and non-citizen workers based on their political views, especially around support for the Palestinian people; attempting to revoke birthright citizenship; overnight, unilateral revocation of the legal status of international workers without justifiable grounds; and the attempted suspension of Harvard’s certification to enroll international students, meaning existing international students must transfer or lose their legal status.

The “Big Beautiful Bill” recently signed into law now paves the way for ICE to be the largest federally-funded law enforcement agency, in place of healthcare and food security for millions. Employers have a history of weaponizing workers’ immigration status to sow division within the workplace to keep wages low and to scare workers into thinking they don’t deserve rights and protections worth fighting for. UE members have seen the boss use tactics such as “losing” I-9 paperwork and implementing E-Verify to accomplish this. Even after only eight months in office, Trump’s second term promises to be even more destructive than his first and strip away even more rights of immigrant workers.

Denying immigrant workers decent wages and conditions undermines the wages and conditions of all. All workers, regardless of immigration status, must have the right to form unions, to file complaints against unfair treatment without fear of reprisal, to receive unemployment, disability and workers’ compensation benefits, and to have access for themselves and their families to affordable housing, healthcare, education and transportation.

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED THAT THIS 79^th UE CONVENTION:

1. Demands an end to all concentration and/or internment camps for immigrants, and an end to the criminalization of asylum seekers, refugees, and those who provide humanitarian aid to them;
2. Demands the complete abolition all ICE operations, starting with an immediate moratorium on all ICE raids, arrests, deportations, harassment, seizures, I-9 audits, visa revocations, and other abuses of non-citizen, especially undocumented, workers;
3. Calls for an end to all political attacks against the sanctuary city movement and encourages all locals to actively support all efforts in their community to defend immigrants from abuse and harassment;
4. Supports the inclusion of immigrants in all current and proposed public healthcare programs, including Medicare for All;
5. Calls for the Trump administration to expand access to asylum interview appointments;
6. Demands that Congress enact immigration reform legislation that:
   1. Includes a legalization program, allowing all immigrants currently living in the U.S. to remain here permanently and without penalty;
   2. Protects worker rights for both current and future immigrants, including overturning Hoffman Plastic Compounds, Inc. v. NLRB;
   3. Prioritizes family unification;
   4. Liberalizes political asylum procedures;
   5. Rejects guest-worker programs;
   6. Repeals the REAL ID Act;
   7. Ensures immigrants have equal access to higher education, including student loans, financial aid, and in-state tuition;
7. Urges locals to negotiate contract language that:
   1. Protects jobs and contract rights regardless of immigration status;
   2. Allows undocumented workers to update immigration status without loss of rights;
   3. Prevents the employer from taking adverse action in the event of the receipt of a Social Security “no-match” letter;
   4. Prevents the employer from participating in voluntary ICE enforcement programs;
   5. Obligates the employer to refuse entry to ICE agents who do not possess a valid judicial warrant and to notify the union if contacted by ICE;
   6. Requires the employer to supply an independent translator and allow union representation when communicating on important matters with workers not fluent in English;
   7. Makes available copies of the contract in each language spoken by employees;
8. Encourages locals to work with and financially support local immigrant rights coalitions which assist undocumented workers and fight to fix our broken immigration system;
9. Calls on locals with immigrant members to educate employers on the rights of immigrant workers, the employer’s right to resist ICE harassment and intimidation, and the perils of ICE’s voluntary enforcement initiatives;
10. Urges locals to educate themselves about federal laws related to immigrants and refugees, and to assist their immigrant members in attaining documented status and citizenship if they so desire;
11. Calls upon all states to repeal hateful, anti-immigrant bills, such as Florida’s SB 1718;
12. Demands that state motor vehicle agencies change policies and programs that make it impossible for immigrants to legally own and operate vehicles;
13. Calls upon the union at all levels to continue to provide education and materials for members and the community about the real causes of worker migration to the U.S;
14. Urges the union at all levels to refuse to collaborate with ICE;
15. Demands that political leaders at all levels use their power against Trump’s actions, by refusing collaboration with federal authorities that target immigrant communities;
16. Calls upon locals to create positions which facilitate the participation of non-citizen workers in the leadership of the union, to encourage more non-citizen participation in union activities, and to address the specific challenges of non-citizen workers;
17. Calls upon the union to expand resources dedicated to supporting non-citizen workers, including but not limited to rights trainings and connecting them to legal resources related to immigration and international travel.