More video of arrests of undocumented workers

Slideshow: Images of Immigrants under arrest

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Illegal work/ Illegal working conditions

This video nicely encapsulates the multiple strands of illegality that converge on the issue of undocumented workers.  700 people arrested and detained for working illegally and having used false identity papers; at the same time, the meatpacking company for which they work is being investigated for violation of health and safety laws, child labor violations, allegations of sexual harassment, and for withholding pay from their workers (who, being undocumented, have no legal standing to sue for withheld wages).  If you’ve read Fast Food Nation the story of the meatpacking plant conditions will be familiar.

Video of infamous AZ Sheriff Joe Arpaio

Makes the people he arrests live in tents in the Arizona heat and wear pink underwear (To humiliate them?  To brand them?  Just ‘cuz he can?)

How America Solicited Migrant Workers: The Bracero Program

One of the greatest influences on U.S.-Mexican migrant labor relations was the implementation of the Bracero Program from 1942-1964. Etymologically rooted to the Spanish term “brazo”, or “arm”, a bracero was  a Mexican laborer.  The Bracero Program, much like the H-2A visa program, was intended to help American farmers with a declining labor force to obtain temporary Mexican farmhands.  Research conducted by a University of Northern Colorado student highlights several key facts about the historical, provisional, and abusive effects of this program on the Mexican migrant.

Fast Facts:

• The Bracero Program was created by executive order in 1942 because many growers argued that World War II would bring labor shortages to low-paying agricultural jobs.
• On August 4, 1942 the United States concluded a temporary intergovernmental agreement for the use of Mexican agricultural labor on United States farms (officially referred to as the Mexican Farm Labor Program), and the influx of legal temporary Mexican workers began.
• In 1951, concerns about production and the U.S. entry into the Korean conflict led Congress to formalize the Bracero Program with Public Law 78.
• Over the program’s 22-year lifespan, more than 4.5 million Mexican citizens were legally hired for work in the United States, primarily in Texas and California.

Although the Bracero Program appeared to be a positive way to stimulate the American economy with an added labor population, Mexico had doubts that all of the U.S. employers hiring Mexican workers were truly suffering from labor shortages.  In fact, Mexico implied that the U.S. manipulated thousands of Mexicans into temporary contracts in order to obtain cheap labor.  Of course, Mexico also saw the economic danger in losing much of their worker population to the U.S.

Here are some of the general provisions of the program:

• Mexican workers shall not suffer discriminatory acts of any kind.
• Mexican workers will be furnished with hygienic lodgings at no cost to them, and the medical and sanitary services enjoyed without cost to them will be identical with those furnished to the other agricultural workers in regions where they may lend their services.
• Mexicans entering the U.S. shall not be employed to displace other workers, or for the purpose of reducing rates of pay previously established.
• Contracts must be written in Spanish.
• Wages paid to the worker shall be the same as those paid for similar work to other agricultural laborers under the same conditions within the same area.

Although these provisions seemed fair at the onset, it is evident that the program caused a great deal of racial backlash among the U.S. workers toward their new neighbors.  Furthermore, many abuses of the program occurred that were shielded from the public.  Here are a few examples of this backlash and abuse:

• In the state of Texas alone, Mexicans were discriminated against to such an extent that the Mexican government forbade the use of its nationals in the fields in Texas.
• Some restaurants had signs to prohibit the entrance of Mexicans, and theaters were segregated so that Mexicans were only allowed in the upper sections.
• When American farm workers walked off a job to protest poor wages or working conditions, farm owners would import braceros to harvest crops, destroying the bargaining power of the American farm workers (although this use of braceros was expressly prohibited in the Bracero Program).
• Thousands of braceros were brought in to perform stoop labor, a task that causes back injuries resulting from the constant strain of bending over all day. Medical clinics reported backache as the most common ailment among the braceros. Since no machine has been able to replace stoop labor, it continues today.
• As part of their contract, braceros agreed to have ten percent of their wages withheld and placed in a fund controlled by the Mexican government.
• An overwhelming majority of the workers never received compensation and the whereabouts of the funds remain unknown.

The Bracero Program caused Mexican immigration to the U.S. to become so popular, that a large number of individuals not yet enrolled in the program began to cross the border without proper documentation. Hence, the term “wetback” soon became a part of the American vocabulary of racial slurs. The term originated because many Mexican immigrants had to swim or wade across the Rio Grande in order to reach the American side of the border.  Here are some other interesting facts about the birth of the ever-popularized “illegal alien”:

• Many growers hired “wetbacks” rather than braceros because wetbacks were more manageable and because as illegal aliens they had absolutely no rights.
• By the 1960’s, an excess of “illegal” agricultural workers, along with the introduction of the mechanical cotton harvester, destroyed the practicality and attractiveness of the bracero program.
• Once the program was terminated in 1964, the braceros returned home. Unable to survive in their communities in Mexico, many continued to cross the border to work farms and ranches in the U.S.  Many of these braceros now live in dire poverty, rejected from both Mexico and the U.S.

The Bracero program effectively solidified the creation of the now common Latino migration pattern. Latinos travel to the U.S. to earn a living with the intent of occasionally returning to their homelands.  Thus, Latino immigrants have the somewhat unnatural lifestyle of being dual citizens of distinct nations and cultures with very little benefits from either government.

For more information about the Bracero Program, visit these quick links:

• http://sunsite3.berkeley.edu/calheritage/latinos/braceros.html
• http://www.jsri.msu.edu/museum/pubs/MexAmHist/chapter15.html
• http://www.farmworkers.org/benglish.html http://www.counterpunch.org/bracero.html
• http://www.pacificnews.org/jinn/stories/5.16/990804-bracero.html

How America Solicits Migrant Workers: NAFTA

We’ve all heard about how Asian countries are effectively competing in a “race to the bottom” dependent on the multitude of unskilled workers they can exploit to bolster their economic growth on the world stage.  However, one may be surprised to hear that America created a similar race for Latinos in the United States and Latin America under NAFTA policies.

Here are some fast facts on the ties between NAFTA and U.S.-Mexican relations, provided by the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement and Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch:

• Sharp cuts in farm subsidy programs combined with the near-elimination of import restrictions on corn and other commodities resulted in dumped U.S. corn flooding the Mexican market, forcing over 1.3 million campesinos or peasant farmers off their land.
• Many U.S. agribusiness multinationals used NAFTA investment and service sector rules to buy corn-processing and tortilla-making factories in Mexico. Yet instead of falling (as “free” trade theory predicts), retail prices for food products increased sharply. The cost of tortillas rose by 50 percent in Mexico City and more in the countryside, even as prices paid to Mexican farmers for corn plummeted.
• Since NAFTA, a combination of factors – including the migration of so many campesinos to the cities – has caused Mexican industrial wages to decline by approximately 10 percent.
• During the ten years of the trade agreement, the U.S. manufacturing sector has lost almost 2.5 million jobs. What has not been recognized widely is that U.S. Latino workers are some of the hardest hit by the U.S. job losses to date. In 1999, an astounding 47 percent of the total number of workers who received federal assistance under a program for workers certified as having lost jobs as a direct result of NAFTA were Latino.

This data reveals that NAFTA policies were the source of significant job losses for both Latinos and Americans.  Before criticizing the Latino labor force as as a threat to American jobs, it is important to realize that American policies played a large role in altering the dynamics of the U.S. manufacturing and agricultural industries.

The Profit Value of Immigrants

Although we often hear that immigrants cost the U.S. government thousands of taxpayer dollars annually, an ethnographic study by Altha J. Cravey of the University of North Carolina reveals the exact opposite effect: immigrant workers provide subsidies to the government and corporations due to their lower social reproduction costs.

In the fast-paced world of globalization, it is no secret that many American jobs are being outsourced to overseas workers or non-citizens within the U.S.  What is not always explained is that globalization tends to increase production while limiting the costs of government-funded social support benefits.

Still not convinced?  Check out these facts from the ACLU:

• A U.S. Department of Labor study prepared by the Bush Administration noted that the perception that immigrants take jobs away from American workers is “the most persistent fallacy about immigration in popular thought” because it is based on the mistaken assumption that there is only a fixed number of jobs in the economy.
• Experts note that immigrants are blamed for unemployment because Americans can see the jobs immigrants fill but not the jobs they create through productivity, capital formation and demand for goods and services.
• Immigrants pay more than $90 billion in taxes every year and receive only $5 billion in welfare. Without their contributions to the public treasury, the economy would suffer a $220 billion drop in U.S. economic output.

Despite the fact that immigrants help the U.S. economy to grow, it is important to keep in mind that Latino migrants represent more than a labor production force; these are hardworking individuals with knowledge, skills, families, and dreams.  Latinos are more than willing to contribute to the economic growth of the United States, but it is time for the American majority to fully appreciate these efforts and acknowledge the socio-economic benefits that this community has been deprived of throughout history.

How America Solicits Migrant Labor: The H-2A Visa

With the added influx of Latinos migrating to the U.S. South, one must wonder why these individuals would ever desire to live in an environment where racial and socio-economic prejudice is historically prevalent.  One answer is found within the documentation of the H-2A Visa program, which allowed agricultural employers anticipating a shortage of domestic workers to hire temporary foreign labor in order to complete their work in a cost-efficient manner.  In the 1980’s and 1990’s, the increased implementation of this program in the American South allowed for a subsequent “Latinization” of the region.  There are currently 30,000 temporary workers in the United States that hold this visa.  Thus, while several laws such as the controversial Arizona SB1079 bill have been proposed in many states, it is the states’ own policies that have contributed to the increase in migrant labor for decades.

From a purely economic standpoint, the H-2A visa program seems like a helpful way for American employers to save their companies from decline by hiring foreign laborers that are ready and willing to work for minimal wages.  On a social level, however, the program has formed a highly racialized society that forces Latino migrants to ultimately reshape their identities.  According to University of North Carolina professor, Altha J. Cravey, the H-2A program “creates a gender imbalance by granting temporary visas to male workers yet not to their family members”, which also leads to heightened generational and multi-regional conflicts within the Latino community itself.

In short, the H-2A visa program has allowed thousands of migrants, particularly those from Mexico and other Latino nations, to legally work in the United States. However, the program also represents the source of added social conflicts resulting from the migrant adaptation to a harsh and uncertain lifestyle.