Undocumented workers who witness or are themselves victims of labor-related abuses can now more efficiently access crucial protections against deportation, the Biden administration has announced. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said workers can apply for deferred action under a “streamlined and expedited process,” effective immediately.
The department said workers lacking legal immigration status are often too afraid to report abuses due to deportation-related retaliation. In California, labor officials noted a surge in these threats under the previous administration. Department officials said the new policy can benefit all workers, regardless of legal status, by reining in abusive employers.
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“Unscrupulous employers who prey on the vulnerability of noncitizen workers harm all workers and disadvantage businesses who play by the rules,” DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Friday. He added that the new efforts efforts “will effectively protect the American labor market, the conditions of the American worksite, and the dignity of the workers who power our economy.” Union leaders and immigrant rights organizations welcomed the changes.
“The National Domestic Workers Alliance applauds the DHS decision to create a streamlined process that empowers immigrant workers to enforce their core workplace rights without fear,” organization President Ai-jen Poo said in a statement received by Daily Kos. “This new guidance ensures that workers, including domestic workers, have the inherent right to be treated with dignity, respect, and protection, regardless of their immigration status.”
Like domestic workers, farmworkers workers have also been particularly vulnerable to abuses due to the very nature of their work. Both groups were intentionally excluded from critical labor law more than eight decades ago, barring them from federal standards for minimum wage and overtime pay. United Farm Workers (UFW) President Teresa Romero welcomed the administration’s new guidance, saying that farmers have often “weaponized the threat of deportation” against workers fighting for higher wages and fairer union representation.
“DHS’ newly issued guidance is an important step towards ensuring that all workers in the United States, regardless of immigration status, can enforce their rights to engage in labor actions without fear of deportation,” she said in a statement received by Daily Kos.
“Today’s announcement is a critical step forward to ensuring safe and just workplaces for all workers in the U.S., and so I commend Secretary Mayorkas and the Biden administration for using their discretionary authority to protect everyone working here,” California Rep. Judy Chu said. She urged passage of law that would enshrine retaliation protections into law, warning that a future administration can easily rescind the changes implemented by Biden and Mayorkas.
“The POWER Act, like the DHS announcement today, would expand protections for immigrants who are victims of serious workplace violations and ensure workers have a recourse to report unlawful or unfair labor practices,” Chu said.
Just what kind of president might have a stake in overturning deportation protections for immigrants abused at the workplace? The kind that exploited undocumented workers at his golf courses and other businesses for years, ran on an explicitly nativist campaign, and then fired tons of them after winning. Former Bedminster housekeeper Victorina Morales alleged she was physically abused and threatened with deportation by housekeeping management if she dared complain about mistreatment she faced.
“He got rid of us,” another worker told TBS host Samantha Bee in 2019. “For what? So they wouldn’t catch him having illegal workers.”
That same administration instead launched massive immigration raids targeting other businesses. Nearly 700 workers were swept up when federal immigration agents raided a string of Mississippi meatpacking plants in 2019. They were the largest workplace raids in a decade. A report released on the two-year anniversary of those raids revealed that while hundreds of workers were deported in the aftermath of the sweeps, no high-level poultry corporation executive ever faced charges.
“Immigrant workers are critical to the success of our economy, yet they are among those who suffer the most exploitation and abuse at work, and then suffer further from intimidation and retaliation when they stand up for their rights,” Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union President Stuart Appelbaum told the Associated Press.
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