THE REAL PURPOSE OF EMPLOYERS' SANCTIONS 

Throughout our country's history, laws have been passed in the name of protecting American workers, when in reality they serve to divide working people, criminalize a group of workers, and maintain a cheap pool of labor in this country. (See timeline). The purported intent of employer sanctions was to deter illegal immigration and to protect American jobs by targeting the demand for undocumented workers. Yet, government, community groups, labor unions, and scholars recognize that employer sanctions has accomplished neither goal. Employer's Sanctions:

DID NOT PROTECT

• Made the undocumented workforce even more attractive by stripping away workers' rights to demand fair conditions
• Force U.S. citizens and docu­mented workers to compete with them in a race to the bottom.

DID NOT DETER

• Increased the demand for a vulnerable group of workers demand for cheap labor.
  
• There is an estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S., a dra­matic increase from the estimated 4 million present when IRCA was enacted. 

DID RESULT IN

• Undermined the ability for workers to come together. Union membership continues to be decimated, going from 17.5% in 1986 to 10.5% in 2018. 
• Undermined the ability for workers to fight for better conditions. Real wages today, adjusted for inflation, is the same as it was 40 years ago. 
• Criminalized undocumented workers- in 2018, there was an average of 42,000 in ICE custody a day. 

PUSH OR PULL FACTOR?
In its quest to remain competitive, the U.S. govern­ment along with business interests must maintain an economy wholly dependent on the exploitation of undocumented and documented workers. They ulti­mately desire more undocumented workers, not less. For example, while Trump has been clamoring for border wall expansion, he has simultaneously increased guestworkers visas to the country to increase the pool of cheap labor, bound by indentured-servitude-like conditions.

​While there are other “push factors” that influence why im­migrants come to the U.S., the government-created "pull factor" through employer sanctions proves to be a powerful force in channeling more undocumented workers to this country. Employer sanctions, by criminalizing undocumented workers, has created an environment whereby undocumented workers are favored by unscrupulous employers and can easily gain employment as exploited labor. This has led to the expansion of the underground economy, making the labor law unenforceable. Law abiding employers who compete with unscrupulous employers must also lower their standards and conditions. Meanwhile, undocumented immigrants are uprooted from their native countries, separating families and diminishing the chances for communities to come together to change conditions in their native country.

LEGALIZING A FEW IN ORDER TO CRIMINALIZE MANY:
WHY LEGALIZATION IS NOT A VIABLE LONG-TERM SOLUTION

In 1986, advocates traded employer sanctions for the amnesty provision of IRCA, legalizing 2.7 million immigrants and criminalizing tens of millions more people who came after.

During the Obama administration, almost 700,000 young immigrants were legalized under DACA, while more than 3 million were deported during Obama's eight years in office.

In early 2019, in a bi-partisan battle that pitted federal workers against immigrant workers during a government shutdown, protections for DACA immigrants were offered in exchange for $5.7 billion to expand the border wall.

In this carrot and stick approach, the government has had a long history of legalizing a few workers, in order to criminalize many more. We can no longer accept piecemeal reforms and mortgage the future of all working people. We have seen that legalization programs are limited. They are not able to address the causes and effects of an increased undocumented population. Some argue that strengthening penalties against employers, setting up a better system for verifying a workers work authorization, and strengthening enforcement of the immigration law through expansion of the border wall and through deportations will help solve the problem. Employers’ sanctions and greater enforcement of our current immigration law is really just a ruse that, as the last forty years since IRCA has shown, will be used to push undocumented workers further underground and continue to downgrade the conditions of immigrant and citizen workers alike. To allocate more resources to government agencies to enforce the existing law only diverts money from health and education programs. Employers have increasingly turned to subcontracting to evade labor and immigration laws.

Current demands by advocates to abolish ICE and end deportation and detention of undocumented immigrants only target the symptoms or tools of enforcing IRCA. Without repeal of the law, this group of workers will still be criminalized in this country.

The best way to protect ALL workers is to repeal employer sanctions-a modern-day slave law-so all workers have equal rights and can come together to exercise those rights.