Would Higher Labor Standards Reduce Undocumented Immigration?
The notion that there are “jobs Americans won’t do” is something we’ve heard many times in conversations with community members. The implication behind the statement is that low-skilled or undocumented immigrants aren’t competing with Americans for jobs.
Of course, that’s not entirely accurate. Industries that have high numbers of undocumented workers like food processing or agriculture still employ some American citizens, but at a much lower percentage because those jobs often pay less, can be seasonal positions or offer unpleasant working conditions compared to other industries. These factors often drive Americans to look for jobs elsewhere.
The Migration Policy Institute (MPI) looked at the connection between labor issues and immigration enforcement and presented a report that asks an interesting question: What if the U.S. used labor law enforcement as a tool of immigration enforcement?
The report, titled “Labor Standards Enforcement and Low-Wage Immigrants: Creating an Effective Enforcement System”, says many of the labor protections available for most American workers like a minimum wage, overtime pay and collective bargaining are not being upheld in certain industries either through employer misconduct or because workers are exempt or undocumented. While it is widely believed that industries with high rates of labor law violations also have high rates of immigration violations, MPI says this presumption has not been adequately studied.
MPI wonders whether the rate of undocumented immigration would decrease if labor standards were increased in these industries and if protections were extended to more workers, including the undocumented. By targeting employers that violate these standards, it would remove the ability to exploit undocumented workers and simultaneously make these jobs more appealing to U.S. workers.
The report notes that currently there is a vast difference in the amount of resources devoted to immigration enforcement compared to labor standards enforcement. The combined budgets of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection for FY 2011 is more than $17 billion. In contrast, all the agencies devoted to labor standards including the Wage and Hour Division of the Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration are collectively budgeted for less than $1.1 billion.
So if money was redirected away from immigration enforcement and toward improving labor standards, would that help reduce undocumented immigration? Well, the jury is still out on what the results would actually be. Even the MPI report notes that a side effect of increased labor regulation could be that many employers move to a totally informal wage market to avoid labor standards completely.
Still, MPI thinks it is a strategy worth being researched and considered. If such a study were conducted, what do you suspect we would learn? Do you think the U.S. should look at improving labor protections in certain industries as a way of curbing undocumented immigration?
Category: Economy
