Labor, Immigration, and Democrats of Today v. Democrats of 1989
by Mike Kimel
Labor, Immigration, and Democrats of Today v. Democrats of 1989
Lifted from comments I made to this post:
In 1989 plus or minus a year, I went to see Cesar Chavez speak. Its been a long time, but I have two memories of the event. The first is that every time the word “Armenian” was mentioned, activists throughout the hall would blow on whistles. There were (are?) a number of prominent of Armenian families among growers of various crops in California. Additionally, George Deukmejian (of Armenian background) was then governor.
The second thing that stuck out was how much Chavez and the mostly Hispanic crowd was against immigration. And when Chavez spoke of immigration, he meant (and I could be wrong, but I think he spelled it out) illegal immigrants who would come to California to work as farm laborers. Chavez and his supporters understood that more farm workers meant more competition and less pay for Chavez and his supporters. I never went to a speech by Deukmejian or any of the growers, but I imagine they understood how the supply and demand for farm labor works too.
I suspect Chavez and his largely Hispanic supporters that day would have strongly supported the construction of the Great Wall of Trump had it been suggested at the time. I also imagine every one of them would have taken issue with being described as race baiters. Instead, Chavez was arguing, essentially, that the first priority of the country should be to the people currently there, and that with few exceptions, the decision of whether to allow someone else to enjoy the privilege of coming to the country should be predicated more on the pros and cons to those already there. That is to say, the position Donald Trump has now on immigration from Mexico and Central America is the position Cesar Chavez held in 1989 (plus or minus a year).
And, of course, the one thing Democrats keep telling us Trump’s immigration policies is that they are bad. Racist too. The notion that people currently in the US should have some say in who else gets to come to the US seems to be an unfathomable evil. So where are Democrats now? Fastforward, and we have this Dep’t of Justice news release dated Sept 1 which is confusing me:
Justice Department Partners with Mexico to Combat Employment Discrimination
The Justice Department and the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of the United Mexican States established a formal partnership today to protect workers from discrimination based on citizenship, immigration status and national origin. Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, and Mexican Ambassador Carlos Sada signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the embassy and its consulates, and the division’s Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices (OSC).
As part of the MOU, OSC and the Mexican government will collaborate to educate workers about their employment rights and provide them with the resources needed to protect those rights. The MOU also seeks to promote training for employers on their obligations under the anti-discrimination provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), which prohibits employment discrimination based on citizenship, immigration status and national origin. Specifically, the MOU provides that:
– OSC will train Mexican consular staff on the anti-discrimination provision of the INA, participate in events organized by Mexican consulates to educate workers and employers and distribute educational materials to the embassy and its consulates.
– The embassy will establish a system for referring discrimination claims from the embassy and consulates to OSC.
“The Mexican government plays a vital role in helping the Justice Department ensure workers know about their rights and the protections the law provides,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Gupta. “Mexico has taken a leading role in Labor Rights Week, ensuring that workers in Mexico and throughout the world know about their rights in the workplace and where to access help and support. I thank our Mexican counterparts for their collaborative partnership in our shared mission to empower workers and combat discrimination.”
In the last year, the department has also established formal partnerships with Ecuador and El Salvador to empower and educate work-authorized individuals from those nations.
OSC is responsible for enforcing the anti-discrimination provision of the INA. Among other things, this law prohibits citizenship, immigration status and national origin discrimination in hiring, firing or recruitment or referral for a fee; discrimination in the employment eligibility verification process; retaliation and intimidation. In addition to its enforcement work, OSC educates the public on its rights and responsibilities under the INA’s anti-discrimination provision.
For more information about protections against employment discrimination under immigration laws, call OSC’s worker hotline at 1-800-255-7688 (1-800-237-2515, TTY for hearing impaired); call OSC’s employer hotline at 1-800-255-8155 (1-800-237-2515, TTY for hearing impaired); sign up for a free webinar; email osccrt@usdoj.govEmail links icon; or visit OSC’s website.
Mexico MOU
The part that confuses me is ” the anti-discrimination provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), which prohibits employment discrimination based on citizenship, immigration status and national origin.” Every job I have ever had, barring consulting gigs, has required me to provide evidence that I can legally work in the US, which amounts to either being a US citizen or having the right sort of visa or green card. Put another way, during my working life, the law of the land had always specifically involved “employment discrimination based on citizenship, immigration status and national origin.” Has that gone by the wayside?
And if so, has it only gone by the wayside for Mexican citizens? The document did state: “[i]n the last year, the department has also established formal partnerships with Ecuador and El Salvador to empower and educate work-authorized individuals from those nations.” Or is the “work-authorized” bit just, well, so 2015? Is this an attempt to move the goalpost on policy or simply to inform us of what has quietly become policy? Or perhaps it is just unclear (deliberately or otherwise) writing from some minion at Justice?
How one interprets this press release is very different now than it would have been even last year, much less, say, in 2006 or 1996. Immigration policy is changing fast, but not in a direction that, on aggregate, is good for people who currently make up the US workforce.
Mike,
Read 8 USC Sec. 1324a and Sec. 1324b together. Subsection a makes it illegal to employ an unauthorized alien. Subsection b makes it illegal to discriminate, etc., except for unauthorized aliens.
The memo, by itself may be ambiguous but the two statutory provisions seem clear.
JackD,
I’m no attorney, but I know that laws that aren’t enforced stop being relevant. Now, if your position is “let’s monitor our Southern border more lightly, and not worry too much about who shows up to provide labor and by the way, downward pressure on wages isn’t our concern” – i.e., the position held by California Republicans in 1989 or the shotcallers in the Democrat party today – how do you signal that? Occasionally you release something like the Justice Dep’t’s memo dated Sept 1. Alternative explanation – it was a mistake and I’ve missed the retraction. Another alternative is that it was meant to bamboozle the Mexicans. I can come up with additional alternatives, but they will be increasingly unlikely.
JackD,
A follow-up comment. Whatever one’s opinion on bathroom usage by transgendered people, it is apparent even to laypeople like myself that the Obama administration came up with a way to interpret the law that nobody had tried to enforce before. A few memos, a few statements, and voila, the world has changed. There has been pushback from those who don’t agree with the Obama administration on the issue, and in the end, the Courts will define a broad set of boundaries under which whatever rules that do don’t get enforced must fit. But it is very unlikely that the world returns to the status quo ante during what is left of the Obama administration, or during a Hilary Clinton administration. Tax realities change the same way. The same is true of any number of areas. Immigration is no different.
Well, it might also be that the Mexican government thought their nationals who were here legally were being discriminated against and the Justice Dept. was trying reassure them that that is illegal under our law.
JackD,
There are ways to tell Mexico that the US government won’t tolerate discrimination by employers against Mexicans who are legally allowed to work in the US. This says something else: “Among other things, this law prohibits citizenship, immigration status and national origin discrimination in hiring, firing or recruitment.” It is also almost identical in substance to an earlier statement, just in case you missed it:
“The MOU also seeks to promote training for employers on their obligations under the anti-discrimination provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), which prohibits employment discrimination based on citizenship, immigration status and national origin. ”
So I’m guessing it means what it says, because it said it twice: the Obama administration now views it as illegal for a US company not to hire someone who is in the US illegally or otherwise does not have the paperwork needed to work here legally.”
Mike:
Jack is a litigation attorney for companies. I tend to listen to him.
Well, you are just wrong. Read the two statutory provisions. They are written in English.
JackD,
To repeat, I’m no attorney, but I have noticed how laws change. As an example, Title IX is also, as you so eloquently put it, in English. And yet, it has only been in the past couple of years or so that anyone noticed that it covered which restrooms transgendered individuals would use. I understand some attorneys are able to see the coverage, and some aren’t, despite it being, again, in English. I think we can conclude, from this, whichever our respective positions on restrooms used by transgendered individuals, that new interpretations of laws that are written in English are possible, and that this administration (like others before it), has found new interpretations when it wished to do so.
I would guess that these new interpretations don’t appear fully formed as a new regulation or a lawsuit, but rather bubble to the surface in less rigorous forms, at least at first, say, as a memorandum of understanding achieved with the Mexican government. If nobody complains too much, the next bubble is larger, and the one after that is larger still. If someone does complain, the administration decides how much capital it wants to put behind the idea.
Now you feel this inaccurate, and I can respect that, particularly since you seem to understand the law better than I do. But it raises the question: what do you make of the MOU then? (I note that it too is English.) Is it simply a joint hallucination shared by me and you? Is it a mistake? Is it lying to the Mexican government? What purpose can this official pronouncement possibly serve if it means something different than what it states repeatedly?
I gave you an alternative theory earlier. I really recommend that you read the two statutory sections. They are not long and they are quite clear.
JackD,
Sorry. Your alternative theory was this: “it might also be that the Mexican government thought their nationals who were here legally were being discriminated against and the Justice Dept. was trying reassure them that that is illegal under our law.”
But as I pointed out after that, your your theory is insufficient to explain why the Justice Dep’t also felt it necessary to reassure them that it is illegal for American companies to discriminate in hiring based on whether a person is legally in this country, which it stated twice in the memo. I’m asking for a theory that explains the main event, not a sideshow.
Since the MOU specifically cites the Immigration and Naturalization Act, unless you have looked at those sections, you haven’t really read the MOU.
I think I agreed with you originally that the MOU itself, without the statutory language, was ambiguous.
Clearly, subsection a which makes it a criminal offense to employ an illegal alien can’t be undone by a Justice Dept. memorandum. I apologize if I’m sounding patronizing but I think you are simply being difficult.
Whooooa.
“Well, you are just wrong. Read the two statutory provisions. They are written in English.” Um, like …yeah.
“Now you feel this inaccurate, and I can respect that, particularly since you seem to understand the law better than I do. But it raises the question: what do you make of the MOU then? (I note that it too is English.) Is it simply a joint hallucination shared by me and you? Is it a mistake? Is it lying to the Mexican government? What purpose can this official pronouncement possibly serve if it means something different than what it states repeatedly?”
Lordy. Jack, who seems to understand the law better than you do, Mike, in fact does understand the law better than you do. He began practicing law in the late 1960s after graduating from U. Chicago law school. And although he’s retired these days, he still remembers the basics.
Like that legal agreements, including international agreements—y’know, treaties and lesser agreements drafted with major input by a U.S. cabinet department—State, Justice, Commerce, for example—do what most comprehensive statutes and contracts do: they begin with a list of definitions of key terms used in the treaty, accord, memorandum of understanding, statute, administrative agency regulation, or contract.
I’m going to take a wild guess here that the MOU begins with a list of definitions of key terms in the agreement, and that the term “immigrant status” is defined as pertaining to, and only to, legal immigrant status. I could be wrong, of course; maybe instead it defines “immigrant status” as “legal or undocumented immigrant status”.
In which case it would be in direct conflict with 8 USC Sec. 1324, and would have no legal effect, since federal statute can’t be superseded by an international agreement unless the international agreement itself is ratified by Congress.
This post reminds me of a controversy circa 2010 or 2011, during the heated debate about the extent to which the federal government should force banks to agree to largescale refinancing of real estate-bubble mortgages, in which Michael Kinsley, who is not an economist, wrote an op-ed piece contradicting Keynesian economists’ recommendations of largescale, federally mandated refinancing. Kinsley said he thought it was morally imperative to hold all those subprime mortgagees accountable, and prefaced his recommendation with an admission that he’s not an expert on the economic effects of one policy versus the other.
Krugman, DeLong and several other high-profile economists reacted with merciless deconstruction of Kinsley’s recommendation—and even more so, of Kinsley himself. I remember DeLong quoting Kinsley’s acknowledgement of a lack of expertise, and saying that that should have warned him that he should just lift his hands from the keyboard and walk away. Krugman just skewered him for not realizing that the economic effects of the competing policies had been studied under standard economics models for many years by a few economists whose profession it was to do that.
But at least Kinsley didn’t misrepresent facts; he was just offering his opinion and stating the basis for it. Here, Mike is making a critical misstatement of fact because he lacks the basic technical knowledge necessary to understand what the announcement actually was saying. The chance that the MOU was written without incorporating 8 USC Sec. 1324 is, I’ll just say, not high.
This is no trivial matter. It probably will be picked up by rightwing Facebook newsfeeds and become part of what every good wingnut knows to be true but the mainstream media isn’t reporting. It’s serious business.
Very.
I actually read the whole MOU (here: https://www.justice.gov/opa/file/889381/download)
On the first page, it says this:
“The objective of this Memorandum of Understanding (“MOU”) is to recognize the collaborative relationship between the Participants to protect Mexican workers in the United States of America from employment discrimination in hiring, firing and recruiting or referring for a fee, based on their citizenship, immigration status, and national origin; unfair documentary practices; and retaliation. ”
So the language keeps getting repeated. It also references code that itself references “unauthorized aliens.” So I followed the code and found this:
“(3) Definition of unauthorized alien
As used in this section, the term “unauthorized alien” means, with respect to the employment of an alien at a particular time, that the alien is not at that time either (A) an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence, or (B) authorized to be so employed by this chapter or by the Attorney General.”
So essentially, if the administration (in particular, the Attorney General decides someone is authorized to be employed), the administration could decide that’s good enough. Sound insane? Sure, but its not like the administration hasn’t already done exactly that already: http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/234635-100k-undocumented-immigrants-granted-extended-work-permits-before-federal
Again, I’m no attorney, but I am required to follow laws (Mr. Kinsley is not and has not ever been required to follow economic logic), so I try to understand them. Here’s my understanding of what the administration is saying: if the AG grants illegal aliens the right to work here, then by 8 U.S. Code § 1324a – Unlawful employment of aliens (h) (3) (B), that is enough for them to work here. The MOU is simply the first step in checking whether there’s going to be any pushback.
Although I am a licensed attorney, I have no particular expertise in immigration law. There are attorneys who concentrate their practices in this area and they will tell you, I’m sure, that it is a complex area. Your comments are getting us into the weeds of that area.
To the best of my knowledge there is no blanket authorization for the Attorney General to designate anyone as an authorized alien (permitted to work in the U.S.). There are provisions allowing for temporary waivers of visa restrictions for certain aliens, usually limited to 90 days under various circumstances by joint action of the AG and the Dept. of State. If we have a reader with expertise in this area, perhaps they could elaborate on this. Among the categories are persons here on student visas or for limited work assignments.
As you probably recall, a recent Supreme Court case was involved with the legitimacy or lack of it of an executive order allowing work status to undocumented aliens who are not under criminal charges. The court split evenly, leaving in place a court of appeals decision denying the authority of the executive to issue and implement that order.
Thus I would conclude that the definition you cite refers to aliens granted legitimate waivers as opposed to any alien at all.
Be that as it may, I confess my inability to conduct an in-depth seminar on the topic.
Immigration status and authorization to work are separate things.
Race bating may simply be another distraction from real issues in this presidential election.
In the real world a company in Boston, Ma. was closed for hiring undocumented workers in the last few years.
I just clicked the two links you provided, Mike—the one to the full MOU and the link to the Mar. 4, 2015 The Hill article. The first two paragraphs of the MOU read:
“The U.S. Department of Justice, through its Civil Rights Division, Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices (“OSC”) and the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of the United Mexican States (“Ministry”), through its Embassy and Consulates in the United States of America, hereinafter referred to as “the Participants”;
“RECOGNIZING that OSC enforces the anti-discrimination provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), 8 U.S.C. § 1324b, which prohibits (1) citizenship, immigration status, and national origin discrimination in hiring, firing, and recruitment or referral of workers for a fee; (2) unfair documentary practices during the process of verifying workers’ employment eligibility; and (3) retaliation for asserting rights under the statute that OSC enforces;”
I’m sort of at a loss to understand why you would think that 8 U.S.C. § 1324b negates or supersedes 8 U.S.C. § 1324a, yet that is the entire premise of your claim. As Jack said, 8 U.S.C. § 1324a (which has six subsections, each with at least two subparts) makes it illegal to employ an unauthorized alien. Subsection (a)(1)(b) begins:
“(b)EMPLOYMENT VERIFICATION SYSTEM The requirements referred to in paragraphs (1)(B) and (3) of subsection (a) are, in the case of a person or other entity hiring, recruiting, or referring an individual for employment in the United States, the requirements specified in the following three paragraphs:”
Yet you’re saying that this doesn’t incorporate within the meaning of the terms it uses, including “immigration status,” the specifics of 8 U.S.C. § 1324a and instead negates it: 8 U.S.C. § 1324b
“RECOGNIZING that OSC enforces the anti-discrimination provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), 8 U.S.C. § 1324b, which prohibits (1) citizenship, immigration status, and national origin discrimination in hiring, firing, and recruitment or referral of workers for a fee; (2) unfair documentary practices during the process of verifying workers’ employment eligibility; and (3) retaliation for asserting rights under the statute that OSC enforces;”
Really?
As for the Mar. 4, 2015 The Hill article, the headline misstates the article’s content, the key paragraph which states:
“But Homeland Security officials pushed back [at Republican criticism] and said that the agency’s announced its intent with a November memo authored by DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson. That memo directs the department to extend work permits for renewals to three years by Nov. 24.”
DHS, in other words, did not spontaneously issue work permits to people who snuck over the border; it extended already-existing work permits that were about to expire or maybe that already had expired—undoubtedly acting at the behest of the businesses and industries that were employing them, and also apparently something that under another statute, one pertaining to DHS, that agency has the authority to do.
As Jack says, the intricacies and nuances of immigration law aren’t for the faint of heart. Nor for the non-expert.
Which I, like Jack, am not. An expert in immigration law, that is. Not by any stretch.
But both Jack and I are expert in knowing how to read, follow and interpret statutes and administrative agency regulations.
You really, really should be careful about making claims about something that references a part of a statute, Mike, without reading the related parts of the statute.
All this to me presents itself as a precursor to the possibility that HCR should be elected it would become a first stepping stone to a national amnesty. I would say that you all are very observant in seeing this and pointing it out because if HRC is elected the wall will not get built.The continued policy of flooding our economy with cheap unauthorized labor will continue just like you pointed out with the farm workers whose wages got unfairly suppressed through government “no enforcement” policy to appease the oligarchs greed for easy profit. Trump is in the same position right now as Chaves when they attempted to boycott grapes but not if he gets elected.
All this talk of walls is a little disingenuous. There already is a wall , what is trump going to do build one on top of it? Is Clinton going to tear it down? Bill Clinton laid the foundation for it , Bush 2 continued from there and I’m pretty sure work is proceeding now under Obama.
Nothing personally Ryan, but Amnesty is not happening. Businesses(“Clients) want their illegals to be illegal. Pure and simple. The so called “flooding” has already occurred, since the 1800’s. Your post misses that actual immigration has slowed sig. and now is in contraction. The biggest border issue is with the pacific and asians, but you don’t bother to look.
Why even bother making such a poor post?
If the trumpenproletariat really cared about stopping undocumented immigration, they’d insist on arresting and jailing all employers who used undocumented labor. Also, they’d insist that all the hotels they stay in, all the restaurants they eat at, all the produce they purchase and all the golf courses they play at be certified free of undocumented immigrant labor.
Until that happens, they are unserious.
I should say, also, that when I commented last night and said there likely was a list of definitions at the beginning of the MOU, I hadn’t read the MOU. Now that I have read it, I see that by referencing 8 U.S.C. § 1324b it is adopting the definitions at the beginning of 8 U.S.C. § 1301, et seq., which 8 U.S.C. § 1324a and b are a part of.
So, “immigrant” is defined in the MOU as it is defined in 8 U.S.C. § 1301, et seq. Which, I’m guessing, defines “immigrant” as someone who entered the country lawfully.
I read from time to time that the Obamna administration has been very aggressive in enforcing the law and deporting those who arrive here illegally, and also that there has been net out-migration since the start of the Great Recession. In other words, this isn’t the 1980s. So where’s the beef?
Labor has come to terms to some extent with the situation, and the current administration proposal probably has AFL-CIO and SEIU blessing. Here is a description of what has een going on:
“But the first decade of the 21st century saw a shift gradually take place: by 2009, the AFL-CIO and the SEIU agreed on a set of principles for comprehensive immigration reform. In the 2010s, the AFL-CIO and other major unions have strengthened their commitments to organizing immigrant workers, including the undocumented, and advocating for immigration reform. There is an increasing understanding in the labor movement that, because undocumented immigrant workers are often vulnerable to illegal, exploitative conditions imposed by employers, organizing them while fixing our broken immigration system will benefit all workers by raising the “floor” of labor standards. It is no coincidence that this shift toward solidarity with undocumented workers has taken place during the same period that workers centers have proliferated in the US, and that a low-wage worker movement has emerged at the same time. When employers pay sub-legal wages to undocumented immigrants (or to anyone else for that matter), it doesn’t just hurt the employees—it also hurts the public (since states get less tax revenue), other businesses that that are abiding by the law (through unfair competition), other workers (as industry-wide standards are lowered), and the entire economy— because higher pay in workers’ pockets means greater consumer spending.”
Well, at least one thing can be said for this thread.
Did not take long for an inaccurate reading to be used as a shot at Clinton.
It is simply unbelievable how that works.
Shot at clinton?
Maybe you should “correct the record”
Bronco,
See W Ryan’s post.
There is no story here, just people that for some strange reason had a problem with reading and jumped to the totally incorrect conclusions.
Bert it is a fact that the 11 to 20M illegals who came into this country illegally were mostly Mexican and came in under the watch of Clinton, Bush, Obama-Clinton administration again, I would also like to post a fact that it was the Clintons who enacted the 6M jobs lost in manufacturing with NAFTA and the $2T loss we took in the 2008 bail outs was under Obama-Clinton policy. They should had let all those banks fail but the auto bail out was deserved in my opinion after the rug was pulled out from under them. Today we have Obama-Clinton trade deficit with S.Korea doubling from $12B to $24B in the last year alone. Or perhaps you are happy with all agricultural exports dropping from $24B to $12B in the last year. Or better yet Perhaps you must be happy with the Clinton’s repealing the Glass-Stiegel Act as the pay to play big banks get their way with our tax money and economy. For more on this go see today’s WallStreetonParade.com
WR,
You should try not to talk.
Just a quick note. The bank bailout was a done deal before Obama took office. I know of no rational reason why you should not know that.
E Michael lets get the facts straight. It cannot be Obama and Clinton’s presidential ignorance while 63.1% of derivatives are still traded in the dark shadow banks today. That brings the total for the Big 6 and their shadow banks holdings in derivatives to about $231T in notational value. Reinstating the Glass-Steagall would Not allow this to happen but Clintons repealing of it surely did. I know you and the big 6 banks would like nobody to know or talk about Clinton corruption so I’ll keep my voice down a bit for you..
Ryan:
Clinton did not repeal it, Congress did.
WR,
So you are telling me that your defense that Obama saved the banks is predicated on the shadow banking system of today and their activities?
You want to ignore the $20 Trillion of loans and guarantees(Dean Baker’s number) given to the banks before Obama took office?
You are not only misinformed, you are more than a little stupid.
BTW,
Are you aware of Clinton’s position on the shadow banking system?
I think
this is what the Supreme Court split on mentioned by Beverly and JackD:
But I would note a difference between the language in the MOU referenced in this post, and another news release from Justice less than a week earlier which can be seen here:
Notice that in a case where immigrants have the legal right to be in and work in the US, the language used is “work-authorized immigrants.” That very clearly is not the language in the MOU quoted in the post.
Yup. The fact that in a news release directed to employers—as opposed to, say, an actual agreement between the DoJ’s Civil Rights Division and the Mexican government’s counterpart agency—that introduces a video whose purpose is to provide employers with a clear reminder and practical guidance to ensure that they comply with federal law when verifying the employment eligibility of Salvadoran workers with Temporary Protected Status uses the lay phrasing ““work-authorized immigrants” rather than the legal reference “8 USC Sec. 1324b”, which because it immediately follows 8 USC Sec. 1324a in the statute and is part of 8 USC Sec. 1301, et seq. actually incorporates 8 USC Sec. 1324a and the definition of “immigrant” that applies to the entire statute including 8 USC Sec. 1324b, definitely indicates that the MOU does not limit itself to work-authorized immigrants.
Good detective work, Mike!
Look, I get that you don’t understand or don’t believe that 8 USC Sec. 1324b, by dint of the fact that it is part of 8 USC Sec. 1324 and part of 8 USC Sec. 1301, et seq., is limited to work-authorized immigrants. But the fact is that it is.
And your repeated insistence that the MOU does something unauthorized by statute is dangerous and unseemly, in my opinion. You’re peddling a clear misrepresentation of significant fact.
Alleging Chavez or the Union being opposed to illegal immigration is a bit too much. There’s more than ample documented evidence that the union and Chavez were not opposed in fact, if you read any history of Chavez and the Union — apparently you’re taking your statement that he was opposed to illegal immigration from his opposition to the Bracero Program — a program which was US federal LEGAL immigration.
I have lived and worked in San Jose since 1964 (Chavez’s home and family eventually settled here sometime after he mairried). I was a college student beginning in 1964 so was pretty highly tuned to what was going on with Labor (as well as VN War_ — my uncle was a major labor leader in the Bay Area and influenced Labor in the entire western US. I lived at my Uncle’s in Alameda off and on throughout my college lifetime during vacations and breaks and queried him and discussed Labor Unions for years.
The fact is that Chavez:
1. Opposed the Bracero Program which was shut down in 1964.
2. Opposed the 1973 law which would make it illegal for employers to hire undocumented workers.
3. The UFW was a major and significant supporter for Amnesty in the 1986 Immigration law.
4. The UFW was a tireless advocate for giving undocumented farm workers the right to earn citizenship or failing that the right to permanent residence status.
The propaganda, then of course, as apparently also now, that opposed Unions and especially the UFW in California, tried to conflate Chavez’s opposition to undocumented workers being used as strike breakers (by the growers) with his being opposed to immigration or undocumented immigrants.
http://www.ufw.org/_page.php?menu=creating&inc=legislation/agjobs/debunk.htm
If you lived and grew up mostly in CA and/or in the central valley for very long you know that the legal Mexican and undocumented farm workers were highly exploited by the growers. If you lived and grew up in this region you know that no US citizen Mexican farm worker would have ever, ever been opposed the fellow Mexican undocumented workers. What Chavez tried to do was get them to join the UFW and/or NOT act as strike breakers to elevate the pay and benefits and working conditions of ALL farm workers… whether Mexican or Filipino or whatever their country of origin. You may not know or recall that the UFW was a tiny proportion of farm workers for a very long time & the only farm workers union. The growers fought them of course at every turn — legislatively and economically.
What you heard in his 1989 speech was his castigation of the Armenian growers in CA…. who themselves were immigrants long before but who came with family money and settled first in the Fresno area and bought small farms there…. then as an Armenian “group” began to compete with lower prices (and profits) to take over the other existing “white” owned larger farms. The Armenian growers were known to the most competitive and hired and exploited the undocumented “wet-backs” at rock bottom prices and took lower profits on their produce and whose large Armenian families and relatives also worked the fields during harvests.
The Armenian growers were, by 1989, some of the major growers and farm worker employers in the Fresno Tulare, County area’s.
Of course Chavez/ UFW and Armenian growers who were on opposite sides of the employer /union divide. Duh! It had nothing to do with racism, ethnicity, or immigration at all.
Oh, and Deukmejian was a New Yorker, born (1926?) and bred transplant to California and was strongly opposed to Unions as are most all Republicans, especially in CA. All unions opposed Deukmejian.
It is not only highly unlikely but preposterous to think Chavez would not have been vehemently opposed to “the wall”.
Typo:
2. Opposed the 1973 law which would make it legal for employers to hire undocumented workers.
should read
2. Opposed the 1973 law which would make it illegal for employers to hire undocumented workers.
I just corrected it in your comment.
One final thing …. you think for a moment that the majority of UFW farm worker members were citizens of the US? Get a grip.
Mike,
You oughta give it up.
Longtooth,
Re-read the last paragraph of the part of the post that came from comments to an earlier post. At no point do I state Chavez’ supporters were here legally, because it was evident that many of them weren’t. And there was no contradiction to favoring both an amnesty and tougher immigration restrictions. To quote that piece of the post again, which I phrased very deliberately,
Tighter border restrictions and amnesty for those who “put roots” (I think that Reagan’s phrase) in the country are both policies that benefit Chavez’ union members.
Beverly,
Arguing that the Justice Dep’t is haphazard about the way it uses language, particularly on an issue in which it behaves controversially, is a very odd stance for an attorney to take. I’ve done enough litigation consulting and have otherwise have enough interaction with attorneys to know that lawyers are extremely deliberate about the language they use, and that even a mis-placed comma can have large effects in the real world.
Not to be too cute about this, but while I suppose that arguing that the Justice Dep’t is haphazard about the way it uses language, particularly on an issue in which it behaves controversially, would be a very odd stance for an attorney to take, I have no idea what language by the Justice Dept. you think I’m claiming is haphazard.
Suffice it to say that expressly incorporating a statute into a MOU is, well, expressly incorporating a statute into a MOU; i.e., it is the opposite of haphazard language. You may think that since the MOU didn’t excerpt the entire 8 USC Sec. 1324, or I guess given your insistence that that would be insufficient because 8 USC Sec. 1324 doesn’t include the list of definitions that applies to it, the entire 8 USC Sec. 1301, et seq. would have to be included in the MOU. Just the part that lists the definitions might suffice, I guess, but the Justice Dept. should have erred on the side of unhaphardness, so the entire Chapter 8, U.S.C. Sec. 1301, et seq. should have been included.
Or maybe the Justice Dept. should have attached, say, a Supreme Court opinion or a law review article or a commonly used law school casebook on standard statutory interpretation that explains that the subsection a and subsection b of a statute operate in concert, and that the definitions section at the beginning of a statute or Chapter sequence (here Chapter 8 U.S.C. section 1301, et seq.) apply to every single one of the sections and subsections in the statutory sequence that the definitions section says it applies to.
Then again, maybe the Justice Dept.’s Civil Rights Division sorta figured that the Mexican agency it was entering into the MOU with is unlikely to haul the Justice Dept. into federal court on a claim for breach of the MOU for failing to 8 USC Sec. 1324(a) in carrying out the agreement, since the MOU referenced 8 USC Sec. 1324(b), THE SPECIFIC PART OF 8 USC Sec. 1301, et seq. ON WHICH THE MOU WAS BASED but did not say that the MOU would be in compliance with the entire 8 USC Sec. 1324 and, hell, also in compliance with the entire 8 USC Sec. 1301, et seq.
Seriously, Mike, once JackD informed you of what 8 USC Sec. 1324(a) provides and explained that 8 USC Sec. 1324(b) necessarily and automatically incorporates 8 USC Sec. 1324(a) into it, and that the Justice Dept. was neither claiming the authority to ignore 8 USC Sec. 1324(a) nor trying to do so, and that anyone with any actual knowledge of basic precepts of U.S. law—surely including the Mexican lawyers with whom the MOU was negotiated—knows this, you should have done what Brad DeLLong suggested back in 2010 or whenever that Michael Kinsley should have done: lifted your hands from the keyboard and walked away.
Your claim that something I said constituted an argument that the MOU was haphazardly drafted is just bizarre. So I’ll repeat what I said earlier: I get that you don’t understand or don’t believe that 8 USC Sec. 1324b, by dint of the fact that it is part of 8 USC Sec. 1324 and part of 8 USC Sec. 1301, et seq., is limited to work-authorized immigrants. But the fact is that it is.
I am sort of curious, though. Do the litigation lawyers you’ve done economics consulting for and have otherwise interacted with not know that the express incorporation of a statutory subsection necessarily—that is, as a matter of law—incorporates other laws, most certainly other subsections of the statute that the expressly-referenced statutory subsection is part of, that by law are inherently relevant to interpreting the contract, the treaty, the … whatever? They aren’t aware that the Supreme Court and the lower federal courts do this as a matter of course?
Your argument—the post itself and the doubling down on it in your comments—ranks high on the list of dumbest claims and arguments I’ve heard in a while. I mean … like … WOW.
When you channel Scalia (‘Interpretative jiggery-pokery’), you should really check your work.
EMichael,
Scalia? I have been in the business world for a couple decades, and one thing is clear about attorneys: when perfectly good boilerplate changes, you fail to ask why at your own peril.
Excuse me. But after participating in this long comments thread, are you really still unaware that the very issue is whether the MOU changed boilerplate ANYTHING? Boilerplate WHAT? It sure as hell didn’t change boilerplate LAW, nor as a MATTER OF LAW could it have.
As I just said at the end of my long response to your comment directly to me: I mean … like … WOW.
You need to do us all here at AB, including Dan, a favor, and stop making what is clearly an outright-false representation about the intended purpose and effect of a memorandum of understanding between the Justice Dept. and the Mexican government.
This is alt-right stuff. We’re not an alt-right blog, and we normally try to get our factual representations correct. And we post corrections to our posts when we learn that something we said is incorrect.
You’re making—repeatedly making—false statements of fact by making erroneous claims about the meaning, intent and effects of something that you have neither the expertise nor, it appears by now, the ability to understand. You should stop reasserting this false claim of fact, Mike.
I didn’t read through all of this in detail but from what I saw its seems that Mike might have trapped himself in a verbalism.
For example what if someone who is “unauthorized” to be in this country actually has NO “immigration status” as defined. That is what if the latter term had no zero stage. In that case most of Mike’s claims seem to dissolve as does the contradiction between law and MOU.
I don’t claim this is definitive, I am not any kind of attorney nor is immigration policy even my hobby. But I do have a lot of background in textual analysis and questions about intentionality and meaning in language in linguistics and it is astonishing how often this kind of disagreements are just the product of folks talking past each other from different frames. And where the resolution ends up somewhere near “Well if you put it THAT WAY”.
Well, yes. Exactly. That’s what 8 USC Sec. 1324(a) establishes, as, almost certainly, does the definition of “immigrant” in the definitions section of 8 USC Sec. 1301, et seq.
But Mike doesn’t get this. He rejects that statutory subsections may depend for their context, and therefore their meaning, on other statutory subsections and that anyone who knows a whit about statutory construction knows this, and anyone who knows anything about the particular statute at issue knows which subsections interact with which other subsections. And that the “definitions” section–which all lengthy, complex statutory schemes have–interacts with every subsection in the statutory scheme in which a term that is defined in the definitions section is used.
Instead, he keeps insisting that either the MOU’s reference only to a single statutory subsection means that the subsection is intended to be read and understood in a vacuum, or that the failure to delineate what is inherently the mechanism of statutory use and interpretation, rather than just engaging in it in an agreement in principle between two parties who clearly know this, indicates either incompetence or a decision by the Justice Dept. to treat the subsection as existing outside the statute in which it does exist.
It’s absurd. Yet he keeps saying this.
You really need to concentrate on the effect of memo of understanding boilerplate changes on immigration law.
There is none.
This is just silly.
He seems to have some particular instance in mind that he thinks is analogous, in which some seemingly minor change to the “boilerplate” became the norm–and can’t be disabused of his conviction that that situation is analogous to this one. I’m guessing that he has in mind some contract in which the boilerplate language was changed. But codified law–statutory law–can be changed only by amendment of the codification, the actual enacted law. He doesn’t understand this, and no amount of repetition of this actual basic premise of American law will make any difference.
So … whatever.
EMichael talk about stupid. You are totally stuck in the matrix box of rocks. Everybody knows that Clinton had to sign the bill for it to become law. Duh? Everybody knows that HRC has taken plenty of pay to play money from the big 6 to do noting. To make no changes to the predatory banking system. Duh? Everybody knows all the phony e-mail scams to hide conflicts of interest compromised our national security and cost needless loss of life in Benghazi. Everybody knows the national deficit has doubles from $10T to $20T under the Obama-Clinton watch. Everybody knows that a bigger more socialistic government with more taxes and entitlements will not lift our depressed economy or create any new jobs. What planet are you on? It sure is not earth with all your false-phony economic gibberish propaganda thing.
Wr,
Everyone does not know what you know.
We are all happy about that.
I would make a lousy attorney because I simply don’t do the whole argument from authority thing. But what the hey, let me try, since I see some people trying to explain my confusion and getting it wrong. Speaking as the greatest living authority on my own confusion, here is my problem:
1. If I understand correctly, Beverly M et. al. tell me I shouldn’t worry my pretty little head about whether illegal aliens can be employed – after all, it is illegal
2. As per this example the administration acted to ” defer deportations for immigrants living in the U.S. illegally and provide them with expanded access to work permits.” That sounds an awful lot like the administration concluded that they could provide illegal aliens with, well, “expanded access to work permits.” At least that’s how I read it, but then I’m not an attorney. (To me this reads like: “you are not allowed on my property, but if you happen to be in my kitchen, help yourself to a sammich from the fridge.”)
3. If 1 and 2, either the administration (and the Justice Dep’t in particular) doesn’t understand the law, or they get it and think it doesn’t apply. I provided one reason they might think it doesn’t apply above.
Now, maybe I’m missing something. Perhaps I am being too literal. But no, I don’t get it.
Hmm. I think you’ve just changed the subject–which I’m pretty sure was the MOU that addressed employment discrimination, not the legality of the administration’s decision to defer deportations and expand access to work permits for people who are here illegally. The latter, as Jack just pointed out, was the subject of the Supreme Court case. But it has nothing to do with the MOU.
E. Michael; maybe William was making a joke.
Mike, that’s what the Supreme Court case was about.
Jack,
I get that. But that doesn’t change a key fact – the administration believed/believes that the law as written allows it to engage in certain activities it wants to pursue.
Comments upthread have insisted that the administration cannot simply make illegal aliens eligible to work because of how the law is written, and not because of how the Court decision went. That is – they have a different view of the law than the administration does. So I’m not persuaded by the arguments upthread precisely because it is apparent that the administration isn’t either. (Whether the administration is right or wrong is a different issue.) This is an important issue to Obama, and he is looking for a way to acheive a specific result. (He’s stated several times that its the right thing to do.)
The analogy I provided upthread was the issue of transgender bathroom usage. What has driven events, there, is not my interpretation of the law, or the interpretation of other commenters who are smarter and know more about the law than I, but rather the administration’s interpretation of the law.
Beverly,
The MOU has everything to do with the administration’s understanding of the law and its goals. If it didn’t want to achieve an outcome, or didn’t believe it was legal, it would never describe the outcome in an MOU.
It described an outcome, Mike. Just not the outcome you’ve claimed now roughly 285 times.
Not sure why you don’t understand, or don’t believe, that entering into an agreement to try to end employment discrimination against people who have legal work permits is a different outcome than trying to make legal work permits available to a category of people who do not have legal work permits and therefore would, by dint of the statute, not be among those whom the agreement—the MOU—by its own terms and applicable statute, does not protect.
You’re wedded to an incorrect premise about what the MOU provides. You’ve said this again and again and again and again. It’s still flatly incorrect. Again and again and again—and here again—you conflate the actual content of the MOU with separate—and, truly, it is separate—Obama administration action that was at issue in the Supreme Court case.
One more time, and then no more: The MOU addresses people who already have legal work permits. The Obama administration action, which the Supreme Court case addressed, dealt with—and only with—people who do not have legal work permits.
You think these are the same thing. They are not the same thing. They are distinct things, as anyone here trying to work or keep a job who does not have a legal work permit could tell you.
Not the legal, or English-language, equivalent of rocket science, Mike. I’ll end my participation in this thread with that.
Mike,
Interpretation of laws and the back and forth and around and around of executive, legislative, and judicial branches ’twas ever thus. The administration clearly did try to assert its authority to grant work permits to a category of unauthorized alien. The court stopped it. To argue that the memorandum of understanding in question will ignore the court decision and the clear provisions of the statute we have already discussed is inappropriate, in my view, unless and until the administration actually tries to do that by, for example, prosecuting some employer for refusing to hire an unauthorized alien. In my opinion, that ain’t gonna happen.
What I think will happen is that the federal government through its various agencies will not deport or prosecute unauthorized aliens who are not accused of a felony. They will assert, as they have, prosecutorial discretion and that could only be attacked by an effort to impeach the relevant officials or the president. Again, in my opinion, that ain’t gonna happen.
Further, as I indicated earlier, there are categories of unauthorized aliens who can under the relevant statutes, have their visa limitations waived under certain circumstances and the MOU could well refer to that.
I should have added that the bathroom “privileges” of transgender individuals under current federal statutes is currently the subject of extensive litigation in the courts and the correctness of the administration’s view has not yet been decisivley determined. Should the administration prevail, the congress can amend the statute in question if it wishes. Your government at work!
JackD,
Thank you. That seems reasonable.
“You can lead a horse to water, but a pencil must be lead.”
Groucho Marx
Emichael I have never heard a person talk so much and say so little. So just a quick note for you to become more enlightened of the facts I found the true story about who really did the bail outs in 07 to 09. They were called “back door bail outs” to mostly the Big 6 and involved about $6T and were about 20 times larger than the TARP bail outs. You can go see the true story if you like at WallstreetonParade.com on 4-4-15 but I doubt that you will.