Immigration fight moves to the workplace
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Unions rallied around the country on Monday to protest the increasingly aggressive immigration enforcement actions by the Trump administration.
Why it matters: The White House has taken its immigration efforts inside the American workplace, conducting raids at worksites in Los Angeles on Friday and elsewhere, and unions have been a key player in pushing back.
The big picture: Immigrants, documented or not, are a crucial part of the resurgent labor movement — especially at the SEIU, which organized the protests — and represent a growing share of the working class.
- "The growth of unions for the past 10 to 15 years has been hugely driven by immigrant workers," says Paul Ortiz, a professor of labor history at Cornell University and a former AFL-CIO official.
Catch up quick: David Huerta, president of Service Employees International Union-United Service Workers West, was arrested on Friday at a worksite immigration raid, where he was serving as a community observer.
- Huerta, who got his start in the labor movement organizing janitors, was criminally charged with "conspiracy to impede an officer," per NBC News. He was released from custody later on Monday.
- SEIU organized rallies in at least 19 cities across the country in support, including in New York, Chicago and Washington. Other major unions issued statements of support, including the UAW and AFL-CIO.
Flashback: Up until the turn of the 21st century, organized labor supported crackdowns on undocumented workers, believing those workers dragged down wages.
- That started to change in the late 1990s and was fully catalyzed when the AFL-CIO changed its position in 2000 to full support of immigration and called for amnesty for undocumented workers.
Between the lines: Workplace raids will likely force more unions to take sides for or against the White House, says John Logan, a professor of labor studies at San Francisco State University.
- "You can't deport huge numbers of people without widespread workplace enforcement," Logan says. "It's highly likely this will be the focus of the administration's efforts, which will draw union leaders into this conflict."
- Four SEIU members or leaders have now been detained by immigration officials in the U.S. Those immigrants all were here legally, per reports.
Zoom in: Unions don't like workplace raids, in part because they create an environment of fear, which isn't good for organizing or workplace activism.
- "If half the workforce is scared of being rounded up and sent out of the country, they're going to be quiet," according to Nelson Lichtenstein, a labor professor and historian at University of California Santa Barbara. "It's much more pervasive than just those who don't have documents."
The other side: "I don't care who you are — if you impede federal agents, you will be arrested and prosecuted," U.S. attorney Bill Essayli said in a statement on Friday about Huerta's arrest.
- The White House on Monday touted its efforts to arrest "sick criminals" in Los Angeles.
