Labor's Ambivalence on Immigration

By Roger Waldinger, New Labor Forum. Posted June 24, 2008.

Immigration is roiling American politics, with ongoing controversy and no clear solution in sight. As all parties concur, the system is broken, frustrating new, would-be, and established Americans, while yielding substantial social costs and tensions from the Mexican to the Canadian borders and just about everywhere in between. Beyond this point of agreement, however, dissonance is all that can be heard. Among the voices is that of American labor. While unions have emerged as foremost advocates of immigrants' rights, they haven't managed to escape immigration's divisive impact. Legalization for undocumented immigrants has widespread support across the labor movement. Far more difficult is the question of just how far to compromise in the quest for that goal, with the Change to Win coalition accepting a guest worker program as the price for legalization and the AFL-CIO unwilling to go so far.

From within the labor movement, these cleavages on how best to deal with the immigration dilemma loom large. They take on less significance in the big picture, however, where labor's overall stance puts it at variance with the majority of the American public-which wants less, rather than more, immigration. The danger is that unions have gone too far ahead of the rank-and- file, providing the right-wing with yet another opportunity to divide the liberal base.

This paper explores this question through a detailed analysis of a 2006 survey of national opinion, conducted by the Pew Research Center, that provides the unusual opportunity to spotlight the opinions of union members. The results signal a warning light, as they show the views of union members turn out to be very different from those advanced by their leaders.

The Immigration Impasse

Immigration policy is now at an impasse, with no prospect of change until a new Congress and new President arrive in Washington in 2009. But it was not too long ago that informed observers saw a likely resolution to America's long, contentious struggle with immigration.

George Bush entered the presidency in 2001 as a seemingly pro-immigrant Republican, precisely the type of politician whose connections to business and sensitivity to Latinos might fuse the wide-ranging coalition needed to broker an immigration deal. What looked possible, even likely, on September 10, 2001, disappeared the next day. The problem didn't go away, of course, but the nation's priorities changed, at least temporarily. Once attention finally returned to immigration, it became clear that the political constellation had fundamentally changed. The president, still a pro-immigrant, pro-business Republican, stood severely weakened. The Republicans' social-conservative base, moreover, was in revolt, clamoring for draconian measures and equally dead-set against the goals of both the pro-immigrant left-legalization of undocumented workers-and pro-immigrant (business-oriented) right- importing guest workers for employment at both high- and low-skilled levels. The pro-immigrant right and left remained hopeful that comprehensive immigration reform, if supported by the president, could combine Democratic backing with sufficient Republican support to make it through Congress. For a moment, in 2006, it appeared that the social conservatives had overplayed their hand, promoting punitive legislation that triggered immigrants' rights marches throughout the country. But the immigrants, if not voiceless, turned out to be voteless, and neither followers nor leaders could figure out what they could effectively do after marching.

The social conservatives, however, knew where next to turn, mobilizing Americans' immigration anxiety, as well as their long-held preference that immigration either be diminished or at least kept at present levels. The immigration reformers tacked right, holding on to a plan for gradual legalization, but one that entailed a heavier emphasis on border enforcement and employer sanctions than many immigrant advocates would have liked. However painful the concessions, they proved fruitless, alienating supporters on the left without winning allies on the right. The president was no longer a player: he could hold the Republicans in line on Iraq, but not on immigration. Reform's other notable Republican champion, Senator John McCain, ran into a buzzsaw, as conservative opposition to immigration almost killed his run for the White House. In the end, comprehensive immigration reform was put to sleep in summer 2007, with little hope that it could be revived until a new administration came into power. And those who banked on a new day for reform were clearly looking at the future through rose-tinted lenses.

With comprehensive immigration reform postponed for the immediate future, now is a good time to think through labor's side of the immigration dilemma. The political fissures generated by immigration take a peculiar form, yielding "strange bedfellow" alliances that threaten to separate labor from its usual allies and are never easy to navigate. As described by political scientist Aristide Zolberg, commitments to expansion or restriction fall out along the two dimensions of identity, on the one hand, and interests, on the other. Identity motivates both nativists and nationalists, with nativists seeking to exclude foreigners, and immigrants and their descendants, whose nationalist affinity with the people that the nativists see as aliens motivates them to keep America a welcoming place for newcomers. By contrast, interests impel employers, on the lookout for foreign labor that is more skilled or more tractable than what can be found locally. The very same factor has historically galvanized workers here at home who have often viewed themselves as competing with newcomers for jobs. Consequently, left and right have often combined, with immigrant advocates allying with capitalists and big-city workers and their unions coalescing with small-town xenophobes.

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Roger Waldinger, Distinguished Professor of Sociology, University of California, Los Angeles. He is the co-author, most recently, of How the Other Half Works: Immigration and the Social Division of Labor, with Michael Lichter (University of California Press, 2003).

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