Punishing undocumented immigrants instead of their employers unlikely to be a deterrent, journalism prof writes - Entrepreneur Generations

Federal officials arrested 97 immigrants in rural Bean Station, Tenn., last week in a meatpacking plant raid the National Immigration Law Center said was the largest in a decade. But it's unlikely to be the last such raid because of Americans' desire for inexpensive meat and the government's decision to punish undocumented immigrants instead of their employers, Lynn Waltz writes for The Washington Post. Waltz is a journalism professor at Hampton University.

Labor unions used to ensure workers were well-paid and protected from injury, but in the 1960s meatpackers moved to right-to-work states, erasing those protections. When the North American Free Trade Agreement was enacted in 1993, the Mexican markets were flooded with cheap government-subsidized corn from the U.S.; many Mexican corn farmers lost their livelihood and immigrated illegally to the U.S. Meatpacking plants welcomed them because undocumented immigrants were willing to do more dangerous work for less money.

President George W. Bush vowed to crack down on illegal immigration by catching and deporting workers instead of punishing the businesses that hire them, a strategy also favored by President Trump. But surprise raids provide little deterrent for illegal immigration and hurt communities in a cycle that keeps repeating: "Americans want cheap meat. That requires low wages. So plants hire undocumented workers. ICE raids the plants. Latino families cry. Schoolteachers are put in the untenable position of either supervising children after hours or sending them home, knowing their parents are missing. People are appalled by the human cost, momentarily. Then employers and workers become more sophisticated at evading detection and the cycle begins again," Waltz writes.



from The Rural Blog https://ift.tt/2qtohlp Punishing undocumented immigrants instead of their employers unlikely to be a deterrent, journalism prof writes - Entrepreneur Generations

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