For quite some time proponents of worker programs that let businesses hire foreign labor to fill out open position in their companies (e.g the agricultural H-2A program) have argued that American workers simply won’t do the often labor-intensive work. And in fact, programs like H-2A require potential employers to advertise the availability of work to American workers before they can hire and bring foreign labor. Well, a new report issued by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) may conflict with that assertion Americans are unwilling to do such laborious work.In 2006 agents for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raided six meatpacking plants owned by Swift & Co in Colorado. The agents found and “rounded up” roughly 1,300 “suspected illegal immigrants.” This number is equal to about 10 percent of the plants’ labor force. As Alan Gomez reports for USA Today, “the raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents did not cripple the company or the plants. In fact, they were back up and running at full staff within months by replacing those removed with a significant number of native-born Americans, according to a report by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS).”
While this example may be considered extreme, it is emblematic of what is happening lately to companies that have been raided for hiring illegal workers. As Vanderbilt University professor of law and political science Carol Swain states in Gomez’s article, the raids lately tend to be “‘very beneficial to American workers. . . Whenever there’s an immigration raid, you find white, black and legal immigrant labor lining up to do those jobs that Americans will supposedly not do.”
Following the Swift plant raids, the workers were replaced “mostly with white Americans and U.S.-born Hispanics, according to CIS.” After an investigation in North Carolina of a House of Raeford Farms plant, the workforce at the plant went from being 80 percent Hispanic to now roughly 70 percent African-American, according to a report by The Charlotte Observer. According to Jill Cashen, spokeswoman for the United Food and Commercial Workers union, “which represents 1.3 million people who work in the food-processing industry. Plants are refilling positions with newly arrived immigrants from places such as Sudan, Somalia and Southeast Asia,” too.
The debate over why American workers and legal foreign workers are taking these jobs is ongoing. Some argue that it is simply the economic reality of the current recession—people are more willing to do work they previously wouldn’t. According to T. Willard Fair, president and CEO of the Urban League of Greater Miami, it has been this recession that has motivated “poor Americans to line up to work in fields and factories.”
Catherine Singley, a policy analyst for the National Council of La Raza has a different theory. In her opinion “the post-raid increases in salaries were also necessary for Americans to accept the harsh, dangerous working environments.” Singley also believes the illegal immigrant labor was not the reason wages in this type of work dropped over the years. Rather, she believes it was the actions of unscrupulous employers who “took advantage of the immigrant population fearful of seeking help from authorities.”
Whatever the reason, it appears to be a trend that following raids of illegal workers at various plants across the country the workers who are hired to replace those arrested are native-born Americans or nationalized Americans. So the question remains, in this or any economic climate is a workforce of imported labor actually necessary. Some farmers who are engaged in the H-2A program would say absolutely, others might question that. At the end of the day the debate over immigration remains a controversial one, and a problem that seems void of a clear, easy solution.
To read the Gomez article click here.
Posted: 09/14/09
