A complete explanation of the framework and rationale for each part of the test is fully laid out in  “Principles for an Immigration Policy to Strengthen and Expand the American Middle Class” available at http://www.drummajorinstitute.org. 

Description

The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act, the Senate’s “compromise” immigration bill, includes increased border and internal immigration enforcement, new penalties for document fraud and for unlawfully employing of an undocumented immigrant, mandated employer use of an electronic system to verify all employees’ work authorization, a new temporary worker program, and a system of earned legalization open to undocumented immigrants who have been living in the U.S. for a certain period of time. The  bill would also reduce the backlog for permanent family visas.

The temporary worker program would create a new category of H-2C visas, with 200,000 available each year for jobs paying the U.S. prevailing wage for a given occupation. Employers would first be required to advertise these positions to U.S. workers. The visas would be available to workers outside the United States who pay a fee, undergo health and background checks, and have a job offer. These temporary workers could bring their families to the U.S. and work for a total of six years. After four years they could apply for a green card. The temporary worker program would not be permitted to operate in areas with an unemployment rate of greater than nine percent.

The separate earned legalization program for current undocumented immigrants would provide a path to permanent resident status and eventually citizenship for those who can prove they were in the U.S. prior to April 2001, have resided in the U.S. continuously for five years, worked for three years before April 2006 and six years after the legislation is enacted, demonstrate English and civics proficiency, and pay back taxes and a fine. Undocumented immigrants working in the U.S. for less than five years but more than two would be eligible for Deferred Mandatory Departure which, after a medical and background check, would allow them to legally remain in the country for three years. If they are not able to regularize their status in that period, they would be required to leave the country immediately. Undocumented immigrants present in the country for less than two years would continue to be subject to immediate deportation.

The bill includes separate legalization procedures for undocumented minors who have lived in the U.S. for five years and special temporary visas for agricultural workers already working in the U.S.

Middle-Class Test Part One:

IMMIGRATION POLICY SHOULD BOLSTER - NOT UNDERMINE - THE CRITICAL CONTRIBUTION THAT IMMIGRANTS MAKE TO OUR ECONOMY AS WORKERS, ENTREPRENEURS, TAXPAYERS, AND CONSUMERS. 

Grade: B

The American middle class relies on the economic contributions of immigrants. The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act would allow many immigrants currently playing a role in the U.S. economy to continue their participation and deepen economic ties through permanent residency and, ultimately, citizenship. However, the restrictions based on length of residency and employment could bar as many as 9 million of the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants current living in the U.S. from attaining permanent legal status. The three-year grace period granted to undocumented immigrants who have been in the country for 2-5 years does not include any route for establishing permanent residency, meaning the legislation provides no opportunity for these immigrants, or those who have been in the U.S. for less than two years and are subject  to immediate deportation, to continue their contributions to the economy and to middle-class well-being. While problematic from a workers’ rights perspective (see below), the temporary worker program is more promising from the point of view of economic involvement, providing people living abroad with an opportunity to fill labor needs in the U.S. and work legally for six years, with a further option to apply for permanent residence and deepened economic contributions.  

Middle-Class Test Part Two:

IMMIGRATION POLICY MUST STRENGTHEN THE RIGHTS OF IMMIGRANTS IN THE WORKPLACE.

Grade: C-

When immigrants lack rights in the workplace, labor standards are driven down and all working people have less opportunity to enter or remain part of the middle class. While this bill has some protections for the workplace rights of immigrants, it falls short on two major fronts: first, the  temporary worker program is inherently problematic, and second, creating different standards for different groups of undocumented immigrants, without a continuing path towards legal status ensures the persistence and growth of a population of undocumented immigrant workers whose vulnerability to labor market exploitation would continue to threaten middle-class wages and workplace standards.

The fundamental problem with any temporary worker program is the way it institutionalizes the second-tier status of immigrant workers, providing employers with a constantly renewing labor force that is in many ways at their mercy, and thus will tend to be paid less and work under worse conditions than citizens. The more jobs that can be transformed into “temporary worker jobs,” the fewer domestic jobs will provide the wages and benefits capable of providing a middle-class standard of living. While the bill’s provisions for temporary workers to be hired at the prevailing wage would provide some important protection against this race to the bottom, a constant supply of disempowered temporary workers could still prevent wages in an industry dominated by temporary workers from rising when they otherwise might. 

In addition to the general problem with temporary worker programs, the specific program established by this bill leaves immigrant workers vulnerable to exploitation in additional ways. By mandating that temporary workers who are unemployed for more than 60 days leave the country, the bill puts pressure on workers to remain in jobs with substandard wages and working conditions or rush to accept a new job with poor conditions before the period runs out, out of fear of losing legal status. In addition, stronger mechanisms for enforcing the bill’s labor protections are needed, because the bill’s weak administrative process carried out at the discretion of the already overburdened Department of Labor risks being insufficient to genuinely deter violations.

The combination of a temporary worker program that is not open to undocumented immigrants currently in the U.S. and an earned legalization program that excludes the majority of these immigrants means that a significant undocumented population will remain working in the United States. Despite more intensive enforcement efforts, many immigrants who have been living in the U.S. for four years and remain an additional three years under the mandatory deferred departure program are unlikely to leave after seven years of continuous work and residence in the United States. Instead, they will become undocumented again, pushed back into the shadows and vulnerable to workplace exploitation that threatens to depress wages and working conditions for Americans aspiring to a middle-class standard of living. An immigration policy that truly aims to strengthen and expand the American middle class must deal with all current undocumented workers and provide a means for future undocumented immigrants in the U.S. to regularize their status.