Vol. 76/No. 37      October 15, 2012

Among the measures: jailing record numbers of workers solely for immigration violations—mostly for entering the country illegally—and record-high “removals,” the type of deportation in which those who return risk possible felony charges.

These attacks are taking place even as the number of undocumented immigrants attempting to enter the U.S. has declined due to stepped-up enforcement, high unemployment and obstacles to working as a result of expansion of the government’s E-Verify program, which presses employers to check job applicants’ work authorization online. The Department of Homeland Security doubled the number of cops at the border with Mexico from 2004 to 2010.

The 641,633 apprehensions by immigration cops in 2011 were the lowest since 1972.

But this hasn’t stopped the U.S. government from tightening the screws even more.

The application of increased sanctions for undocumented workers who are caught by immigration cops began in the late 1990s and has skyrocketed under the Obama administration.

For most of the last 40 years less than 10 percent of those picked up by immigration cops were given removal orders. Instead, they were deported under a category known as “voluntary departure,” even though there was nothing voluntary about it. While overall deportations, including “voluntary departures,” are at the lowest level since 1973, more than 50 percent of those deported from the U.S. last year were issued removal orders either by a judge or by immigration agents.

Those deported under a removal order can face misdemeanor or felony charges if they return to the U.S., with sentences ranging from 180 days to 20 years in prison.

In 1992, the Immigration and Naturalization Service turned over 7,122 immigrants for prosecution on immigration violations. By 2010 that figure had jumped more than a hundredfold to 84,606, mostly for “illegal entry” or “illegal reentry.”

Along some border areas that the Department of Homeland Security considers “high-traffic areas” almost 100 percent of those stopped by immigration cops are prosecuted under “Operation Streamline.”

The U.S. government is not seeking to stop immigrants from entering the U.S., but to increase its control of the flow of undocumented labor from Mexico and around the world. Many U.S. corporations depend on immigrant labor to push down wages and to compete more effectively against their rivals around the world.

But with unemployment at high levels and competition for jobs heightened, a lot of bosses are able to fill many of their labor needs without employing as many undocumented workers.

Agribusiness owners, however, who depend heavily on undocumented workers, are complaining that stepped-up enforcement and harsher anti-immigrant laws in several states are causing a labor shortage.

According to Time magazine, roughly 70 percent of the 1.2 million farmworkers in the United States are undocumented. In its Sept. 21 issue the magazine reports that in Washington state, 10 percent of the crops last year were left to rot on the vine because of “acute labor shortages.”

State governments and politicians in several states, including California, Oklahoma, Vermont and Texas, are pushing for expanded “guest worker” programs. Under these programs bosses would “legally” bring in immigrant workers for a year or two with barely more rights than those without papers.

Meanwhile, so far some 82,000 undocumented youth have applied for a temporary permit that would allow them to live and work without fear of deportation for two years under a change in Immigration and Customs Enforcement guidelines announced by Obama in June.

To qualify they have to be between 15 and 30 years old, lived in the U.S. for at least five years and arrived before they were 16, and be in school, a high school graduate or a U.S. military veteran. They also have to pay a $465 application fee and pass a criminal background check. As many as 1.7 million people are estimated to be eligible.

In August the White House ruled that young people who receive the permits are not eligible for Medicaid or other government-subsidized health insurance.

Even more so than the increasingly common executive orders issued by Obama that bypass Congress, the new “deferred action” can be revoked at any time.
 
 
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