It will be an interesting day in New York. Over at the union hall for SEIU’s 32BJ, there will be a public briefing for the bi-partisan Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act of 2005. Here’s another place where I part with the AFL-CIO. I think this is a pretty decent bill, though not perfect, while the AFL-CIO is vehemently opposed to the legislation.

The briefing will unite some pretty strange political bedfellows who you normally don’t see in one room together: Senator John McCain (who is co-sponsoring the bill with Ted Kennedy) and Reps. Charles Rangel, Jose Serrano and Nydia Velázquez. The New York Immigrant Coalition views this bill as a positive step because it:

• Reunites families;

• Establishes smart enforcement policies;

• Provides an earned path to citizenship;

• Creates legal channels for immigrants to work in the U.S.; and

• Encourages immigrants to participate in the civic life of the U.S.

As I see it, of all the legislation out there, the bill, with some weaknesses, tracks most closely to two principles that I think are worth following, which were developed by the Drum Major Institute:

1) Immigration policy should bolster—not undermine—the critical contribution that immigrants make to our economy as workers, entrepreneurs, taxpayers and consumers, because:

• On average, immigrants pay more in taxes each year than they use in government services, and these taxes fund programs like Social Security that strengthen and expand the middle class.

• The middle class relies on the goods and services that immigrants produce.

• By increasing consumer demand, immigrants generate economic growth that benefits the middle class: immigration is a major contributor to the expansion of Hispanic and Asian-American consumer markets—an estimated 12 percent of the nation’s 2004 purchasing power.

• Immigrants also stimulate the economy by starting small businesses and attracting investment capital from their countries of origin.
Since the American middle class relies on the economic contributions of immigrants, a pro-middle-class immigration policy must not include mass deportation or aim to shut down future immigration.

2) Immigration policy must strengthen the rights of immigrants in the workplace.

• Under current immigration law, immigrant workers compete with their U.S.-born counterparts on an uneven playing field—to the detriment of both groups.

• Because employers threaten undocumented immigrants with deportation, these workers cannot effectively assert their rights in the workplace by, for example, asking for raises, complaining about violations of wage and hour or workplace safety laws, or by supporting union organizing drives.

• As long as this cheaper and more compliant pool of immigrant labor is available, employers are all too willing to take advantage of the situation to keep their labor costs down and are less willing to hire U.S.-born workers if they demand better wages and working conditions.

• U.S.-born workers are left to either accept the same diminished wages and degraded working conditions as immigrants living under threat of deportation or to be shut out of whole industries where employers hire predominantly undocumented immigrants. 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. So a pro-middle-class immigration policy must guarantee immigrants full labor rights and make sure that employers cannot use deportation as a coercive tool in the labor market.

It just seems to me the AFL-CIO’s opposition will leave it, once again, behind the curve. This bill is a fair attempt to blunt the wing-nut attacks on immigrants. It would be a much better bill if it was stronger on immigrants’ rights in the workplace–and that’s a fight worth having as the bill moves forward. But, I don’t think saying “no” period on this bill makes sense, given the other far scarier bills that are popping up.