The New York Times in an editorial today says that New York Governor Sptizer, who announced plans to issue drivers licenses to qualified illegal immigrants, has retreated, apparently in response to pressure from the Department of Homeland Security. The new plan is very complicated, providing some ID for illegal immigrants but in an attention grabbing way, as the editorial describes:
Governor Spitzer Retreats
Gov. Eliot Spitzer has confronted the most intense public criticism of his political career — and caved. Not so long ago, Mr. Spitzer was doing the right and brave thing, planning to offer driver’s licenses to qualified but undocumented immigrants. The plan was inherently fair and would have made the state and its roads safer. Unfortunately, it also made Mr. Spitzer the target of some very nasty rhetoric from his political opponents, while his allies offered mostly weak-kneed support.

Continue reading Spitzer waffles on driver licenses for illegal immigrants

New York State Governor Spitzer has made it official policy to grant driver licenses to anyone, including undocumented residents (of which there may be 750,000, including children). This is a sensible approach. The New York Times reports that “The move drew angry responses from Republicans in the state who charged that the governor was in danger of giving valid state identification cards to potential terrorists.”
Here is the entire text of the Times’ editorial on the matter:
Gov. Eliot Spitzer made a very important if politically hazardous decision yesterday. He decreed that New York State’s Department of Motor Vehicles will award driver’s licenses to those who can prove who they are and pass the tests, not only those in good standing with the federal immigration authorities. That decision is correct for all who use New York’s roads.
Like other governors and mayors, Mr. Spitzer is trying to deal with Washington’s failure to produce a coherent immigration policy that would deal humanely with the 12 million illegal immigrants who have come to America to work, often in the lowliest of jobs. That lack of resolve forced states and sometimes local communities to figure out how to cope with reality — housing, working conditions, all sorts of local problems. Mr. Spitzer’s licensing rules are an attempt to deal with higher accident rates among unlicensed drivers — many of whom flee the scene because they fear immigration authorities.
The new rules would expand the kinds of documents that would be accepted by the state to get a license. A Social Security card would no longer be required if there are enough other documents, like an up-to-date passport, a birth certificate or other items. The governor promised new security measures — such as making sure state officials are trained in verifying foreign documents and using photo comparison technology to make certain one person does not get more than one license.
Mr. Spitzer and his administration argue that licensing more people would not only make the roads safer, it might result in a lowering of New York’s high automobile insurance rates. If that really does happen — and it is worth reminding the governor of this promise — less costly insurance would be another bonus.
The move drew angry responses from Republicans in the state who charged that the governor was in danger of giving valid state identification cards to potential terrorists. That argument is absurd on its face; organized terrorists hardly lack access to forged documents. It also fails to deal with the need to bring more of the state’s immigrant workers out of the shadows so that if they drive — and they will drive — they can do it safely. Also, New York State would have a better idea who many of these residents really are.
With these enlightened changes, New York will join eight other states that do not require applicants for drivers’ licenses to prove their immigration status. Like New York, these states want a drivers license to achieve what it is supposed to do — certify a safe driver.

Workers Comp Insider has a sharp tongued and informative posting on municipal ordinances which bar the residency and hiring of illegal immigrants. One of its sources was a NY Times article which I have placed below. The NJ township of Riverside intordued an ordinance against illegal immigrants only to see businesses disappear. the Times reports:
With the departure of so many people, the local economy suffered. Hair salons, restaurants and corner shops that catered to the immigrants saw business plummet; several closed. Once-boarded-up storefronts downtown were boarded up again.
Meanwhile, the town was hit with two lawsuits challenging the law. Legal bills began to pile up, straining the town’s already tight budget. Suddenly, many people — including some who originally favored the law — started having second thoughts.
So last week, the town rescinded the ordinance, joining a small but growing list of municipalities nationwide that have begun rethinking such laws as their legal and economic consequences have become clearer.
the full article:

Continue reading Legal assaults against illegal immigrants

This is a model for every state with a large low wage immigrant work population to follow. California is the most active state in private/public sector expression of concern and action about protecting low wage immigrant workers. I have posted several times about California. This time I am posting about two overlapping initiatives:
AWAHP: The Agricultural Workers Access to Healthcare Project
WCEC: The Workers Compensation Enforcement Collaborative
The Collaborative it aiming to identify employers who are un- or under-insured. It involves a creative mingling of community activist, law enforcement, and state regulatory efforts. Financially supporting the effort is the state’s insurance fraud commission.
According to the Watsonville Law Center, in Watsonville CA (831-722-2845)

“Uninsured employer cases account for 25% of all injured workers served through the Agricultural Workers’ Access to Healthcare Project (2003—2006). Nearly all injured workers whose employers lack workers’ compensation insurance coverage are Spanish-speaking low-wage immigrant workers. These clients are often unaware of or afraid to exercise their right to workers’ compensation benefits because they fear retaliation in the form of termination of employment and/or deportation. Injured workers come to The Watsonville Law Center (WLC) usually because they have not been able to access medical treatment or legal assistance.”

AWAHP:
The Agricultural Workers Access to Healthcare Project was formed to assist low-wage immigrant workers access medical treatment and related benefits under the workers’ compensation system. A collaborative between California Rural Legal Assistance, Salud Para La Gente and The Watsonville Law Center, AWAHP is the first of its kind in the state and possibly the nation and noted as a model approach for worker health in California in a report published by the Commission on Health and Safety and Workers’ Compensation under the California Department of Industrial Relations.
WCEC:
The Workers Compensation Enforcement Collaborative (WCEC) is comprised of state and local enforcement agencies and others committed to tracking and addressing barriers to enforcement of low wage immigrant workers’ compensation rights. Over the last year, WCEC has worked to develop goals and objectives to ensure workers are informed of their right to medical treatment and related benefits under the workers’ compensation system, and are provided accessible medical and legal services so they can obtain the medical treatment they need. Agencies represented and proposed goals for the collaborative are listed below.
WCEC Members:
The Watsonville Law Center, Department of Insurance (DOI) Fraud Division, Santa Cruz and Monterey County Offices of the District Attorney, the Fraud Assessment Commission, Kaiser, the Commission on Health and Safety and Workers’ Compensation (CHSWC) and the U.C. Berkeley Labor and Occupational Health Project. The project is working on developing collaborative partnerships with the following agencies: Workers’ Compensation Injury Rating Bureau (WCIRB), Uninsured Employers Fund (UEF), Division of Labor Standards Enforcement (DLSE), and the Division of Workers’ Compensation (DWC)-Information and Assistance Unit, Salud Para La Gente, California Rural Legal Assistance (CRLA), California Applicants’ Attorney Association (CAAA).

Hundreds of millions of workers have migrated internally or across borders for work. The New York City – based Global Workers Justice Allianceprotecting the rights of cross border workers through an international network of worker advocates and resources. Its initial focus is on the trans border workforces connecting the United States with Mexico and/or Guatemala. It tools include education, advocacy of public policies, and litigation support.
The Alliance is filling a huge hole into which many injured, payroll shortchanged or in other ways abused injured immigrant workers have fallen. I hope that the Alliance will help to place some estimates of the number and types of these problems.
Every immigrant worker community organization including legal aid organizations should connect with the Alliance.
The basic theme of the Alliance is “Businesses are global. Workers are global. Justice is not.”

Millions of people, more than ever before, cross national borders seeking employment. Too often these global migrants are often cheated of wages, injured, and have other rights violated on the job in their host country. When the workers return home, however, the obstacles to achieving justice both practical and legal–are nearly insurmountable. The result is that valid claims are routinely abandoned and thousands of workers never receive their wages or treatment for compensable injuries. Without advocates supporting each other to provide a continuum of legal representation, these workers will continue to be used and abused within the globalized economy. Workers should not have to check their legal rights at the border. Global workers require global justice.

One of its services is “Case Facilitation”.

Global Workers facilitates employment-related litigation for low-wage migrant workers who have left the country of employment to return home Practical and legal barriers usually result in migrant workers being unable to access justice in the country of employment once they have left that country. Global Workers bridges that gap by connecting and supporting advocates in the country of employment to the country of origin so that workers have access to justice no matter where they go. Cases are initiated either in the country of employment or the country of origin by advocates in those countries.

The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) reports that a temporary employment agency has sued an erstwhile client under California’s unfair competition laws that it took business away from it by hiring illegal workers. the plaintiff,
Global Horizons, was itself a defendant in a Washington state case of cheating immigrant labor it recruited, and settled with a fine.

Frustrated businesses took their fight against illegal immigration to a Los Angeles court Tuesday, filing the first in a series of lawsuits accusing competitors of hiring illegal workers to achieve an unfair advantage. “We see the legal profession bringing to this issue the kind of effect it’s had on consumer product safety,” said Mike Hethmon of the Immigration Reform Law Institute, a Washington D.C.-based group backing the California cases.

In the complaint filed Tuesday, a temporary employment agency that supplies farm workers sued a grower and a two competing companies. Similar cases claiming violations of federal anti-racketeering laws have yielded mixed results. The California lawsuits are believed to be the first based on a state’s unfair-competition laws, legal experts said. Santa Monica-based Global Horizons claimed in the lawsuit that Munger Brothers, a grower, hired illegal immigrant workers from Ayala Agricultural Services and J&A Contractors. All the defendants are based in California’s farm-rich Central Valley.

The suit alleges that Munger Brothers had a contract with Global Horizons to provide more than 600 blueberry pickers this spring, but nixed the agreement so it could hire illegal immigrants. “Competitors hiring illegal immigrants is hurting our business badly,” Global Horizons President Mordechai Orian said. “It’s to the point that doing business legally isn’t worth it.” To prove competitors hire illegal immigrants, businesses could use public records involving prior violations, testimony from former employees who have worked alongside illegal immigrants, and recovered W-2 tax forms that show people working under fake names and Social Security numbers, said David Klehm, the lead lawyer for cases in Southern California.

Legal experts said the cases could be difficult to win. Under the California statutes, plaintiffs must prove a competitor directly harmed their business. “Unless you’ve got smoking gun evidence, it’s hard to tie economic loss of one business to another’s practices,” said Niels Frenzen, a law professor at the University of Southern California.