Locations of worker centers in U.S.

Janice Fine’s Worker Centers: Organizing communities at the Edge of the Dream includes contact information for 137 worker centers, 122 of which are expressly focused on serving immigrant workers. their distribution by state. A online map of the country with these centers can be found here.
AZ – 3
AR – 1
CA – 29
CO – 1
DC – 1
FL – 6
IL – 8
IN – 2
ME – 1
MA – 5
MI – 1
MN – 3
MS -2
MT – 1
NE – 1
NJ – 5
NV – 1
NY – 24
NC – 7
OH – 3
OR – 4
PA – 3
RI – 1
SC – 1
TX – 6
UT – 1
VT – 1
VA – 4
WA – 5
WI – 4

Fake IDs among Massachusetts construction workers

The Boston Globe ran a story on Sunday (no link available) about the ways in which undocumented workers become workers at construction worksites. Article by By Jonathan Saltzman and Yvonne Abraham, June 18, 2006:
A Globe analysis of nine recent public works projects — from dormitory construction at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth to the building of the new Middlesex County Jail — revealed that of 242 workers on weekly payroll lists, more than a third appeared to lack legitimate Social Security numbers. On one of the payrolls reviewed, for masonry work on the UMass dormitory project, nearly two-thirds of the contractor’s 87 workers had bogus or questionable Social Security numbers.
The numbers used by the workers in many cases appeared obviously fraudulent. One laborer who helped build the new jail in Billerica submitted a number that should have immediately raised eyebrows: 666-66-6666. Some numbers belonged to people who were long-deceased, the Globe found. Others were matched to people who live out of state and had no idea their numbers had been appropriated.
The findings, though a small snapshot of the vast number of public projects undertaken throughout the state, suggest how the use of undocumented workers has extended into almost every corner of the economy. Republicans in Massachusetts trumpeted plans last month to stiffen fines on companies that knowingly hire undocumented immigrants, which is illegal under state law. But there is no requirement that employers, including those receiving public funds, demonstrate that their workers are legal, and undocumented workers employed on the projects say that contractors are all too happy to look the other way.

Continue reading Fake IDs among Massachusetts construction workers

George Will on short vs long term politics on immigration

Washington Post columnist George Will writes today about the Republicans’ temptation to attack Democrats for the Senate bill on immigration reform, calling it an amnesty sell-out. This attack we may see more of despite the fact that 33 Republican senators voted for the bill. Will notes that short term goals may yield long term losses:

Republicans very much want to pass an immigration bill as proof their party can govern. For that reason, there is no reason to expect Senate Democrats to compromise by passing something like the House bill. Nothing very different from it has any chance of being accepted by the House. So, safely assuming that the House-Senate conference fails to produce a compromise acceptable to both houses, when Congress returns to Washington after the Labor Day recess, the House may again pass essentially what it passed in December, just to enable Republicans to campaign on the basis of a clear and recent stance against exactly what Santorum’s ad stands against.

The cost of this, paid in the coin of lost support among Latinos, the nation’s largest and fastest-growing minority, may be reckoned later, for years. Remember this: Out West, feelings of all sorts about immigration policy are particularly intense, and if John Kerry had won a total of 127,014 more votes in New Mexico, Nevada and Colorado, states with burgeoning Latino populations, he would have carried those states and won the election. But for now, the minds of Republican candidates are concentrated on a shorter time horizon — the next 4 1/2 months.

Overseas Indians send back $21 billion.

Investment bank J.P.Morgan reported that about 20 million overseas Indian workers — NRIs, or non-resident Indians — remit $21 billion annually back to India, a sharp rise from the 1990s. These remittances are equivalent to double the size of foreign institutional investment inflows and about quarter the size of product export earnings for India.
I have previously posted on remittances to Latin America, estimated at $54 billion.

Awareness of workers comp, safety regulation is troublingly low among immigrant workers

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health asked people at community health centers about workers compensation and OSHA. They drew from a sample of 1,428 persons who had worked within the past year. Average age was 34.8; 66% were born outside the United States. Their employment fairly represents the distribution of immigrant work in Massachusetts.
Findings, as reported by Letitia Davis, of the Occupational Health Surveillance Program, who ran the survey, were:
Nearly 39% of CHC patients reported that they had never heard of workers’ compensation. Awareness of workers’ compensation varied by self-reported race, ethnicity, and place of birth…… Hispanic and Black workers had the lowest reported awareness of workers’ compensation – over 48% of both groups reported never having heard of workers’ compensation before the date of their interview. White workers were the least likely to report (21.1%) that they had never heard of workers’ compensation.
Cross-tabulated by place of birth, workers born in countries other than the United States or Puerto Rico included the highest percentage of persons (51.8%) reporting that they had never heard of workers’ compensation, followed by respondents born in Puerto Rico (41.6%) and the mainland United States (15.3%)…..Awareness also varied by occupational category: lack of awareness of the workers’ compensation system was highest among operators, fabricators and laborers (47%). Managerial and professional specialty workers were least likely (17.0%) to report that they had never heard of workers’ compensation.
The overall percentage of respondents reporting no awareness of OSHA was 62.7%. Awareness varied somewhat by race; over 70% of those reporting their race as Hispanic/Latino had never heard of OSHA. White workers, however, were most likely to report awareness of OSHA (37.7%).
Contact info for Dr. Davis: Letitia.Davis@state.ma.us, (617) 624-5626.

Poll: Senate’s immigration bill more popular than House’s

A Wall Street Journal poll taken 6/6 reports that 50% of respondents preferred the Senate bill, while 33% preferred the House bill. Answering the question “does immigration help more than it hurts?”, 44% said yes vs. 37% who said yes on 12/5/05. Negatives were 45% and 53% respectively.

Illegal immigrant workers face serious risks in Katrina cleanup

A new study by researchers at Tulane University and the University of California, Berkeley reveals that undocumented workers are being abused even as they provide critical help to rebuild New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, the most costly natural disaster in American history. This according to the press office of Tulane University. It goes on:
The comprehensive study of more than 200 workers surveyed in March 2006 by researchers at the Payson Center for International Development and Technology Transfer at Tulane University and the International Human Rights Law Clinic and the Human Rights Center at the University of California, Berkeley discovered vulnerability of undocumented workers, including severely reduced access to health care, wage discrepancy and unsafe working conditions.
The study found that almost half of the reconstruction workforce in New Orleans is Latino, and 54 percent of that group is undocumented, meaning 25 percent of all workers are undocumented Latinos. In the aftermath of the storm, the federal government allowed special waivers of immigration laws, which made it easier for employers to hire undocumented workers. Two-thirds of Latino construction workers have moved to the area since Katrina hit in 2005. But 87 percent of the undocumented workers were already living in the United States before they moved to New Orleans. This means that Hurricanes Katrina and Rita did not cause an influx of illegal immigrants across the US border as many have reported.
The study, Rebuilding After Katrina: A Population-Based Study of Labor and Human Rights in New Orleans, finds:
On average, documented workers received significantly higher wages than undocumented workers peforming the same work ($16.50 per hour average for documented vs. $10 per hour for undocumented.).
Construction workers frequently report experiencing problems receiving wages owed, especially undocumented workers.
Further findings:

Continue reading Illegal immigrant workers face serious risks in Katrina cleanup

Homeland Security’s SAVE program to verify employment

The Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) Program Is Homeland Security’s online system of alien status determination. It is being promoted now as the “Basic Pilot.” It is voluntary. The media reports a 1.4% error rate, which I infer is the percentage of times when a person is reported not a “qualified alien” when in fact she or is he or even may be a citizen. However, the quality problems are far worse than that figure implies.
The Washington Post reported in May: that only 6,000 employers were enrolled, out of 8 million. A Government Accountability Office report issued in August criticized it for its inability to catch identity fraud, for flaws in the databases and for the possibility that employers will abuse the system. Nearly one in three noncitizens the electronic system cannot initially verify are later cleared based on a manual search of the records, according to government statistics. This 33% “false positive” rate is extremely high — in my experience, such a high rate dooms the program because it is a rare employer who would want to accept a false positive rate of more than 10%.
The GAO says that the search does not include, for statutory constraint issues, the 250 million entry Earnings Suspense File of deductions sent in without a valid SSN.
Per DHS, the Basic Pilot involves verification checks of the SSA and DHS databases, using an automated system to verify the employment authorization of all newly hired employees. Participation in the Basic Pilot Program is voluntary, and is free to participating employers.
The Basic Pilot program has been available to all employers in the States of California, Florida, Illinois, New York and Texas since November 1997 and to employers in Nebraska since March 1999. The Basic Pilot Program began operation in November 1997; was terminated in late 2001; and was reactivated in 2003. It is being expanded to all states.
Below is a description of how the program works, and the FAQ page from Homeland Security.
How it works (much per an HR website):

Continue reading Homeland Security’s SAVE program to verify employment

How the Senate bill increases worker immigration

What you see below is taken from an anti-immigration website, which quotes from Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions. You will see a brief description of the actual provisions in the Senate bill 2611 which passed the Senate, then you will see Session’s extrapolation to forecast total household related immigration in the next 20 years. I do not understand how Sessions came to some extremely high estimates.
Guest worker program: He estimates that the initial guest work program cap of 325,000 plus the amnestied numbers already in the U.S. could result in over 60 million people coming into the U.S. in the next 20 years. The only way on can get these figures is to assume that the guest workers stay beyond expiration and new ones continue to come in. It is impossible to square this with the realities of the American and Latin American economies.
Green care issuance: Sessions says that the bill increases green card issuance from 140,000 to 450,000 a year, and increases household member and relative green cards by several hundred thousand. Another source estimates that the green card cap will by 650,000.
THE NEW GUEST WORKER PROGRAM
H-2C Workers: By creating a new (H-2C) visa category for “temporary guest workers” (low skilled workers) with an annual “cap” of 325,000 that increases up to 20 percent each year the cap is met, the bill allows at least 6.5 million, and up to 60.7 million new guest workers to come to the United States over the next 20 years. There is nothing “temporary” about these workers. Employers may file a green card application on their behalf as soon as they arrive in the United States, or the worker may self-petition for a green card after four years of work.
H-4 Family Members of H-2C Workers: By creating a new visa category (H-4) for the immediate family members of the future low-skilled workers (H-2C), and allowing them to also receive green cards, the bill would allow at least 7.8 million, and up to 72.8 million immediate family members of low-skilled workers to come to the United States over the next 20 years.
HIGH SKILLED PERMANENT IMMIGRATION:
H-1B: The bill would essentially open the borders to high-skilled workers, as well as low-skilled workers. By increasing the annual cap of 65,000 to 115,000, automatically increasing the new cap by 20 percent each year the cap is hit, and creating a new exemption to new cap for anyone who has an “advanced degree in science, technology, engineering, or math” from any foreign university, the number of H-1B workers coming into the United States would undoubtedly escalate. The 20-year impact of this escalation could be anywhere from 1 million to 20.1 million. H-1B workers are eligible for green cards and would be allowed to stay and work in the United States for as long as it takes to process the green card application.
STEEP INCREASES TO ANNUAL GREEN CARD LIMITS:
Family Based Green Cards: The bill would increase the annual cap on family based green cards available to non-immediate family members (adult sons and daughters, adults siblings, and the spouses and children of adult siblings) by more than 100 percent, upping the current cap of 226,000 to 480,000 a year. Immediate family members are already able to immigrate without regard to the family based green card caps. The 20-year impact of this change would be an increase of 5.1 million non-immediate family member green cards.
Employment Based Green Cards The bill would increase the annual cap on employment-based green cards by more than 500 percent, upping the current cap of 140,000 to 450,000 until 2016 and to 290,000 thereafter and exempting all immediate family members that currently count against the cap today (spouses, children and parents) from the newly escalated cap. The new exemption would result in an average of 540,000 family members receiving green cards each year of the first 10 years, and an average of 348,000 family members receiving green cards each year of the second 10 years. The 20-year impact of this change would be an increase of 13.5 million employment-based green cards, for a total of 16.3 million employment-based green cards issued over the course of the next 20 years.