meIt didn’t even take until Election Day for Donald Trump and his would-be border czar, Tom Homan, the former acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the president-elect’s first administration, to try to redefine deportation expected mass of undocumented immigrants.
What Trump promised during his campaign would be the biggest deportation ever, based on Eisenhower-era labor raids to lure Mexican immigrants, was already being recast as a rational, controlled process. Cracking down on undocumented immigrants will be the priority, they tell the American public, but neither Trump nor Homan is clear if that means all people in the U.S. illegally, those charged with or convicted of a serious crime or those who are guilty of minor traffic offences. .
The Wall Street Journal he took heart from Trump’s admission during a pre-election interview that the issue of the 11 million undocumented immigrants is “a complicated issue,” and raised “human issues” about which “we also have to take heart.” Homan promised CBS’ 60 Minutes that there will be no “mass sweeps of neighborhoods” or “concentration camps.” The program will involve “targeted arrests” and “workplace enforcement operations,” he said.
What is clear is that the deportation plan is likely to end up like Trump’s border wall program did: an effective media symbol aimed at discouraging illegal border crossings rather than full-blown action which was approaching its stated goals. Trump said that in his first term he created 500 miles of border wall, when the 500 miles actually includes repairs to sections and secondary barriers. There was only about 50 miles of new construction, apparently enough to satisfy many Americans who want to stop what they believe is the uncontrolled flow of migrants into the U.S. now targeted by Trump’s campaign promise.
How many of the undocumented work in construction?
Start with the oft-repeated statistic that one in four employees in the industry is a migrant. It is likely, some argue, that the ratio is closer to one in three, or even higher for artisans such as plasterers, painters or general laborers in high-immigration states such as California, Texas and Florida. It is generally agreed that most are from Central and South America.
But what proportion is undocumented? The pro-immigration American Immigration Council estimates that “nearly 14 percent of people employed in the construction industry are undocumented” and subject to removal, though the group does not clarify whether the 14 percent refers only to to the proportion of artisans, or to all. sector employees.
These statistics, it must be said, almost always apply to commercial and residential construction, including single-family and multi-family homes built on poles, a separate sector not served by major open trade infrastructure and unions, commercial and institutional contractors and its subcontractors. . This last group is what ENR covers.
This last idea is important because another concept that needs to be refined is that there is widespread undisciplined hiring of undocumented migrants in the construction industry. Federal contractors and subordinates with qualified contracts that have E-Verify clauses must confirm an employee’s legal eligibility to work in the U.S.
E-Verify is required for contractors on projects where at least part of the work is performed in the US, lasts 120 days or more, and has a value of more than $150,000.
Various state e-verification laws
Beyond that, there is a wide variety in state law regarding whether and when to use E-Verify. Eight southern states require all or most employers to use it. Eleven states, including Texas and Pennsylvania, require only public employers and government contractors to do so. Many other states do not have requirements to use E-Verify. California enacted a law in 2013 that prohibits the state or its cities and counties from requiring the use of E-Verify.
Democrats deserve a large amount of blame for not taking effective steps to curb illegal border crossings during the Biden administration. This could have exhausted support for the deportations.
With this in mind, we wonder how the staunchly anti-regulation Trump administration will carry out deportations without depleting the potentially significant supply of low-cost labor that undocumented immigrants represent? Border security, the hallmark of Trump’s first term, is a much better option than deportation and the random cruelties it entails.
Find as many violent criminals as you can, we say, and throw them out.
But future workplace raids are bound to sweep up longtime illegal U.S. residents who have steady work histories, no connection to drug dealing or violent crime and deep-rooted families. in their communities. The threat of deportation will make these workers even more vulnerable to wage scams and unsafe working conditions than they already are.
We understand that the majority of American voters supported Trump this time and seem to agree with the deportations. But that doesn’t make it any less of a bad idea, nor does it mean that Americans will continue to support such actions once all the facts are clear and the consequences are understood.
