The Movement and the Money

What’s behind the recent rise in wages for undocumented workers? It could be immigrants’ rights activism.

Graffiti on the Mexican side of the wall. Photo: Jonathan McIntosh / Flickr

David L. Wilson, Jacobin

October 16, 2017

Last Sunday, Trump’s White House released a list of immigration demands that Democrats must meet if they want to renew the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which has protected hundreds of thousands of young immigrants from deportation. The demands, if met, would mean more criminalization, more surveillance, and more fear for undocumented immigrants.

Republicans justify this punitive approach by insisting that immigrants are “taking our jobs,” driving down wages for citizens and making the economic situation more desperate for all.

But a look back at a decade of data shows that if Republicans’ goal is to bolster wages, they’re going about it all wrong.[...]

Read the full article:

https://jacobinmag.com/2017/10/undocumented-workers-wages-daca-trump

Protect the Dreamers, but Don't Fall for an E-Verify "Compromise"

Liberal commentators have written favorably about the program in the past.... But E-Verify isn't really any better than Trump's "big beautiful wall."

By David L. Wilson, Truthout

October 12, 2017

E-Verify is back on the political agenda.

For years, politicians have wanted to force all of the country's 7.7 million private employers to check new hires against this online system -- which compares employees' documents with government databases in order to catch immigrants without work authorization -- but so far, the efforts to impose a universal E-Verify requirement have failed. Now the idea has been given new life by a tentative agreement that President Trump and Democratic leaders made on September 13 to promote legislation protecting the immigrants previously covered by President Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).[...]

Read the full article:

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/42234-protect-the-dreamers-but-don-t-fall-for-an-e-verify-compromise

Janet Napolitano touts E-Verify Self in  2011. Photo: Alex Wong / Getty Images