This commentary is by Liz Kessler of Burlington, a teacher at Essex High School and a member of the Essex-Westford Education Association and Community Voices for Immigrant Rights; and Ashley Smith of Burlington, production manager of Spectre Journal and a member of the Champlain Valley Democratic Socialists of America and Community Voices for Immigrant Rights.
Since President Joe Biden’s inauguration in January, there has been a noticeable lull in activism. Many expected the new administration to reverse Trump’s worst policies and enact progressive legislation, but while it has done so on some issues, it has failed to do so on immigrant rights.
Biden has effectively abandoned his bill proposing comprehensive immigration reform that, however problematic, would have opened a path for citizenship for at least some undocumented immigrants. With that bill dead in the water, he has upheld the anti-immigrant status quo, using Trump’s Title 42, which bars migrants and refugees from entering the country, to expel hundreds of thousands of people, and incarcerate thousands, including children in camps infecting many unvaccinated ones with Covid.
Covid has devastated detained and incarcerated populations, with nearly one in three individuals testing positive, and that number only reflects cases detected among those tested. Not only does this threaten the health and lives of detained migrants, it also spreads the virus, putting everyone’s life in jeopardy.
At the same time, Biden has dressed up reactionary legislation as progressive. Case in point is the Farm Workforce Modernization Act. The act purports to provide immigrant farm workers with a path to citizenship, but it in fact traps them in a position of economic precarity, limiting their rights to unionization and legalization. This legislation serves the interests of big agribusiness, supplying it with cheap, unorganized labor.
The Farm Workforce Modernization Act would require immigrant workers to work 10 consecutive years in agriculture to begin the process of naturalization. If they stop working for a period or change their occupation, they will forfeit any opportunity for citizenship.
Historically, we have seen similar forms of exploitation of marginalized communities’ labor such as indentured servitude and sharecropping.
The bill also stipulates that, if a migrant farm worker is fired or blacklisted by an employer, they would lose their right to citizenship. That would curtail workers’ rights to speak out and organize, forcing them to endure the all too common violations farm workers face, such as sexual violence, physically dangerous work, and wage theft.
U.S. Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., mistakenly voted for the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, helping to win its passage in the House of Representatives. If the bill is taken up by the Senate, Bernie Sanders and Patrick Leahy will be asked to vote on it. There, where the margins of any bill passing are narrow, they have the opportunity and responsibility to block this reactionary anti-worker legislation.
In particular, Sanders, who has opposed previous guest worker bills and championed labor rights, should lead the charge against the Farm Workforce Modernization Act. As the chair of the Senate Budget Committee, one of the most powerful positions in the U.S. government, he can expose the bill’s horrific contents, use the threat of non-cooperation on other pieces of legislation, and rally others in the Senate to vote down the act.
In place of of that act, Sanders, Leahy and Welch can advocate for passage of the Citizenship for Essential Workers Act, something that would open the doors for legal rights for the estimated 5 million undocumented workers who suffer the indignity of being categorized as essential but “illegal.”
Granting citizenship to essential undocumented workers would be an enormous victory for expanding democratic rights in this country. It would also boost the economy and set a precedent for other bills to legalize all 11 million undocumented workers throughout the country.
Fighting for such legislation is in the best tradition of what Vermont has stood for, from becoming the first state to abolish slavery to organizing immigrant quarry workers in the early 20th century, passing Migrant Justice’s No Más Polimigra ordinances to bar collaboration between police and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, getting Ben and Jerry’s to sign on to the Milk with Dignity Program, and expanding local voting rights to noncitizens in Montpelier and Winooski.
Our congressional delegation should represent this tradition of fighting for equal rights for all in Washington, D.C. Sanders and Leahy can easily include the Citizenship for Essential Workers Act in the reconciliation process for the social infrastructure bill the Democrats will likely pass within the next couple of months. We encourage Vermonters to contact Sanders and Leahy and urge them to vote against the Farm Workforce Modernization Act and for the Citizenship for Essential Workers Act.
And, with Biden enforcing the racist border regime just as he did as vice president in the Obama administration, which deported more immigrants than any administration in history, it is time for us to remobilize the migrant justice movement. Without struggle in the streets and workplaces, we will not win equal legal and labor rights for undocumented workers and our entire workforce will remain at the whim of racist corporate interests.
• Community Voices for Immigrant Rights welcomes all to join in the fight for immigrant rights and participate in the webinar on the Farm Workforce Modernization Act (register here) co-hosted with Migrant Justice and Vermont Interfaith Action on July 22, 2021, at 6 p.m. EST.
