July/August 2004

Views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of the AFSC.

Immigrant Rights: Translating Grassroots Organizing into Policy Change

Rosita Choy is the National Policy Impact Coordinator for Project Voice, the immigrant rights initiative of the American Friends Service Committee (www.afsc.org/immigrants-rights). She is based in Washington DC, but travels throughout the country listening to and working with immigrant rights groups. An immigrant herself, Rosita has family and roots in both Asia and Latin America.

When I was young, occasionally I would translate for my mother, not because she lacked intelligence or could not speak English, but rather because I had certain skills simply as a result of immigrating to the US at a far younger age than she. In the middle of my translating, she would stop me abruptly and rudely and continue with the conversation on her own. Then at another point in the conversation, she would turn to me suddenly with an impatient expression, as if to ask, "Well, why aren't you translating?" With never a thank-you from her, I felt used and unappreciated. It was only later that I understood that on those occasions, my mother - strong, proud, and more experienced - was handling important matters and wasn't necessarily happy to have to depend on me.

These incidents from my childhood provide me with a useful way to consider the relationship between immigrants and the immigrant rights movement. When I use the term "immigrant rights movement," I refer to the total aggregate of individuals - immigrants or not - and organizations working in some way to help immigrants either through organizing, providing services, advocating on policy, or a combination of all three.

At present, a handful of organizations with headquarters in Washington, DC, address immigration issues on a national level. Half a dozen state-wide immigrant rights organizations work on state and national issues. Numerous local organizations focus on the immediate concerns of their community members while engaging in state and national immigration campaigns in degrees varying from little participation to high involvement. The immigrant rights movement exists because of and in order to serve immigrants. While organizations with articulate spokespeople have access to policy makers, these organizations and the movement as a whole must recede into the background when immigrants are capable of speaking on their own behalf. In reality, however, all are involved in a give and take where signals are often unclear and unspoken, and boundaries are crossed unintentionally. This delicate balance exists between individuals and local groups that attempt to organize and between local organizing groups and national policy organizations. This article will focus on the tensions involved in the latter struggle.

The Immigration Debate

The current public debate on immigration centers on how the US will treat undocumented immigrants - people who do not have permission to live in the US either because they have overstayed their visa or entered the country without one. An estimated 9 to 11 million undocumented immigrants live in the US. They can be apprehended and deported at any moment, are legally prohibited from gaining employment, and contrary to popular belief, are barred from federal benefits. Thus, they work somehow in order to survive.

One side of the argument says these people broke the law by being here. They should be deported, and meanwhile life for them should be made as difficult as possible in order to punish them and to discourage future flows of undocumented immigrants.

Members of the immigrant rights movement say that global economic and political forces compel migration. Millions of undocumented immigrants are in this country because the economy draws them in and they are fleeing poverty, persecution, war, or natural disaster. Current US immigration policies do not reflect this reality and therefore need to be changed. A central part of this reform is legalization - that is, providing the opportunity for undocumented immigrants to apply for permission to reside in the US permanently. In the legal context, this permission is referred to as lawful permanent residency - a green card.

Within the immigrant rights movement, at the moment, there exists a high level of agreement around the need for legalization. In fact, the consensus runs so deep that nearly all immigrant rights advocates support the most significant immigration bills currently being considered by Congress. For example, during the past three years, advocates have rallied enthusiastically around the DREAM Act which would legalize undocumented students who have attended US junior and senior high schools, are about to attend college, and meet other requirements. This bipartisan bill has moved slowly but steadily through the Senate. Its companion bill in the House, the Student Adjustment Act, has met more resistance.

Another bill that has generated unanimous response within the immigrant rights field - this time in the negative - is the CLEAR Act, which would mandate that local police enforce federal immigration law. Immigrant rights advocates and an unusual alliance of state legislatures, local police departments, and domestic violence groups have come out against this bill. Deputizing local law enforcement members as federal immigration officials sows mistrust and undermines the ability to ensure public safety in local communities.

AgJOBS, the precarious compromise proposal between growers and agricultural workers, faced more difficulty in finding universal support by immigrant rights advocates. While the proposed legislation would legalize farmworkers, it would also give up serious concessions including a freeze on farm labor's version of the minimum wage and a slight expansion of the guestworker program. Nevertheless, nearly all the national immigrant rights organizations ultimately decided to endorse this bill.

With the DREAM Act and AgJOBS proposing to legalize a specific portion of the undocumented population and President Bush's statement in January 2004 praising immigrants and calling for changes to the current immigration system, advocates anticipated and pressured members of Congress to introduce a comprehensive immigration reform bill - one that would not only legalize undocumented immigrants but also address future immigration flows, workplace rights, and the backlogs for those waiting for a visa to join family members in the US. Advocates hoped for a bipartisan bill encouraged by President Bush. None was forthcoming. Instead, Democrats introduced the SOLVE Act which did contain measures to legalize undocumented immigrants, provide avenues for future immigration flows, strengthen workers' rights, and reduce the backlogs.

Although few would disagree that the partisan SOLVE Act has little chance of passing this Congressional year, immigrant rights advocates have been able, yet again, to reach consensus about supporting the bill. The current message is that while the SOLVE Act is closer to the ideal of comprehensive immigration reform, the DREAM Act and AgJOBS are "down payments" towards future reform which members of Congress should "pay now." In other words, the SOLVE Act is a piece of legislation with which to push the debate, while the DREAM Act and AgJOBS are realistic bills that should be passed immediately.

Tensions within the Movement

While a high level of agreement exists within the immigrant rights field in regards to legislation, the differences lie in the emphasis that individuals and organizations pay to the short term goals of advocating for specific legislation versus the longer term goals of organizing immigrants. Generally speaking, national organizations work within the given structure of Congress and policymaking. They are skilled at devising strategic messages and campaigns to sway policymakers as well as public opinion. They are accustomed to the urgent pace of Washington, DC, and work on immigration as a domestic policy issue. Arguably, they accomplish a tremendous amount to improve the lives of immigrants in the US.

Meanwhile, state and local organizations, given the scope of their work, often times need to choose between advocating for specific legislation and organizing immigrant communities. Organizing is a time-intensive process. Building trust with individuals, bringing them together, exploring their concerns and needs, sharing information (about legislation if need be), facilitating their decision-making, losing members and having to reach out, continuously increasing numbers, all take time, time that is not often available in the fast-paced policy world of DC where the question is often, "Do you support or oppose this piece of legislation?" Many times, grassroots groups are not ready to answer so quickly. Besides, they insist, the issue is more complicated than a simple "yes" or "no."

Groups outside of Washington, DC, also have the ability to strategize outside the policymaking structure. Immigration is an international phenomenon, not simply a domestic issue. Migration is compelled by complex global economic and political forces. As such, immigration policy needs to take into consideration the root causes. Emigrants are often fleeing poverty and/or war. Economic policies that exacerbate the disparity in wealth between nations and government decisions to go to war contribute to migration. Consequently, grassroots immigrant rights activists are reaching out to anti-corporate globalization and peace activist communities. There is potential here for powerful movement building.

Unfortunately, in Congress and with policymakers, the individuals responsible for immigration are separate from those that handle international trade or foreign policy. Given these constraints, many national immigrant rights groups in DC refrain from discussing trade agreements or peace-making and concentrate on pragmatic solutions. While this bifurcation of emphasis can be a source of strength through specialization - one group of people concentrating on policy and another group concentrating on organizing - it can also be a source of tension when policy advocates are seen to be taking positions that compromise too much and when local immigrant organizations are seen to be slow in providing a unified voice or too idealistic by addressing issues that extend beyond immigration.

The Controversies: Guestworker Programs and Border Security

Guestworker programs, which provide permission for people to stay temporarily in the US while working in a specific job, have been notorious, since the bracero program of the 1950s and 60s, when Mexican nationals came to the US to work in agriculture. Because the bracero program made lower standards for labor conditions legal, and because workers dared not complain since maintaining their jobs was a condition for living in this country, the program led to exploitation. In fact, guestworker programs have had such a sullied past that, in order even to begin a discussion, those working on immigration policy have come up with a new term, "temporary worker programs." While many immigrant rights groups in the past have been opposed to creating any new guestworker programs (there are several different programs today that would qualify as guestworker programs though they are not as exploitative as the bracero program), some have come to the recent conclusion that in order to prevent border-crossing deaths, the US must provide more legal channels for immigration, even if these alternatives only provide for temporary stays. These groups also explain that if they refuse to accept any version of a guestworker program, then they shut themselves out of the negotiations, and allow "the other side" to design the worst program without moderating voices.

Some of the stalwart immigrant rights organizations insist that it is impossible to design a guestworker program free from exploitation as long as permission to reside in the US is tied to continued employment. The fundamental nature of guestworker programs tips the balance of power, in an already unequal relationship, even further towards the employers. Thus, the only viable guestworker program is one that provides the opportunity to reside in the US regardless of employment status - in effect, one that is no longer a guestworker program.

For now, a truce over this issue has been negotiated within the immigrant rights movement. Those opposed to guestworker programs are willing to consider programs that lead to legal permanent residency and include worker protections such as portability, which is the ability to change employers without jeopardizing permission to reside in this country. At the same time, those willing to discuss temporary worker programs have committed to push for new models that include a path to legal permanent residency as well as portability and other workers' rights protections. For now, the SOLVE Act proposes a guestworker program that meets these requirements and is agreeable to both sides within the immigrant rights movement. When the SOLVE Act or another viable piece of comprehensive immigration reform legislation reaches serious consideration for passage, the debate over guestworker programs may flare up again as the restrictionists - those who want to lower immigration in all forms and at all costs - will surely chip away at the guestworker provisions and one side of the immigrant rights field will be more willing to negotiate than the other.

A similar dynamic is at work concerning border security issues. Those who work daily with border communities or their issues understand that these communities are often in a state of siege where community members can be picked up, interrogated, detained, and perhaps deported at any moment. Any change in immigration policy drastically affects these communities, regardless of whether the policy deals with the border specifically, by affecting the flow of migrants. US resources for border security have steadily increased in the past 15 years, even before 9/11, without any evidence of accomplishing the stated mission of decreasing the net flow of undocumented migration. More "security" does not control immigration, but rather harms communities. As reasoned above, comprehensive immigration reform is needed, and increasing border security with or without reform does nothing to mend the broken immigration system.

Most national immigration policy groups understand and believe the above reasoning; however, they feel that a stance against increasing border security is not enough. They believe that saying "true comprehensive immigration reform would address the issues that border security is failing to address" is not enough. Furthermore, they believe that immigrant rights advocates need to make an affirmative statement regarding border security; in other words, advocates need to be in favor of some form of border security enhancement.

Ultimately, this disagreement could tear the immigrant rights movement apart. In the future, when comprehensive immigration reform is discussed further and restrictionists advocate for border security enhancement, if national immigration policy groups are perceived as accepting border security enhancement as a trade-off for legalization, then a schism could result between grassroots border and other immigrant groups feeling betrayed by national groups and refusing to work in alliance with them. A similar schism occurred in 1986 when employer sanctions was accepted as a trade-off for an expansion of amnesty. To this day, groups continue to deal with the mistrust as a result of 1986.

The Future

Presently, there is a tension between immigrants and the immigrant rights movement, and more specifically between grassroots immigrant organizations and national policy groups - a tension that is not unhealthy but natural. As the relationship continues to develop, perhaps both entities can begin to understand each other's potential contribution and learn to adapt to and lean on each other. Perhaps national policy groups can learn to sacrifice political expediency more often by advocating a position that may be "hard to sell" in DC for the sake of maintaining a unified movement. In truth, they have done so on several issues, including with legalization itself. They need to invest in and trust grassroots organizing more, to believe that, though it may take more time and be more difficult, designing campaigns to inform and engage more people (instead of simply issuing directives) is the way towards systemic change. Finally, they need to understand that the process is as important as the outcome. Local organizing groups need to be involved in the development of national policy strategies even if incorporating more decision-makers results in a more arduous and slower process. (It would have made no sense for me, interpreting for my mother, to simply charge on ahead without her.) Similarly, perhaps, local organizing groups can learn to let go of some debates, allow DC insiders to make their deals, accept small defeats in order to concentrate on the bigger victories, and ultimately, refrain from viewing the national policy organizations as enemies but more as team players with different roles. Then again, these developments need to occur at the same time. In order for local groups to rely on national groups and to give them freer rein, the national groups must work on earning trust. This is done by taking the local groups' suggestions seriously. And this is possible if local groups focus on the bigger picture and less on the smaller injustices. There have been attempts by national groups and local groups to collaborate and work closely together. As this article has described, there is much unity at present in the immigrant rights movement despite serious differences. Much of this unity can be attributed to these recent attempts at working and listening to each other.

Though my relationship with my mother is not perfect, nowadays, she is both less reluctant for me to translate and more willing to forge ahead independently. Similarly, I feel less slighted. I may translate more than I need to or my mom may go on without my help even if she needs to struggle a bit. Gone is the old tension. It may be the result of my reaching an age old enough to handle important matters, or her honing her skills, or our feeling more comfortable and less protective about her place in the world. Whatever the case, there is a trust now when it comes to translating, and neither of us is upset even if we've overstepped boundaries, because we know we have each other's best interests in mind.

There will always be disagreement and conflict within the immigrant rights movement - the result of many strong people working together - but as long as the movement can reach a kind of turbulent equilibrium, such as I have with my mother, the movement will be poised to accomplish much.

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