By Michael Ronan
Members of the Break the Chains Alliance gathered April 24 in Foley Square to protest the controversial Immigration Reform and Control Act. The Break the Chains Alliance, a coalition of several ethnic and labor organizations, argued in an open letter to presidential candidates that these sanctions are a “road to disaster.”
The protest continued the dialogue started in that letter while also publicizing the group's May 1 walk to protest IRCA. With posters saying “Repeal IRCA Now!” behind them, speakers explained how IRCA divides documented and undocumented workers from joining together, resulting in worsening working conditions.
IRCA was originally put into place in 1989 in efforts to answer the country’s immigration problems. The act made it illegal for employers to knowingly hire illegal immigrants, but also gave amnesty to illegal immigrants who had come to the country before 1982.
As New York University politics professor Lawrence Mead said, “IRCA was a huge liberal victory.” However, several problems arose since IRCA’s installation, the largest of which was an increase in illegal immigration. “IRCA is an open door,” said Mead, explaining that after IRCA, “illegals all went out and bought fake documents.”
He said, “IRCA is a chameleon. The right sees it as a tremendous sellout to the left and the left sees it as creating a second class.”
John J. Crogan Jr., organizer with the Industrial Workers of the World, expressed this belief, calling IRCA, “a slave law to keep underclass workers.”
While acting on the behalf of both documented and undocumented workers, the Break the Chains alliance is not indicative of the country as a whole. “Most people are ambivalent [about the issue]," said Mead. “They do not like it when people break the law, but are sympathetic on an individual level.”
Mead also explained that the calls for change made at the April protest can be attributed to a “close connection to the illegal workers themselves,” as well as a fear against the recent “movement of tightening up” of immigration restrictions by the current administration.
For those reasons, speakers made a call on presidential candidates in an open letter to end what they called divisive immigration policies. Immigration has been a hot button issue that candidates have somewhat avoided during the election because how it divides voters. The immigration stance of the current government, however, as moved toward the right.
Mead explained this saying, “homeland security is beginning to crack the whip, but the whip is not IRCA.” The “whip” is the backlash from the failings of IRCA, as the government becomes more diligent in checking for illegal immigrants. Because of this backlash, Thursday’s event attacked the perceived root of the problem; IRCA.
“We are not going to wait till next year,” said one protestor. “That’s why we are marching on May 1.” May 1 marks International Workers’ Day, a day where workers had united in the past for the betterment of the working class.
Unity among workers, both documented and undocumented, is one of the ways the Break the Chains Alliance hopes to achieve better conditions for the working class. “Employers are using the laws to divide documented workers and undocumented workers,” said Adolfo Lopez, a member of the National Organization against Sweat Shops.
Stanley Mark, senior staff attorney at the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, added, “The law makes it foreign born versus native born people.”
Lopez used personal examples to illustrate this divisive policy in action. He recalled how, as an undocumented worker, he only made $15 a day while documented workers made substantially more. When Lopez asked his boss why he was making less money than the documented workers although he worker longer hours, he said it was because they had papers. Employers are “using the law to separate us [documented and undocumented workers] so we cannot fight together.”
For that reason, Lopez, and other members of the Break the Chains Alliance invited, “all workers, documented and undocumented to come to the march.” As Gustavo Mejias, member of the Million Worker March said, “They cannot divide us, black, Latino, Chinese. They cannot divide us.”
While stories like that of Lopez may make employers seem like the quintessential bad guys, as Mead explained, the issue is more complex. “Employers are not necessarily in the driver’s seat,” he said. Mead added that they are having trouble filling jobs that no one will do.
But doing the jobs no one else is willing to do has left undocumented workers with a desire for a better life and a clearer path toward citizenship. Jei Fong, an organizer with the Chinese Staff & Worker’s Association said Thursday’s protest was “not a call for guest workers, not a call for legislation that will criminalize good workers.” She said, “We are going to demand that all immigrants have a path to citizenship and won’t have to live in the shadows.
“We need to take control of our lives, take control of our work,” she urged.
“We all lose out big time,” said Harlem Tenant council head Nellie Bailey, explaining why action is needed. “Not only workers but the community.” Bailey then called on the unity of worker of all ethnicities saying repealing IRCA is “deserving of all the voices of the community across this city.”
Repealing the IRCA could be in the near future explained professor Mead. He said, “I think IRCA will be consigned to the scrap heap. The likelier outcome is no new law but a tightening up of restrictions.”
This is exactly what the members of the Break the Chains Alliance wish to avoid, demonstrated by their open letter. Tosh Anderson on behalf of the Break the Chains Alliance wrote that tighter restrictions “will just result in new means of circumventing those measures that will push undocumented workers even further underground and worsen the working conditions for all workers.” But unfortunately for them, this seems to be direction the country is heading.
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