Statement of Principles on Immigration Issues

A statement of the Board of Directors of Interfaith Worker Justice: December, 2009

Interfaith Worker Justice affirms that all workers must be honored and treated with dignity and justice. When we allow immigrant workers to be exploited, we lower the standards for all workers, native born and immigrant, current and future. As people of faith, we recognize and honor the social and economic contributions made by immigrant workers, regardless of their national origin or immigration status. Our immigration system is broken – workers are exploited and families are being separated – and we all suffer as a result. 

We know that people of good will have different views, and that some feel that undocumented immigrants take jobs and resources from those who were born in this country or have become legal residents or citizens. But we decry that the debate has become racialized, and that immigrants are stigmatized and blamed for economic problems that greed, unregulated markets, and the lack of coherent government jobs policies have created. Reforming our immigration laws and their enforcement is morally imperative and fundamental to restoring justice and equity in the workplace and the community. 

We must also understand that migration occurs in the context of a global economy, and that we must understand and address U.S. trade and foreign policies that can weaken the economies of other countries and increase migration. We call on our political, business, religious, and labor leaders to maintain civility and respect in the debates over comprehensive immigration reform and uphold these principles:

• Labor and employment laws must be vigorously enforced for all workers.
  Immigrants who live in the shadows for fear of detention and deportation often do not come forward to complain about stolen wages, unsafe workplaces, illegal union-busting, or discriminatory practices. All workers suffer when these abuses go unchecked.

• Government agencies that enforce labor laws must maintain an unbreakable firewall with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE).
  There is a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between ICE and the U.S. Department of Labor that theoretically protects undocumented workers who file complaints about labor abuses from being subject to immigration enforcement actions while these abuses are investigated. However, ICE investigations and workplace raids have all too routinely occurred after workers come forward to report wage theft, child labor, health and safety violations, and discrimination, or during union organizing campaigns. The firewall must be strengthened, publicized and enforced.

• A fair and reasonable process to regularize the status of the millions of undocumented immigrants in the United States must be created.
  Immigrants who have lived and worked in the U.S., contributing to the economic, cultural and social fabric of our communities, must be provided with a process to achieve legal status and come out of the shadows.

• A system to determine the issuance of visas for workers must be based on the needs of the American economy at any given time, without regard to race, ethnicity, or country of origin.
  The current system sets arbitrary numbers of visas to be issued each year, with quotas based on country of origin.

You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.

—Exodus 22:21