Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T22:05:14.376Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Employers as Subjects of the Immigration State: How the State Foments Employment Insecurity for Temporary Immigrant Workers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 June 2020

Shannon Gleeson Open the ORCID record for Shannon Gleeson [Opens in a new window]  and
Kati L. Griffith
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The state plays a key role in shaping worker precarity, and employers are key actors in mediating this process. While employers sometimes may act as willing extensions of the deportation machinery, they are also subjects of the immigration state. In this article, we highlight the impact of state-employer dynamics on migrant workers with Temporary Protected Status (TPS). These workers have only provisional permission to live and work in the United States, but are not tied to any single employer. Even though they are privileged over unauthorized workers and employer-sponsored guest workers, TPS holders experience their own brand of state-induced precarity. Their employers risk civil or criminal liability if they are not in compliance with work authorization requirements and must repeatedly navigate an unpredictable and confusing immigration bureaucracy. Drawing on interviews with 121 low-wage TPS workers and two dozen of their advocates in the New York City metropolitan area, our findings reveal that the intertwined coercive and bureaucratic arms of the immigration state together make hiring TPS workers a more risky and costly proposition for employers, thereby exacerbating the job insecurity that TPS workers already face due to an at-will employment regime that offers few protections against firing.

Type
Articles
Information
Law & Social Inquiry , Volume 46 , Issue 1 , February 2021 , pp. 92 - 115
Copyright
© 2020 American Bar Foundation

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Abrego, Leisy J., and Lakhani, Sarah M.. “Incomplete Inclusion: Legal Violence and Immigrants in Liminal Legal Statuses.” Law & Policy 37, no. 4 (2015): 265–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ajunwa, Ifeoma. “Age Discrimination by Platforms.” Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law 40, no. 1 (2019): 1–28.Google Scholar
Aranda, Elizabeth, Menjívar, Cecilia, and Donato, Katharine M.. “The Spillover Consequences of an Enforcement-First U.S. Immigration Regime.” American Behavioral Scientist 58, no. 13 (2014): 1687–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Armenta, Amada. “Racializing Crimmigration Structural Racism, Colorblindness, and the Institutional Production of Immigrant Criminality.” Sociology of Race and Ethnicity 3, no. 1 (2016): 82–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Armenta, Amada. Protect, Serve, and Deport: The Rise of Policing as Immigration Enforcement. Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2017.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Armenta, Amada, and Alvarez, Isabela. “Policing Immigrants or Policing Immigration? Understanding Local Law Enforcement Participation in Immigration Control.” Sociology Compass 11, no. 2 (2017): 1–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bacon, David, and Hing, Bill Ong. “The Rise and Fall of Employer Sanctions.” Fordham Urban Law Journal 38, no. 1 (2010): 77–105.Google Scholar
Benson, Lenni B. “Breaking Bureaucratic Borders: A Necessary Step toward Immigration Law Reform.” Administrative Law Review 54 (2002): 203–332.Google Scholar
Berrey, Ellen, Nelson, Robert L., and Nielsen, Laura B.. Rights on Trial: How Workplace Discrimination Law Perpetuates Inequality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017.Google Scholar
Bumiller, Kristin. The Civil Rights Society: The Social Construction of Victims. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1992.Google Scholar
Carré, Francoise, and Tilly, Chris. Where Bad Jobs Are Better: Retail Jobs Across Countries and Companies. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2017.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chishti, Muzaffar, Bolter, Jessica, and Pierce, Sarah. “Tens of Thousands in United States Face Uncertain Future, as Temporary Protected Status Deadlines Loom.” Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute, 2017. https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/tens-thousands-united-states-face-uncertain-future-temporary-protected-status-deadlines-loom.Google Scholar
Cohen, Dara Kay, Cuellar, Mariano-Florentino, and Weingast, Barry R.. “Crisis Bureaucracy: Homeland Security and the Political Design of Legal Mandates.” Stanford Law Review 59 (2006): 673–760.Google Scholar
Coutin, Susan Bibler. “The Future of Central American TPS Recipients.” USC Dornsife Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration. November 8, 2017. http://dornsife.usc.edu/csii/blog-coutin-tps.Google Scholar
Department of Homeland Security. “Form I-9 Inspection Overview.” January 8, 2018a. https://www.ice.gov/factsheets/i9-inspection.Google Scholar
Department of Homeland Security. “Yearbook 2017.” August 14, 2018b. https://www.dhs.gov/immigration-statistics/yearbook/2017.Google Scholar
Durazo, Maria Elena. “Making Movement: Communities of Color and New Models of Organizing Labor – Afternoon Keynote Address Symposium.” Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law 27 (2006): 235–42.Google Scholar
Epp, Charles R., Maynard-Moody, Steven, and Haider-Markel, Donald P.. Pulled Over: How Police Stops Define Race and Citizenship. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eubanks, Virginia. Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2018.Google Scholar
Ewick, Patricia, and Silbey, Susan S.. The Common Place of Law: Stories from Everyday Life. Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 1998.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gilliom, John. Overseers of the Poor: Surveillance, Resistance, and the Limits of Privacy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001.Google Scholar
Gleeson, Shannon. Precarious Claims: The Promise and Failure of Workplace Protections in the United States. Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2016.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldstein, Daniel M., and Alonso-Bejarano, Carolina. “E-Terrify: Securitized Immigration and Biometric Surveillance in the Workplace.” Human Organization 76, no. 1 (2017): 1–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldring, Luin, and Landolt, Patricia. Producing and Negotiating Non-citizenship: Precarious Legal Status in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013.Google Scholar
Gomberg-Muñoz, Ruth. Becoming Legal: Immigration Law and Mixed-Status Families. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016.Google Scholar
Gonzales, Roberto G. “Learning to Be Illegal: Undocumented Youth and Shifting Legal Contexts in the Transition to Adulthood.” American Sociological Review 76, no. 4 (2011) 602–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Griffith, Kati L. “US Migrant Worker Law: The Interstices of Immigration Law and Labor and Employment Law.” Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal 31, no. 1 (2009): 125–62.Google Scholar
Griffith, Kati L. “Discovering ‘Immployment’ Law: The Constitutionality of Subfederal Immigration Regulation at Work.” Yale Law and Policy Review 29 (2011): 389–451.Google Scholar
Griffith, Kati L., and Gleeson, Shannon M.. “The Precarity of Temporality: How Law Inhibits Immigrant Worker Claims.” Comparative Labor Law and Policy Journal 39, no. 1 (2017): 111–41.Google Scholar
Guskin, Emily. “‘Illegal,’ ‘Undocumented,’ ‘Unauthorized’: News Media Shift Language on Immigration.” Pew Research Center (blog), June 17, 2013. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/06/17/illegal-undocumented-unauthorized-news-media-shift-language-on-immigration.Google Scholar
Hall, Matthew, Greenman, Emily, and Yi, Youngmin. “Job Mobility among Unauthorized Immigrant Workers.” Social Forces 97, no. 3 (2019): 999–1028.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hallett, Miranda Cady. “Temporary Protection, Enduring Contradiction: The Contested and Contradictory Meanings of Temporary Immigration Status.” Law & Social Inquiry 39, no. 3 (2014): 621–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heeren, Geoffrey. “The Status of Nonstatus.” American University Law Review 64 (2015): 1115–81.Google Scholar
Hillman, Amy J., Withers, Michael C., and Collins, Brian J.. “Resource Dependence Theory: A Review.” Journal of Management 35, no. 6 (2009): 1404–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iskander, Natasha, and Lowe, Nichola. “The Politics of Skill: Rethinking the Value of ‘Low-Skilled’ Immigrant Workers.” Washington, DC: Immigration Policy Center, 2012. http://www.immigrationpolicy.org/perspectives/politics-skill-rethinking-value-low-skilled-immigrant-workers.Google Scholar
Kalleberg, Arne L. Good Jobs, Bad Jobs: The Rise of Polarized and Precarious Employment Systems in the United States, 1970s–2000s. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2011.Google Scholar
Kerr, Sari Pekkala, Kerr, William R., and Lincoln, William F.. “Firms and the Economics of Skilled Immigration.” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 20069, 2014. https://www.nber.org/papers/w20069.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krogstad, Jens Manuel, Passel, Jeffrey S., and Cohn, D’Vera. “5 Facts About Illegal Immigration in the U.S.” Pew Research Center (blog), November 3, 2016. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/03/5-facts-about-illegal-immigration-in-the-u-s.Google Scholar
Kubal, Agnieszka. “Conceptualizing Semi-legality in Migration Research.” Law and Society Review 47, no. 3 (2013): 555–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lahav, Gallya. “Immigration and the State: The Devolution and Privatisation of Immigration Control in the EU.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 24, no. 4 (1998): 674–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lee, Stephen. “Private Immigration Screening in the Workplace.” Stanford Law Review 61 (2009): 1103–46.Google Scholar
Lipsky, Michael. “Bureaucratic Disentitlement in Social Welfare Programs.” The Social Service Review (1984): 3–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Light, Donald W. “Categorical Inequality, Institutional Ambivalence, and Permanently Failing Institutions: The Case of Immigrants and Barriers to Health Care in America.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 35, no. 1 (2012): 23–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Manning, Stephen, and Stumpf, Juliet. “Big Immigration Law.” UC Davis Law Review 52 (2018): 407–34.Google Scholar
Martin, Philip L. Merchants of Labor. Recruiters and International Labor Migration. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2017.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Menjívar, Cecilia. “Liminal Legality: Salvadoran and Guatemalan Immigrants’ Lives in the United States.” American Journal of Sociology 111, no. 4 (2006): 999–1037.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Menjívar, Cecilia. “Spaces of Legal Ambiguity: Central American Immigrants, ‘Streetlevel Workers,’ and Belonging.” In Within and Beyond Citizenship: Borders, Membership and Belonging. Edited by Roberto, G. Gonzales and Sigona, Nando, 36–52. New York: Routledge, 2017.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Menjívar, Cecilia, and Abrego, Leisy J.. “Legal Violence: Immigration Law and the Lives of Central American Immigrants.” American Journal of Sociology 117, no. 5 (2012): 1380–421.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mithas, Sunil, and Lucas, Henry C.. “Are Foreign IT Workers Cheaper? U.S. Visa Policies and Compensation of Information Technology Professionals.” Management Science 56, no. 5 (2010): 745–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O’Neil, Cathy. Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy. New York: Crown, 2016.Google Scholar
Pager, Devah, Western, Bruce, and Pedulla, David. “Employment Discrimination and the Changing Landscape of Low-Wage Labor Markets.” University of Chicago Legal Forum (2009): 317–44.Google Scholar
Patton, Michael Quinn. Qualitative Research & Evaluation Methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, 2002.Google Scholar
Pfeffer, Jeffrey, and Salancik, Gerald R.. The External Control of Organizations: A Resource Dependence Perspective. New York: Harper & Row, 1978.Google Scholar
Rhode, Deborah L. “Access to Justice: A Roadmap for Reform.” Fordham Urban Law Journal 41 (2014): 1227–451.Google Scholar
Ribas, Vanesa. On the Line: Slaughterhouse Lives and the Making of the New South. Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2015.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rios, Victor M. Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys. New York: NYU Press, 2011.Google Scholar
Rissing, Ben A., and Castilla, Emilio J.. “House of Green Cards Statistical or Preference-Based Inequality in the Employment of Foreign Nationals.” American Sociological Review 79, no. 6 (2014): 1226–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rissing, Ben A., and Castilla, Emilio J. “Testing Attestations: U.S. Unemployment and Immigrant Work Authorizations.” ILR Review 69, no. 5 (2016): 1081–113.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roach, Michael, and Skrentny, John. “Why Foreign Stem PhDs Are Unlikely to Work for US Technology Startups.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116, no. 34 (2019): 16805–10. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1820079116.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rodriguez, Nestor. “Workers Wanted.” Work and Occupations 31, no. 4 (2004): 453–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosales, Rocío. Fruteros: Street Vending, Illegality, and Ethnic Community in Los Angeles. Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2020.Google Scholar
Rugh, Jacob S., and Hall, Matthew. “Deporting the American Dream: Immigration Enforcement and Latino Foreclosures.” Sociological Science 3 (2016): 1053–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saucedo, Leticia M. “Immigration Enforcement versus Employment Law Enforcement: The Case for Integrated Protections in the Immigrant Workplace.” Fordham Urban Law Journal 38, no. 1 (2010): 303–25.Google Scholar
Soss, Joe, Fording, Richard, and Schram, Sanford F.. Disciplining the Poor: Neoliberal Paternalism and the Persistent Power of Race. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stuesse, Angela, and Coleman, Mathew. “Automobility, Immobility, Altermobility: Surviving and Resisting the Intensification of Immigrant Policing.” City & Society 26, no. 1 (2014): 51–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stumpf, Juliet P. “Getting to Work: Why Nobody Cares about E-Verify (and Why They Should) Persistent Puzzles in Immigration Law.” UC Irvine Law Review 2 (2012): 381–414.Google Scholar
U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. “ICE Delivers More Than 5,200 I-9 Audit Notices to Businesses Across the US in 2-Phase Nationwide Operation.” ICE Newsroom: News Releases, Worksite Enforcement, July 24, 2018. https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/ice-delivers-more-5200-i-9-audit-notices-businesses-across-us-2-phase-nationwide.Google Scholar
Van Cleve, Nicole Gonzalez. Crook County: Racism and Injustice in America’s Largest Criminal Court. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2016.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vosko, Leah F. “Legal but Deportable: Institutionalized Deportability and the Limits of Collective Bargaining among Participants in Canada’s Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program.” ILR Review 71, no. 4 (2018): 882–907.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wadhia, Shoba Sivaprasad. Beyond Deportation: The Role of Prosecutorial Discretion in Immigration Cases. New York: NYU Press, 2015.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Waldinger, Roger D., and Lichter, Michael I.. How the Other Half Works: Immigration and the Social Organization of Labor. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Warren, Robert. “Reverse Migration to Mexico Led to US Undocumented Population Decline: 2010 to 2018.” Journal on Migration and Human Security 8, no. 1 (2020): 32–41. https://doi.org/10.1177/2331502420906125.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Warren, Robert, and Kerwin, Donald. “A Statistical and Demographic Profile of the US Temporary Protected Status Populations from El Salvador, Honduras, and Haiti.” Journal on Migration and Human Security 5, no. 3 (2017): 577–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weil, David. “Strategic Enforcement in the Fissured Workplace.” In Who Is an Employee and Who Is the Employer?: Proceedings of the New York University 68th Annual Conference on Labor. Edited by Kati L. Griffith and Samuel Estreicher. New York: LexisNexis, 2016.Google Scholar
Zhang, Sufen. “Employers Facing Surge in Immigration Enforcement.” Miles & Stockbridge: Labor, Employment, Benefits & Immigration Blog, April 17, 2019. https://www.milesstockbridge.com/labor-employment-benefits-immigration-blog/posts/employers-facing-surge-immigration-enforcement.Google Scholar