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MTW comment on DHS and DOJ’s proposed “Circumvention of Legal Pathways” rule

RE: Proposed Rule on Circumvention of Lawful Pathways, USCIS-2022-0016-0001¹

Dear Director Jaddou and Director Neal:

Migration that Works submits the following comment to oppose the Department of Homeland Security’s and the Department of Justice’s proposed “Circumvention of Lawful Pathways” rule. Migration that Works is a coalition of labor, migration, civil rights, and anti-trafficking organizations and academics advancing a labor migration model that respects the human rights of workers, families, and communities and reflects their voices and experiences. Founded in 2011 as the International Labor Recruitment Working Group (ILRWG), Migration that Works is the first coordinated effort to strategically address worker rights abuses across industries and visa categories.

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MTW’s letter of support for California’s AB 364

Dear Governor Newsom,

On behalf of Migration that Works, we write to urge you to sign AB 364 (Rodriguez). Since our founding in 2011, Migration that Works (formerly known as the “International Labor Recruitment Working Group” or “ILRWG” for short) has documented widespread abuse and systemic flaws in recruitment for U.S. work visa programs, including fraud, discrimination, and economic coercion.¹AB 364 would prevent many of these abuses—protecting workers and preventing human trafficking—by regulating international labor recruiters who recruit for jobs in California. And it would protect law-abiding employers that use registered recruiters. With your leadership, California will protect more than 300,000 internationally recruited migrant workers and establish a model for ethical labor recruitment that other states can follow.

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MTW’s Recommendations to DHS Towards Ensuring Mobility for H2 Workers

May 17, 2022

Every worker should be able to leave a job for any reason without fearing that their employer will retaliate against them or that they will be barred from employment elsewhere. This fundamental principle of workers’ mobility is enshrined in US anti-retaliation laws and international labor mobility frameworks. Nevertheless, the H-2A and H-2B programs currently prevent most workers from leaving one job and finding another because they tie these workers’ visas to a single employer.

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Migration that Works statement on the Biden Administration’s alarming Expansion of the H-2B Program

February 25, 2022

The H-2B non-agricultural temporary work visa program leaves workers exposed to widespread abuse and exploitation. Despite the H-2B program’s well-documented structural flaws, the Biden administration and federal legislators have moved to dramatically expand this program — without first instituting protections endorsed by workers and advocates. Migration that Works opposes this approach — which so far has ignored the workers’ needs — and urges U.S. federal agencies and policymakers to protect migrant workers in the H-2 labor migration programs.

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Migration that Works’ Response to the Updated National Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking

January 24, 2022

The Biden-Harris Administration has a crucial opportunity to marshal the federal government’s resources and deploy its agencies to more effectively combat human trafficking—a devastating problem that the pandemic has exacerbated. As we observe Human Trafficking Prevention Month, the time is now for a robust, worker-centered strategy to end human trafficking, and particularly forced labor and debt bondage. Last month, the Administration published an updated National Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking (“Plan”). While Migration that Works commends the Administration for using gender and racial equity lenses and addressing migrant workers in its Plan—vital perspectives missing from the last administration’s version of the Plan—its proposed strategies to protect migrant workers fall woefully short.

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Statement of solidarity with farmworkers who have suffered discrimination, racism, and displacement

As a Coalition committed to advancing equitable labor migration policies, we are in solidarity with farmworkers throughout the U.S., particularly those who have suffered historic discrimination, racism and displacement from their lands and communities.

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Human rights of migrants and their families must be a priority in a North American vision of migration

November 19, 2021

Yesterday, U.S. President Biden convened with Canada’s Prime Minister Trudeau and President López Obrador of Mexico, to discuss regional priorities, including migration. As a coalition of labor, migration, civil rights, anti-trafficking organizations and academics, we urge all three leaders to move away from “quick-fix” solutions and keep working towards a regional vision of migration that prioritizes the human rights of migrants and their families.

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Joint comment on USCIS’s newly proposed I-129H2A and I-129H2B forms for Nonimmigrant workers.

Continue reading “Joint comment on USCIS’s newly proposed I-129H2A and I-129H2B forms for Nonimmigrant workers.”

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Statement Regarding the Inhumane Treatment of Haitian Migrants at the US Border

Migration that Works decries the vile, inhumane treatment of Haitian migrant families and asylum-seekers at the US Border. The horrific violence perpetrated by the US Border Patrol in Del Río, Texas towards primarily Black Haitian migrants searching for refuge and security is unconscionable and unforgivable. This treatment is reminiscent of the footprint of slavery in the US, and the Biden Administration’s treatment of Haitian migrants is a reminder of the systemic racism and anti-Blackness that viciously pervade US institutions.

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Open Letter to FIFA

When the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) unveiled the location of the 2026 World Cup, sports fans across North America naturally rejoiced. For the first time, the most-watched tournament in the world would be hosted by three countries: Mexico, the US and Canada. And this time, advocates had a reason to be enthusiastic, too—FIFA would require host nations and cities to submit a human rights plan as part of its selection criteria. This new policy signaled FIFA’s commitment to creating the infrastructure to address human rights abuses and to protect workers, following the highly-publicized, atrocious working conditions faced by guestworkers in the years leading up to the Qatar 2022 World Cup.

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Statement on “The Biden Administration Blueprint for a Fair, Orderly, and Humane Immigration System” and “Collaborative Migration Management Strategy” report

Last week, the Biden Administration published its Blueprint for a Fair, Orderly, and Humane Immigration System and the “Collaborative Migration Management Strategy” report, both of which included plans to expand access to Central America for the current H-2A and H-2B temporary work visa programs. At the same time, the Administration announced that it will resume the inhumane expedited removal of asylum-seeking families, and has yet to repeal the Title 42 policy, which directs immigration authorities to summarily expel migrants without providing them the opportunity to seek protection in the United States. These policies are a troubling continuation of the Trump Administration’s approach, prioritizing the expansion of exploitative temporary work visa programs over our government’s humanitarian responsibilities to asylum seekers and those with protection needs.

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Letter of Opposition to Harmful H-2 Appropriation Riders

We fear that the appropriations process will once again be used to the
detriment of workers, whose risks have only intensified during the Covid-19 pandemic. In this letter, we strongly urge members of Congress to oppose any and all appropriation riders that will increase exploitation and further undermine fundamental rights for migrant workers and workers in the U.S.

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Statement on President Biden’s Immigration Plan

January 22, 2021

Migration that Works applauds the Biden-Harris administration for its bold immigration plan that would grant a pathway to citizenship to millions of undocumented individuals, including DACA recipients, TPS holders, and immigrant farmworkers. We also celebrate the end of the Muslim travel ban and a commitment to advance racial equity signaled through Day 1 executive orders.

Since 2011, Migration that Works has advocated for strong worker protections in the U.S. temporary work visa programs, including the H-2A, H-2B, H-1B, J-1, and TN visa categories. Many of those workers, sadly, find themselves in abusive worksites where their labor and employment rights are not respected and are repeatedly violated with impunity by employers that can exert a great deal of power over them due to the legal frameworks of work visa programs, most of which tie each worker and their immigration status to a single employer. Last month, our coalition met with the Biden-Harris Transition team, sharing our recommendations to advance policies and a labor migration model that respects and uplifts the experiences of hundreds of thousands of migrant workers who enter the U.S. every year. We are happy to see the Biden-Harris immigration plan include protections from retaliation for workers that would allow them to remain in the country to pursue legal avenues to seek redress and hold employers accountable for lawbreaking.

Our coalition looks forward to working with the Biden-Harris Administration to ensure strong, enforceable protections are in place for the migrant and seasonal workers in the temporary work visa programs, to ensure that temporary work status is de-linked from employers, and to ensure the fair treatment and dignity of all workers, regardless of status.

Migration that Works is a coalition of labor, migration, civil rights, anti-trafficking organizations and academics advancing a labor migration model that respects the human rights of workers, families and communities and reflects their voices and experiences. We envision a value-based model for labor migration that prioritizes the human rights of workers and their families, elevating labor standards for all workers.

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The Biden-Harris Administration Should Ensure Protections for Migrant Workers

As the COVID-19 pandemic worsens across the country and millions of families remain at home to keep safe, essential workers continue to risk their lives in every sector of the economy. Despite their sacrifice, workers on the front lines have often been denied basic protections. In one particularly stark example, Maribel and Reyna, two crawfish workers in Louisiana, watched as dozens of their coworkers fell sick with COVID-19. Despite the outbreak, their employers failed to provide them with masks and instead forced them to continue working and living in crowded, dangerous conditions. When two workers became sick and sought medical attention, their employer fired them and reported them to immigration authorities.

For migrant workers, labor abuse didn’t start with the COVID-19 crisis. Rather, the pandemic has laid bare the ways in which our country’s temporary visa programs systematically risk the lives of hundreds of thousands of migrant workers who come to the United States every year. Workers are often recruited from their home countries with false promises. Instead, many discover hazardous working conditions, deplorable housing, and stolen wages. They are often unable to quit or return home because they are indebted to recruiters who charged them illegal fees in exchange for the promise of employment. Their visas and work authorization tie them to their employers, making it virtually impossible for them to find alternative employment. And with little government oversight or enforcement, unscrupulous employers are able to continue profiting from this exploitation.

As the country reckons with the havoc wrought by the pandemic, the economic crisis, and four years of harmful government action, it must prioritize the needs of its most vulnerable workers.

Migration that Works, a coalition of labor, migration, civil rights, anti-trafficking organizations and academics, has outlined how the new Biden-Harris administration can chart a new way forward in its transition plan, Comprehensive Recommendations for the Presidential Transition Team on Preventing Abuses of Internationally Recruited Workers.

The MTW transition plan provides detailed recommendations for the Departments of Labor, Homeland Security, State, and Justice as well as the National Labor Relations Board and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. We call on the Biden-Harris administration to:

Implement realistic, worker-protective policies and practices to end recruiter fees. Recruiters–not workers–should face consequences when illegal fees are charged.
Provide immigration relief and work authorization for whistleblowers. Labor laws can only be effectively enforced when workers know that they will not face retaliation for reporting workplace mistreatment.
Revive the interagency task force on international labor recruitment.
Improve the transparency of temporary work visas by creating an accessible website with detailed information about visas, jobs, and recruiters.
Overhaul the visa programs so that each visa category has consistent regulations under a single framework.
Create an Office of International Labor Recruitment Certification and Oversight with the power to block program violators from accessing future visas.
Improve employer accountability by requiring all who benefit from migrant labor agree to joint liability.
Improve worker education and access to information by cooperating with governments in countries of origin to thwart misleading propaganda and by enhancing information provided during consular processing of temporary work visas.
Increase resources for enforcement so that unscrupulous employers and recruiters cannot continue profiting off of the mistreatment of migrant workers.
Expand labor and employment protections for migrant workers, particularly during the pandemic.

These changes alone are only the beginning.

These changes alone are only the beginning. Legislative reforms— to end the current system of tied visas and including a pathway to citizenship for all temporary work visa holders—are also necessary. The Biden-Harris administration must reform our labor migration system to ensure all workers are treated with dignity and respect.

Migration that Works would like to thank Georgetown University Law Center Federal Legislation Clinic Director Cori Alonso-Yoder and students Jocelyn Westray and Marquisha Johns for contributing to this transition plan.

Click here to read our Transition Memo.

Social media toolkit about transition memo: here.

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USDA’s Cancellation of Farm Labor Survey will Result in Massive Wage Cuts

On September 30, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) issued a notice cancelling the Farm Labor Survey (FLS) of agricultural employers. The FLS is one of the best sources of information on the wages of agricultural workers—and the Department of Labor (DOL) is required to use it to determine what is known as the Adverse Effect Wage Rate (AEWR), the main minimum wage that employers must pay to farmworkers employed through the H-2A agricultural guestworker program, as well as similarly situated U.S. workers. In the absence of FLS results, DOL will lack the necessary information to adequately set the AEWR for 2021 and beyond. This will result in massive wage cuts for both U.S. farmworkers and farmworkers recruited and employed through the H-2A program. Consequently, a reduction in H-2A guestworker wages risks expansion of the structural and systemic conditions for labor trafficking in U.S.agriculture. Wage cuts may increase the financial burden of migrant guestworkers, many of whom are particularly vulnerable to debt bondage, a nonviolent method of coercion in labor trafficking.

Throughout the years we have seen a rapid expansion of the H-2A program. Over 250,000 H-2A jobs were certified in FY 2019 and the program is on track to surpass that in FY 2020.

Rather than giving the farmworkers the Trump administration has deemed “essential” a raise in 2021, Trump has opted to give them a pay cut instead, while giving yet another subsidy to the farm industry in the form of lower labor costs—on top of the $32 billion in federal subsidies the industry has already received in 2020—and during a year in which farm employers increased their net income by 23%.

The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) for decades has prohibited employers from hiring guestworkers at wage rates that would “adversely affect” the wages and working conditions of U.S. farmworkers, which is implemented through the AEWR. This is an important protection for both domestic farmworkers and migrant guestworkers that helps keep farm employers from manipulating the immigration system in order to cut labor costs and degrade standards for all.

Migration that Works objects to this sudden and abrupt cancellation of the FLS and sees this action from the Trump Administration as creating an incentive to exploit an already-vulnerable workforce. The H-2A program is rife with abuse, ranging from wage theft to labor trafficking. In a survey done among H-2A workers, only 43% of the respondents indicated that they had been paid all of the wages they were owed. This action from the Trump administration signals a move towards further weakening the very few labor protections available to farmworkers. It will have a significant impact on farmworkers’ income, which is already precarious, and make them even more vulnerable to economic insecurity and labor trafficking.

Migration that Works is a coalition of labor, migration, civil rights, and anti-trafficking organizations and academics working to address abuses in international labor recruitment.

Throughout the years we have seen a rapid expansion of the H-2A program. Over 250,000 H-2A jobs were certified in FY 2019 and the program is on track to surpass that in FY 2020.

Migration that Works is a coalition of labor, migration, civil rights, and anti-trafficking organizations and academics working to address abuses in international labor recruitment.

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The Senate must protect migrant workers during the pandemic

Today, we are writing to the U.S. Senate urging policymakers to protect the more than one and a half million workers employed in the United States through temporary foreign work visas in any future legislation related to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Instead of enhancing desperately needed protections for temporary foreign workers during the COVID-19 pandemic, recent actions by the administration threaten to increase their exploitation and vulnerability to trafficking. As the Senate considers additional legislation to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic impacts, we are seeking for specific measures to be included to protect the health, safety, and economic security of these essential workers.

Read our full letter to the Senate here and download below.

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Our letter regarding the latest temporary rule changes to the H-2 programs

Last week, we wrote to the U.S. Department of State, Labor, and Homeland Security to express our concern regarding the implications of recent temporary rule changes to the H-2A and H-2B (“H-2”) visa programs. Although these rules intend to protect the U.S. food supply chain, we believe that – without clarification and modifications – they threaten to increase the exploitation and vulnerability to trafficking for the temporary guestworkers critical to the continued operation of this country’s food supply chain.

Read the full letter here or download below.

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2020 TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS REPORT FAILS TO RECOGNIZE EXTENT OF WIDESPREAD ABUSES IN U.S. GUESTWORKER PROGRAMS

2020 TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS REPORT FAILS TO RECOGNIZE EXTENT OF WIDESPREAD ABUSES IN U.S. GUESTWORKER PROGRAMS

On June 16, the U.S. Department of State released its 20^th annual Trafficking in Persons Report. Migration that Works, a coalition of labor, migration, civil rights, anti-trafficking organizations and academics advancing a labor migration model that respects the human rights of workers, families and communities – issued the following statement in response:

We are disappointed to see that the U.S. has once again given itself a top grade when it comes to efforts to fight human trafficking. As a diverse coalition of advocates and service providers working directly with survivors of human trafficking in multiple sectors of the labor force, we know firsthand that this grade has not been earned. In particular, we believe the U.S. has a tremendous amount of work to do to address vulnerability to labor trafficking in its guestworker programs.

Rachel Micah-Jones, executive director of Centro de los Derechos del Migrante (CDM) which chairs Migration that Works, said she and her staff were surprised to see that the U.S. maintained its Tier 1 ranking in the TIP report. “The U.S. should have been downgraded. As an organization that supports migrant worker advocacy, CDM has filed two trafficking lawsuits with internationally recruited workers in the last week alone.”

Two hallmarks of these programs, worker indebtedness through the recruitment process and unbreakable ties to a specific employer, virtually guarantee that workers cannot safely speak out against abuse for fear of deportation. U.S. government asylum policies, mass detention of immigrants in recent years, including separation of families, and immigration policy response to COVID-19 have exacerbated immigrant workers’ vulnerability and created a climate of fear that fundamentally erodes U.S. efforts to address human trafficking.

Although the TIP report is used primarily as a tool of diplomacy to “name and shame” countries into improving trafficking prevention and response efforts, the report nonetheless serves as an indicator about how seriously the U.S. takes trafficking in its own backyard. By giving itself a Tier 1 rating, the U.S. government continues to demonstrate apathy toward meaningful improvements of conditions for immigrant workers who provide essential contributions to the U.S. economy. We believe that to truly earn a Tier 1 rating, the U.S. must reimagine its guestworker programs so they uphold fundamental rights to freedom of movement, freedom from economic coercion and intimidation, and access to justice.

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Statement on Trump Administration Executive Order Restricting Worker Visas

Migration that Works, a coalition of labor, academics, migrant rights and anti-human trafficking organizations formed in 2011, denounces the Administration’s latest immigration order as another tactic to divert attention from its dismal response to the COVID-19 crisis, which has left more than 120,000 people in the U.S. dead. Instead of focusing on taking concrete actions to protect all workers, this Administration relies, once again, upon furthering a nativist agenda in an effort to divide workers.

We are seeing a rising number of workers dying and being infected with coronavirus on the job. Thousands of workers are falling ill to the coronavirus in unsafe and dangerous work sites throughout the country. These workers are not provided with personal protective equipment; paid sick leave; and, they face retaliatory action if they raise a complaint about their work conditions. Yet, there is no action from the agency that is supposed to be workers’ health and safety watchdog – OSHA.

Missing in this order is anything that reforms the problematic guestworker programs. International workers experience abusive recruitment processes in which they are often charged exorbitant amounts of money. This Order does not indicate what steps the Administration will take to address workers that have already incurred significant expenses in pursuing guestworker visas. Applicants often take out loans or put property up for collateral in order to pay several thousand dollars in fees in order to secure a visa. This is a long process that with this announcement leaves them in the dark. Unknown is whether the recruiters and sponsor agencies involved will reimburse these workers for unused fees.

Instead of nativist and xenophobic bans, we need protections for all workers now.

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Migration That Works will not be silent

“There comes a time when silence is betrayal.”Martin Luther King Jr.

Migration That Works will not be silent

Migration That Works stands in solidarity with the Black community as they demand justice for the murders of George Floyd, Tony McDade, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and many other victims of police brutality. The Minneapolis police officer’s knee on George Floyd’s neck that resulted in his brutal murder is both a physical manifestation and symbol of the physical and structural racism that is persistent and pervasive in every aspect of Black lives in the United States. This racial violence results from historic, systemic injustices like slavery and lynchings committed with impunity–as well as state-sponsored and state-sanctioned violence, which have been tools utilized to maintain the status quo of white supremacy over public policy and civic life. We cannot be silent. We demand justice. We demand change.

Migration That Works is a coalition of labor, migration, civil rights, anti-trafficking organizations, and academics advancing a labor migration model that respects the human rights of workers, families, and communities and reflects their voices and experiences. We envision a value-based model for labor migration that prioritizes the human rights of workers and their families, elevating labor standards for all workers.

As a coalition, we acknowledge that this is a common fight for dignity, equality, and freedom. We commit to taking the following steps:

Uplift Black Migrant voices in the demand for justice and speak out against racist policies and practices that exclude or devalue them.
Seek to form long term collaborations with Black migrant coalitions.

These commitments serve as a foundation for a long-term road map for Migration that Works. Above all, we will leverage our platform, and amplify the voices of those most affected to combat the racial injustice that pervades our country.

Black Lives Matter.

Spotlight on Black-led organizations leading efforts on the ground in MN: Black Visions Collective

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Migration that Works During Pandemics- Our Letter to Washington

As migrant worker communities continue to live through and face the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, we write this letter seeking protections for the more than one and a half million workers who are employed in in the United States through a multitude of temporary visas. We urge and ask federal policymakers to consider workers in temporary visas in any future legislation related to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and national emergency, including relief packages and economic stimulus.

We must act now.

During a national crisis we must all pull together and ensure that every resident is safe and healthy and has the freedom to take the appropriate measures necessary to physically distance themselves from others. Immigration status should not be a determinant of who can access relief measures like access to testing, unemployment insurance, and paid leave.

Read our letter here.