Photo: Aurelia Ventura / Impremedia / Real America News
For: Manuel Ocaño / Special for La Opinión Posted Jan 16, 2023, 22:36 pm EST
The permit that a worker could have “is temporary, but it would expose the exploitation” faced by some employees who steal their wages in the workplace or threaten to file a complaint with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office. to stop paying them.
The Secretary of Security, Alejadro Mayorkas, said in a statement that with the affirmative labor action “we will hold predators accountable for inviting workers to assert their rights, denounce the violations they have suffered or observed, and cooperate in investigations into labor standards.” .
Affirmative action can be requested by both abused workers and their fellow witnesses.
“Through these efforts, and with our labor agency partners, we will effectively protect the American labor market, American workplace conditions, and the dignity of the workers who drive our economy,” added Secretary Mayorkas.
This new procedure allows undocumented migrant workers to request “deferred action,” which means protection from deportation, if they participate in an investigation of wage or labor violations at their workplace.
Workers requesting deferred action would have to present evidence and testimony of the labor violations, show that they work for the companies they accuse, and prove their identity, for example with consular identification cards from their countries.
The investigations of the complaints presented by the workers will continue within the DHS, but they will be addressed by the Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS), which has been in charge of, among other processes, DACA, Deferred Action for Those Who Arrived During Childhood. .
The new DHS policy to protect undocumented workers has been an achievement of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) in Los Angeles.
“The (HSD) announcement is a recognition of what migrant workers have demanded since the first day of the Biden administration,” said Pablo Alvarado, executive director of the organization.
The biggest demand has been “that the United States government prioritize the protection of the rights of migrant workers, instead of deportations,” he said.
Cal Soto, the organization’s director of Labor Rights in Los Angeles, summarized for La Opinión the new deferred action policy for workers.
“When undocumented workers report abuse at their workplaces, they often face retaliation, including threats of dismissal; now Secretary Mayorkas says that the DHS is not going to interfere” against the workers, said Soto.
The DHS will provide “protection against deportation for up to two years and a work permit, so that the workers who complain can pursue their cases in court and can work, but no longer in abusive conditions,” added the lawyer.
In a document, DHS indicates that workers are often afraid to report violations of the law by exploitative employers or to cooperate in employment and labor standards investigations; Additionally, employees fear being kicked out or receiving other immigration-related retaliation from an abusive employer.
It also recognizes that to stop the abuses, it has to give worker victims guarantees that they will not be deported, since “enforcement of labor and employment laws depends on the cooperation of these workers.”
If workers, out of fear of deportation, “refrain from reporting violations out of fear, it creates unfair conditions in the labor market and perpetuates the commission of illegal and inhumane acts by employers, including the non-payment of wages, the imposition of unsafe working conditions and the weakening of the capacity of workers”.
DHS’s decision to offer discretionary protection on a case-by-case basis “to non-citizen victims makes it easier to further investigate workplace violations,” the agency added.
The department reported that to prevent workers who make complaints from having retaliation in their workplaces, it will assign requests for deferred action for labor abuse particularly to a “single entry point,” that is, without much paperwork, and that it will also expedite work permits.