Church, Labor and Immigration

The Catholic Labor Network, as an association of the faithful dedicated to promoting Catholic Social Teaching on labor and work, has seldom ventured to speak about other policy domains. Immigration has been a partial exception, mainly because the Church and the American labor movement – for different but related reasons – have often partnered to promote an immigration reform providing a path to citizenship for America’s undocumented workers. Since immigration has once again become a central public policy issue, our readers may be interested in reviewing this history and learning how Church and labor are addressing the current moment.

The Universal Church has always upheld the dignity of all people, including migrants. Moreover, the Catholic Church in the United States has always been an immigrant Church, whose membership began with German and Irish immigrants in the 19^th century and was renewed by successive waves from Eastern and Southern Europe and now the developing world, especially Latin America. The Bishops have long been involved in care and advocacy for this portion of the flock and even received grants from the US Government to help migrants and refugees of all faiths and none as they resettle in the United States, assimilating to our country and enriching it with their gifts.

This has not always been true of the labor movement. The relative scarcity of labor in the United States relative to the old world meant that American workers have long enjoyed, if not a just wage, certainly better wages and benefits than their foreign peers. The trade unions born in the late 19^th century constantly contended with employers who sought to replace union workers with lower cost immigrant workers recruited from abroad, and these unions embraced the cause of immigration restriction as a strategy to prevent this. To a greater or lesser degree, the unions that make up the AFL-CIO persisted in this position through most of the twentieth century.

But a growing number of trade union activists, observing the increasing number of exploited undocumented workers, began to advocate for a different approach. They contended that an immigration reform that included a path to citizenship would empower these workers to exercise their legal rights and organize in trade unions. In a landmark 2000 vote, the unions of the AFL-CIO adopted this position officially on behalf of organized labor, placing them in alignment with the Church on this policy issue.

In the decades that followed, both labor and Church focused their advocacy on this reform. Public panels where clerics and trade unionists shared their endorsement of this policy became commonplace. And on the ground, both the Church (usually through the Catholic Campaign for Human Development) and the major labor unions supported many “workers’ centers” created to assist immigrant workers, documented or undocumented, who were exploited or defrauded of their wages by unscrupulous employers.

Both groups have been disappointed by developments of the past decade, as prospects for immigration reform have dimmed and public support for punitive policies against undocumented immigrants has increased.

Public opinion in the past few years has been inflamed by a seemingly insoluble challenge on our Southern border. America has long prided herself in providing asylum for those persecuted in their home country, but has also imposed limits on the number of “economic” migrants who seek to move to America to seek better jobs and opportunities for themselves and their families. Recently large numbers of economic migrants have presented themselves at the Southern border describing themselves as asylum applicants, overwhelming the government’s capacity to discern between the two.

While most Americans want our nation to continue offering asylum to the truly persecuted, many were frustrated by the chaotic scenes created by these conditions. Understandably so – Catholic Social Teaching supports the rights of migrants but also recognizes the right of nations to control their own borders. And large numbers of American workers, both organized and unorganized, remain unpersuaded by trade unionist defenses of immigrant workers.

With the recent presidential election, those who favor drastic and punitive action to bar and remove immigrants gained the upper hand. Both Church and labor have been affected by the new administration’s actions.

The Church has continued to remind the faithful and people of good will of the dignity of migrants, whatever their state. The new administration, however, almost immediately stripped the US Conference of Catholic Bishops of grant support for resettlement activities. USAID has canceled funding for Catholic organizations caring for refugees abroad. And supporters of the administration have begun to conduct tendentious and threatening “investigations” of Catholic charitable organizations offering food, shelter and care to US migrants without inquiring into their immigration status.

The nation’s labor unions have expressed solidarity with immigrant workers of whatever legal status and been highly critical of many of the harsh new policies. Their position has been crystallized by the unlawful deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to a notorious prison in El Salvador.

It appears that Abrego Garcia was at some point misidentified as a member of a Salvadoran criminal gang, then mistakenly – in contravention of a standing judicial order – deported along with a group of Venezuelan migrants also accused of gang membership. Why has this case been a special concern of organized labor?

Abrego Garcia was not just a random victim of mistaken identity and abuse of power. He was a member of a trade union, SMART – the Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Union. He was an apprentice sheet metal worker. (Sheet metal workers are construction workers who perform various tasks with sheet metal, especially fabricating and installing the ductwork for heating and air conditioning systems.)

As I have often noted, there are only two institutions in modern America that regularly invoke the word solidarity: the Catholic Church and the labor movement. Abrego Garcia’s case has attracted support from many segments of society, but no national organization has mobilized the way SMART has on behalf of a union brother in need. From the moment of his seizure and deportation, SMART has issued statements, appeared on media, and organized rallies bringing out the unions of the other construction trades (including my own, LIUNA, the union of construction laborers) and beyond. As SMART President Michael Coleman explained,

Kilmar, our Local 100 brother, is a resident of Maryland and a sheet metal apprentice who works full-time to support his wife and five-year-old son, who has autism and a hearing impairment. He came to the United States as a teenager 15 years ago, and it is my understanding that he was legally authorized to live and work in this country and had fully complied with his responsibilities under the law. He did not have a criminal record and is, in fact, an example of the hard work that SMART members pride themselves on. And yet, the Trump Administration still — aware of his protected status — deported him to El Salvador, leaving his wife to discover that information from photographs in a news release.

In his pursuit of the life promised by the American dream, Brother Kilmar was literally helping to build this great country. What did he get in return? Arrest and deportation to a nation whose prisons face outcry from human rights organizations. SMART condemns his treatment in the strongest possible terms, and we demand his rightful return.

The Catholic Labor Network will continue to report on the developing story of Church and labor responses to immigration policy as events warrant.

Clayton Sinyai, CLN Labor Advisor