Illegal Immigrants Exploited During The Workplace

As the daughter of an immigrant, I have witnessed the various barriers faced by immigrants, and this experience has motivated me toward my career objective. According to the Pew Research Center Hispanic Trends Project, there were about 11.3 million immigrants living illegally in the United States in 2013 (Passel et al., 2014). These immigrants come from all parts of the world for several different reasons. Whether to provide better resources for their family back home or to live a better life, these immigrants usually work in environments that can be harmful and dangerous to their health.

Some argue that immigrants will take our jobs after the allowance of legalization and attendance of postsecondary education. It is a true fact that those who become legal in the labor market will demand better treatment, respect, increased wages, and employee benefits. Those, who already have a degree, and clean houses for living due to their status, will apply for jobs equal to their education. Although the fact that they will take our job is true to some degree, it is a rhetoric marketed exaggerator, installed to create fear, and lead to an opposition to immigration reform. The legalization will affect most companies that benefit from a mistreatment of undocumented immigrants and will affect businesses that profit from underpaying their hired laborers, documented or undocumented. According to Aviva Chomsky, “Governments have made sure that there are people without rights to fulfill business’s need for cheap workers and high profits” (126). Businesses tend to oppose restriction on immigration today because inequality maintains a population of poor people who lack access to resources, and who may have little alternative but to accept jobs under the worst of conditions (15). “The answer to the low-wage problem is not to restrict the rights of people at the bottom even more (through deportations, criminalization, etc.) but to challenge the accord between business and government that promote the low-wage, high-profit model” (27). Immigrants have always flooded America, to work as a cheap labor, work under strenuous conditions, send remittance to their home countries, and return home. The fact that people believed immigrants come to steal the American wealth is altered by the globalization of the economy, and it hurts to have a vulnerable nation labor force to compete with other countries. According to Chomsky, “As of 2005, Social Security was receiving about $7 billion a year through false social security numbers provided by illegal immigrant workers” (38). This fact is based on a low-income/low immigrant wage. Therefore, allowing immigrants to access higher education and better-paid jobs will result in higher income taxes, higher real estate and consumer’s taxes, community involvement and volunteering. If the

There are many vulnerable populations within the United States. One of the many vulnerable populations are undocumented immigrants. Undocumented immigrants also known as illegal immigrants according to Wikipedia (2016) is defined as “the migration of people across national boarders in a way that violates the immigration laws of the destination country” (para 1). The United States of America has one of the largest population of immigrants. In this paper, I will be discussing the multiple stressors related to undocumented immigrants as well as the programs that can be used to help alleviate those stressors.

Mexicans are hard workers and often work for less pay than Americans are willing to accept. There are approximately 8 million illegal immigrants working in the United States. Mexicans are usually are employed in construction, natural resources, maintenance, production, transportation, farming, and moving material jobs. On average, an immigrant has a household income of approximately $37,390 compared to a natural born citizen’s average household income of $54,565. Many immigrants work harder than Americans and receive less pay. Hiring Mexicans can save American employers due to the fact they do not have to pay higher wages and do not have to provide benefits. Because two-thirds of Mexican immigrants do not have a high school education, American employers do not pay them the same

“Undocumented workers are among the most vulnerable and exploited workers in our country, as frequent victims of unpaid wages, dangerous conditions and uncompensated workplace injuries, discrimination, and other labor law violations” (Workplace Fairness). Many southern red states, have extremely harsh, unjust immigration policies that aim to deport undocumented immigrants. Latinos in the south must watch their backs everywhere they go, making them the most vulnerable minority group in the US. While, certain policies and laws exist that protect undocumented workers, the majority of immigrants remain uninformed about the existence of these policies. “There is a tremendous need to inform workers and employers of their rights and responsibilities under our employment laws, to provide greater resources for enforcement of such laws, to increase access for workers to the legal system and community organizing, and to adopt immigration policy reforms that will remove the vulnerability of undocumented workers” (Workplace Fairness). For example, a law called the Fair Labor Standards Act "contains no exception to or exclusion for persons who are not U.S. citizens or who are in this country illegally,” (New Jersey Law Journal), meaning that undocumented immigrants have a right to receive pay for the work they

In the United States of America there are an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants currently residing in the U.S. Many industries depend heavily on immigrant labor , legal and illegal, to achieve productivity. The construction industry, nationally , employ at a fast rate about 1,000,000 illegal immigrants; almost one in five illegal immigrants work major industries. (Passel,2006). Immigrant reform will undoubtedly reduce the supply of illegal immigrant by encouraging enforcement of current laws by creating new legislation with harsher penalties for illegal immigration. The enforcement of the new laws will allow for industries to allow employers to recruit and hire foreign born workers only with signs of identification. However for the industries

As the number of illegal immigrants entering the United States begins to increase once more, the issue of allowing or prohibiting immigrants to gain temporary status in order to obtain work continues to create national problems. According to a report given by the Department of Homeland Security, it is estimated that the number of immigrants entering the U.S. is at about 1.1 million people per year. (Hanson Par. 1) These individuals come into the United States in search of better living conditions and opportunities. However, these immigrants face challenges when it comes to work and other types of living.

The number of undocumented workers in the United States has increased since the rise of our economy. An undocumented worker is a person in a country, like the United States, without the right documents to be proven to be allowed in the country. Many reasons are blamed for the increase of these undocumented workers. Undocumented workers increased because the change in law of the United States made it impossible for foreign workers to go to the country (Zoltan). These laws made a chain of problems that the United States is still suffering today. One example of a problem is the decrease of American jobs. The problems of the United States caused by undocumented workers can be solved by supporting Mexico and other countries to make more jobs

Undocumented immigrants refer to “people who presently possess no proof of any right to be present in the United States, whether or not they have been declared deportable by the US government (and the vast majority have not)” (Lyon, 2004, p581). According to the United States Census Bureau there are approximately eight to eleven million undocumented immigrants residing in the United States (Porter, 2006). Each year, approximately 500,000 more arrive without legal documentation. The number of undocumented immigrants now exceeds the number of documented immigrant arrivals. The majority of the undocumented immigrants arrive from Mexico (57 to 70%) and Latin America (23 to 24%), with a smaller number from Europe and Canada (5 to 6 %

This article is about undocumented immigrants that works in low paying jobs and the point of this article is to inform me as the reader that these undocumented workers are struggling to care for their families. These undocumented workers pays taxes, but do not receive the benefits they deserve. The author emphasized that since they are in the workforce, they contribute to the economy. The article mentioned that lack of education, language barrier and legal status plays a major part in the workforce for undocumented immigrants. The author went on the different types of jobs that most undocumented people takes part in, and also how less desirable jobs are offered to undocumented low-skilled immigrants. Even though they are not allowed to work, they somehow play a significant role on the

For example, an illegal immigrant may be working in a restaurant for over twelve hours a day, but doesn't get paid for overtime. Most importantly, some of these workers don't even know they are victimized, they even think certain level of corporal punishment from their boss is acceptable, because they used to work that way and they believe it's the way it should be. After all, they are earning much more than they used to when they were back in their original countries.

The Immigration and Reform Control Act of 1986 focuses on the employment of illegal aliens. This act does make it unlawful for a person or businesses to hire, recruit, or refer for a fee, individuals who are not legally eligible for employment in the U.S (Mitchell, 1999). This means that an employer should not hire an individual who is not eligible for work in the U.S. In this case the employer should not have hired illegal aliens to begin with. Having them employed with the company goes against the act.

According to an article, it states “Employers argued that the IRCA and the Supreme Court's decision in Hoffman makes it illegal for an undocumented alien to obtain employment benefits in the United States. (31) However, people who qualify as employees based on the statutory definition drafted by the respective state legislature are eligible for workers' compensation benefits, and illegal immigrants can be designated as employees and thus be eligible for benefits” (Fisenberg and Presmanes.) If you are working in the U.S. undocumented or not you deserve the rights to receive benefits from your job because they are responsible not you. “In July 2003, a court granted $948,405 from the Employees Compensation Assistance Fund to the widow of an illegal worker who was killed while demolishing a wall at a Shekkipmei construction site in April 2002” (Jim. T Query, Ph.D.) Many people think that the solution to the problem of giving undocumented workers benefits, is to just not hire them that way they aren’t responsible and won’t have to pay for their injuries, but in reality that is never going to happen. As much as people want to get rid of illegal immigrants and think that not giving them employment will solve everything they are sadly mistaken because as each day comes and goes more and more undocumented workers are coming to the U.S. Mexican workers are always at high risk for injuries and death and in order to solve this problem is rather simple, they

Therefore, the more they make coincides with the amount of tax money they contribute to the Social Security Trust Fund. The chief actuary for the Social Security Administration, Stephen Goss, told the ny times that undocumented workers contribute about $15 billion a year to Social Security through payroll taxes, but only take out $1 billion because very few undocumented workers are eligible to receive benefits (Davidson). Undocumented immigrants are not eligible for most federal health programs and to receive social Security benefits even though they contribute to the system. For example, they are not eligible for Medicaid services and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), but are able to receive help from Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC). Therefore, their ineligibility restricts the opportunity to be a greater “burden to society” then claimed. Illegal Immigrants tend to contribute more to the public purse in taxes than they take out because they are usually of working age, meaning they are less likely to depend on state

In addition, immigrants also try and apply for employment when they can, to try and reach their goal of the “American Dream” or their ideal theory of freedom. However, because of the necessity of jobs they can obtain, which are those many the American’s don’t want including: janitorial, agricultural, street cleaning, or even risky jobs. Getting less than minimum wage, not aware of the laws of the government as it pertains to paying taxes becomes a cycle where they are forced by many of the employers to break the law which otherwise would be followed. Not to mention, the occasional employer takes advantage of the 'illegal alien' and usually pays below minimum wage because they know the worker has no option but to either quit or accept it. And