Democrats Need to Get Smart on Immigration

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Peter Shuck thinks Democrats are right to favor legal status for millions of undocumented workers, including Dreamers. He also believes we should legally admit “many more” than the 1.1 million we do now. He also wants to raise refugee admissions to 75,000. But he also thinks Democrats should take enforcement of immigration laws more seriously:

Effective interior enforcement means mandating that all employers use an improved, pre-hiring E-verify status check, and occasionally using well-targeted work site audits and arrests to enforce employer sanctions, which have been on the books since 1986. No administration, Republican or Democratic, has made that a priority. But it could be a winning issue for a smart Democratic candidate appealing to American working-class and union voters.

I agree with all of that except for the “occasionally” part. This doesn’t have to be like a plague of locusts descending on America’s farms and slaughterhouses, but it needs to be routine enough that employers know it’s a real risk. It also needs to be focused 100 percent on businesses. Workers should be left entirely alone except insofar as they need to be questioned to confirm employer records.

Think of what this accomplishes. ICE is no longer in the business of raiding panicked workers in fields and sweatshops. They are dealing exclusively with fellow American citizens. The fines should be big enough to genuinely deter employers and to fund the agency. Over time, illegal immigration would steadily and humanely be reduced simply because the prospect of a job in El Norte would steadily be reduced.

Now add a national ID card to the mix and you’re really in business.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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