Glenwood Springs attorney Donald Kaufman gets a glimpse maybe two dozen times a year at what he considers the failures of U.S. immigration law. Kaufman specializes in workers’ compensation cases, where employees feel benefits have unjustly been withheld, often actions of employers. Half of his clients speak Spanish only, and half of that group is in the country illegally, he said. By taking on those tough cases, Kaufman has learned about a “dirty little secret,” a de facto arrangement involving illegal workers, businesses and the U.S. government.
“Everybody turns a blind eye to [the illegal workers], including the INS,” said Kaufman. “It’s a beautiful arrangement.
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“As long as he is paying taxes, the INS isn’t going to bust the guy. The employers wouldn’t allow it.”
If workers present two forms of identification, then employers can say they did their best to try to weed out illegals. Kaufman has documented in court cases that in some instances, employers have actually helped illegal workers obtain fake IDs.
And often everything turns out just fine. Employers driven to desperation by labor shortages are able to fill positions. Workers coming from impoverished conditions in their native lands can make a decent living. The U.S. government collects taxes, even on many undocumented workers.
But, while the majority of employers treat their workers well, Kaufman feels that something about that arrangement is very, very wrong. He isn’t part of the camp that contends illegals are taking jobs that could be filled by Americans. There aren’t many domestic workers who would clean the toilets of Aspen’s wealthy clientele for the wages offered, given the cost of living in the Roaring Fork Valley, he noted.
The problem is the system puts employers in an incredible position of power and control over workers in the country illegally. An illegal worker for a construction company, for example, may be paid less than documented and domestic workers even for the same work. But if the illegals speak up, the employer holds a trump card.
“The minute they cause any problems, the call to the INS goes out,” said Kaufman. “These guys are scared to death.”
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It isn’t different from the treatment African Americans endured in United States for so long, particularly sharecroppers in the South.
“It’s a really sick form of indentured servitude,” Kaufman said.
Sometimes the underbelly of the system turns up even uglier. An Aspen construction firm helped an illegal worker get documents but when the man had an accident on the job, the firm fired him. The company didn’t want to pay workers compensation for fear its rates would rise.
The man brought his case to Kaufman, who is a partner in a firm that includes his father and brother. Kaufman successfully argued before the Colorado Court of Appeals that employees who are injured on the job are entitled to benefits like workers’ comp, even if they are in the country illegally.
Despite that court victory, the indentured servitude continues and probably won’t stop without reforms to U.S. immigration policy.
Basalt weighs in
While the town of Basalt can’t reform national policy, some Town Council members want to send out a message of support to the valley’s Latino community and other foreign workers — illegal and legal.
Council members Jon Fox-Rubin and Jacque Whitsitt have proposed a resolution that recognizes the value of immigrants; promotes equal rights for workers, including those in the country illegally; seeks amnesty for people in the country illegally; and urges streamlining the immigration process. The final wording of a draft that will be presented to the full council was still in the works as of deadline time.
“We mostly just wanted to send a message about the inequities that are going on,” said Whitsitt.
She and Fox-Rubin learned about those inequities after they helped form a group called Mision Comunidad, which promotes greater understanding between Anglos and Latinos. Based on evidence they heard, she said she believes it is fairly common for salaries of illegal workers to be lower than others doing the same work. Even if they are in the country illegally and they are willingly working for lower wages, labor law and human rights should dictate equal treatment, she said.
She also wants to address discrimination against immigrants — legal and illegal — from police and school administrators. Whitsitt said Latinos believe they are treated differently.
Felicia Trevor, director of the Carbondale-based Stepstone Center, which helps organize local groups working for social causes, works with Fox-Rubin and Whitsitt in Mision Comunidad. She said virtually every immigrant living here, legally or not, is facing difficulties due to immigration law.
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A typical scenario may be that the men of immigrant families received amnesty as agricultural workers in the United States in the late 1980s. Their wives are in the United States illegally, but their children are citizens because they were born here. The families lives in fear that if the wives get busted somehow by the INS, perhaps after a traffic accident, they will be deported.
“It affects everything they do and how they live their lives,” said Trevor.
Although the Basalt resolution is more of a philosophical statement than enforceable law, she said it will send an encouraging message, one of welcome, to the valley’s Latinos. Word will spread through channels such as the Spanish news show on Carbondale public radio station KDNK.
“I’m hoping that it sets a precedent,” Trevor said.
Kaufman also credited Whitsitt and Fox-Rubin for taking what he deemed a risky step in Basalt.
“It’s extremely, extremely courageous for those two individuals to propose that legislation,” he said. “Their voters do not speak Spanish. There is a lot of hostility out there [among Anglos].”
Some issues touch nerves
It’s difficult to imagine opposition to a resolution seeking equal treatment for workers or allowing the spouse of a legal resident to live in the country without fear of being deported.
But giving amnesty for illegal entry and encouraging continued high levels of immigration are issues that strike nerves.
When The Aspen Times reported last fall that the Aspen Skiing Co. was seeking additional special visas for foreign workers for unskilled positions, letters to the editor criticized the Skico for importing cheap labor. The Skico cannot find U.S. workers, the argument goes, because they aren’t willing to work as a lift operator for $9.25 an hour because of the high cost of living in the valley.
Allowing increased immigration to deal with the labor shortage simply serves business interests by keeping wages lower, critics contend.
Environmentalists have also been split by the issue of immigration. Some in their ranks, including a sizable contingent of the Sierra Club, contend that the current high levels of immigration threaten to overpopulate the United States, fuel explosive growth and environmental degradation.
Aspen City Councilman Terry Paulson successfully lobbied his board to approve a resolution last year that urges passage of national legislation aimed at stabilizing the population of the United States. It advocates returning to a legal immigration level of 175,000 annually.
Aspen’s resolution favored greater enforcement against illegal entry into the United States.
“The U.S. is way too generous with people coming into the country,” said Paulson.
His major concern is that the United States will reach its “carrying capacity,” the population that it can reasonably sustain, too quickly with continued high levels of immigration. He is a disciple of environmental journalist Roy Beck, who has made overpopulation and immigration his cause.
Using U.S. Census data, Beck writes that the country’s population will reach 400 million by 2050. An estimated 125 million of those will be immigrants who came to the country after the year 2000 and their descendants.
Excluding immigration, the U.S. population is stabilizing, Beck writes.
A PBS television program called “The First Measured Century” recently reported that 28 million immigrants came to the United States between 1880 and 1930, considered the golden era of the country’s growth. That’s an annual average of 560,000.
Then the United States drew a tighter curtain around its borders until 1965, allowing an average of about 178,000 immigrants annually, according to U.S. Census data. The policy loosened in 1965 and immigration averaged about 500,000 until 1989.
Since then, annual immigration has hovered between 700,000 and 1 million annually, according to various federal government sources.
Paulson supports a policy popular among some environmentalists called “zero-net immigration.” It allows annual immigration equal to the people leaving the country — an estimated 200,000 annually.
“The carrying capacity is what it really boils down to for me,” said Paulson. “It’s coming to the point where we have to address these issues.”
Debate splits enviros
Just as the debate has created divisions among the Sierra Club, it’s divided environmentalists like Paulson, Whitsitt and Fox-Rubin, all with proven track records on “green” issues.
Whitsitt said she doesn’t necessarily want the Basalt resolution to discuss future immigration.
“I don’t think any of us are talking about how many people are crossing the border or what border enforcement should look like,” she said.
But she also doesn’t want to promote greater enforcement. “People are going to come here,” she reasoned. “Unless you’re going to build a wall, you need to treat people fairly [once they’re here].”
Fox-Rubin noted that the proposed resolution is “pro-immigrant” rather than “pro-immigration.”
“It’s not pro-unbridled immigration,” he said.
But he’s also happy to debate Paulson’s assertion that population growth is a compelling reason to limit immigration. In the Basalt council’s first discussion of the immigration resolution, Fox-Rubin spoke of the need to import more workers to fill positions and keep the U.S. economy strong.
“Growth itself isn’t the problem, it’s how we use our resources,” he said.
Both the country and the Roaring Fork Valley can absorb many more people, as long as the type of growth is appropriate and resources are used efficiently.
All parties involved agree that the issue is ripe for debate. It goes to the full Basalt Town Council for debate on Jan. 23, at Basalt Town Hall.
“It’s not like Jacque and I are two do-gooders and we’ve got the solutions,” said Fox-Rubin.
For more Information please contact:
Donald J. Kaufman, Esq. 401 23rd Street, Suite 302 Glenwood Springs, Colorado 81601-4311 The United States of America Telephone (970) 945-2396 Facsimile (970) 945-7763
