Julie Myers, Labor Unions, and Undocumented Immigrants

On The Nation website (click here), Rick Perlstein has an article discussing the keynote speech at the October University of Chicago Legal Forum immigration symposium by Julie Myers, the chief of the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the Department of Homeland Security.  Perlstein talks about the following comments that Myers made at the conference:

As labor unions increasingly provide representation for undocumented workers, she said, “we need to look at” unions’ violations of the boundary between “charitable assistance and the unlawful employment of aliens.” Several lawyers were soon on the phone with labor officials trying to figure out what she meant. Is an ICE crackdown on labor organizing drives imminent? Was one already under way? Were unions harboring undocumented immigrants in violation of the law?

Perlstein calls for a Congressional investigation into what Myers meant by the comments and whether the recent ICE raids of meatpacking plants were focused on undermining union organizing efforts.

On this blog, Jennifer Chacón, who was at the University of Chicago law school event, had an excellent commentary on Myers’ comments not long after the conference. Click here to see them.

KJ