UNDERSTANDING LATINO IMMIGRATION

The UFCW has been fighting to organize, represent, and improve wages and working conditions for immigrant workers for decades. The meatpacking and food processing industries were among the first to utilize immigrant labor. In fact, the UFCW has been a leading advocate for immigrant rights for more than 100 years.

Currently, the U.S. has immigration law on paper, but does not have a national immigration policy.  Because U.S. trade policy fails to include strong, enforceable labor standards, it has created a vast international labor pool that lives and works without rights or hope for the future. It is a pool of workers that can be recruited, imported, exploited, and disposed of.  Corporations export jobs in search of the most exploitable labor pool--and, they import workers to create a domestic pool of exploitable labor. The current immigration system hurts U.S. businesses, U.S. families, and U.S. security while it benefits unscrupulous employers, traffickers, and smugglers, who take advantage and profit from this broken system.

Read more about immigration:

• UFCW Principles on Immigration Find out more about UFCW's position on Immigration and Reform.
  
  
• About Latino Immigration Find out more about Latino immigrants and immigration patterns.

• Immigration Reform Read about a controversial bill on immigration reform and its alternatives.

• Latino Civil Rights Timeline  Learn more about Latinos' fight for civil rights from the early 1900s to the present.