Enclaves of rights: Workplace enforcement, union contracts, and the uneven regulatory geography of immigration policy (original) (raw)

Recent geographic research on U.S. immigration policy highlights the devolution of policy formulation and implementation to local state actors. This study extends this research by analyzing how labor unions shape the implementation of state immigration policy and innovate institutional practices that affect regulatory spaces for immigrants at the local level. Using a case study of the hotel union in Chicago and Los Angeles, this article examines the origin, content, and implementation of immigration provisions recently negotiated in the union’s contracts. These contract provisions mediate the implementation of state immigration policies by specifying rules that govern employer actions in response to immigration enforcement activities by the Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies, including admittance to the workplace, inspection of I-9 forms, and Social Security no-match letters. The contracts also establish nondiscrimination protections for immigrant workers, such as guaranteed leave to attend immigration proceedings. The legal codification of these protections and the robust practices of union enforcement yield “enclaves of rights” at the local level, further contributing to the highly uneven space of security for immigrant residents in the United States The article concludes by examining the possibility that unions—given their influence in local labor markets, their federated (or national) structures, and their role in the broader moral economy—could extend these rights beyond the confines of the enclave. Key Words: immigrant labor, immigrant rights, immigration policy, unions, worker rights.