Hundreds of immigrants are being deported every day, and have been for years, but the impact hits home when it happens to one of your own.
Over the last two weeks, my union, the Teamsters, watched as one of our long-serving members was taken from his family and deported. The experience was a wakeup call that deportation can happen to any of our immigrant members or neighbors.
In just 13 days, the family that Teamster member Eber Garcia Vasquez labored to build and support over three decades was ripped apart.
Eber’s case highlights the ruthlessness of this new era of deportations. White House officials portray those being deported as dangerous criminals, and distribute a stream of press releases highlighting the rare cases that fit that stereotype.
Meanwhile, the current administration scrapped Obama-era policies that prioritized those with serious criminal records for deportation and required officers to consider an immigrant’s family situation and community ties when weighing requests to stay.
Eber’s case to stay could not have been stronger. He was a year away from a green card.
His deportation turned a stable, American family into a household missing a beloved father and main breadwinner.
The attacks on immigrants in the aftermath of the election demand action from America’s labor movement.
We deserve our share of the blame for not doing more to engage our members on issues of racial justice and immigrant rights in recent decades. When we fail to talk to our members about these issues, bigotry festers.
When Eber was taken into custody, Teamsters from around the country circulated petitions and called Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to demand his release. Our union made Eber’s cause a national priority and leveraged our political connections in D.C. on his behalf.
I hope that our campaign against Eber’s deportation, and similar struggles waged by the service workers and painters unions, can be a model and an inspiration. Even when we are unsuccessful, we can deepen compassion and awareness among our members and build the infrastructure to be stronger in the next fight, and the next election.
In response to Eber’s deportation, our union has decided to become a “sanctuary union.”
We will provide “know your rights” training and legal support for immigrant members, negotiate protections for immigrants into our labor contracts and mobilize to defend the immigrant community at large.
We will not cooperate with immigration agents.
Many labor unions have for years embedded themselves in the immigrant rights movement, and we need to expand and redouble these efforts.
With the repeal of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), hundreds of thousands of young people will lose their right to work legally.
They won’t stop working, but instead will be forced underground, working in more exploitative and lower-paying conditions.
If we fail to make the rights of immigrants central to how we view the rights of workers, we will lose both.
George Miranda is president of New York-based Teamsters Joint Council 16, president of the Teamsters National Hispanic Caucus, and a vice president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
