By Abby Sewell

On March 4, a Latino day laborer named Antonio told a massive crowd assembled at Pioneer Square, “Our message today is that we are here to construct this community, not to destroy it.”

The pro-immigrant rights rally and march drew between 3,000 and 4,000 people, according to organizers, from across Oregon and from multiple cultural backgrounds. Many people present had not been out to a political event in years, if ever, but they came forward to protest the “Border Protection, Anti-Terrorism and Illegal Immigration Control Act,” which immigrant rights groups are calling the most repressive anti-immigrant legislation in more than a decade. Introduced by Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), the bill passed in the U.S. House of Representatives on Dec. 16 and was scheduled for a vote in the Senate this March.

The Sensenbrenner bill, HR 4437, which passed the House 239 -182, would criminalize undocumented workers, the employers who hire them, and possibly even the friends and social service workers who offer them assistance. If signed into law, the bill would make hiring an undocumented immigrant a crime punishable by up to one year in prison. It would create mandatory minimum sentences for smuggling and for immigrants previously deported who were caught in the United States again. Additionally, it would bring criminal charges against all undocumented immigrants who are caught by the authorities, so that they would be facing not only deportation but also jail time or fines.

Religious groups and non-profits serving immigrant communities have especially raised concerns over the bill’s broad definition of “smuggling,” which includes providing assistance or aid to undocumented immigrants.

“The worst thing about this bill is it’s going to affect the entire community, not just immigrants,” said Pedro Sosa, who works with the immigrant community in Oregon as an organizer for the American Friends Service Committee. “It’s especially going to affect the economy.”

According to a recent study by the Pew Hispanic Center, there were 11.1 million undocumented immigrants in the United States in March 2005, with about 7.2 million being employed — 4.9 percent of the total civilian workforce. They made up a larger share of all workers in some categories, including 24 percent of all workers employed in farming occupations, 17 percent in cleaning, 14 percent in construction and 12 percent in food preparation.

Possibly with these statistics in mind, Arlen Specter, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has introduced his own modified version of HR 4437. His bill would keep most of the elements of the Sensenbrenner bill but would create a guest-worker program that would allow some immigrants to stay in the United States and work for a period of up to six years — however, without having the option of gaining residency. Workers would have to apply for the program from their home countries, probably through an agency that would work with employers in the United States.

Labor groups, including the AFL-CIO have adamantly opposed this proposal, saying that it will create a class of essentially indentured workers with fewer rights in the workplace and will weaken all workers’ ability to organize.

“Criminalizing immigration serves only those who profit from oppressing workers,” said Ben Nelson, the international representative of the General Laborers Union, who spoke at the rally.

Not only labor, but many business owners as well are opposed to the Sensenbrenner and Specter bills, which would impose stricter standards on employers to verify legal status of their employees and would implement harsher penalties for those found to have hired undocumented immigrants.

“In one of the meetings we had with Sen. Gordon Smith at his office, he said he’d had many calls from businesses telling him to vote no on this,” Sosa said.

Both Smith and Sen. Ron Wyden have said that they will vote against the legislation.Meanwhile, immigrant rights rallies have continued around the country. The largest, in Chicago, drew up to 100,000 people. Although anti-immigrant groups protested some of these rallies, they have been largely outnumbered. In Portland, only about 10 counter-protesters were visible at the rally.

As of press time, there was no word on when the bill would come up for a vote in the Senate. Sosa said that if it does pass, many organizations and churches are planning to provide sanctuary for undocumented immigrants. In Oregon, groups involved in organizing around the issue include, among others, PCUN (the Oregon farmworkers’ union), VOZ (Portland’s day laborer organizing group), CAUSA (Oregon’s immigrant rights coalition), the American Friends Service Committee, Jobs with Justice, and the Portland Central America Solidarity Committee.

Abby Sewell is a local writer and a former Alliance intern.