WHEREAS:
The AFSCME International Constitution affirms our union’s commitment to the dignity of all workers, social and economic justice and the protection of human and civil rights without regard to immigration status; and
WHEREAS:
The Trump administration has weaponized immigration enforcement as a centerpiece of a broader fascist program that threatens democratic institutions, workers’ rights, civil liberties and the rule of law — mass deportation raids, the criminalization of immigrant communities, the dismantling of labor and civil rights protections and the expansion of a for-profit detention system represent not isolated policy choices but coordinated attacks on the foundations of democratic society and the labor movement itself; and
WHEREAS:
The Trump administration has directed $45 billion in public funding to expand ICE operations and dramatically expand the network of privately operated immigration detention facilities — warehouse-scale detention centers being opened across the country in flagrant disregard for health, safety and human rights standards — turning the detention of human beings into a growth industry for corporations like GEO Group and CoreCivic while stripping away the public sector jobs and union standards that AFSCME represents; and
WHEREAS:
Immigrant detainees held in these privately operated facilities are being forced to perform the full range of facility operations — including kitchen, laundry, custodial, sanitation, maintenance and building repair work — for little or no pay; this is precisely the category of work historically performed by fairly compensated, union-represented public service workers and its forced extraction from a captive population is both an assault on human dignity and a direct attack on AFSCME’s jurisdiction and the wages and standards of working people broadly; and
WHEREAS:
With over 90% of immigration detention operated by private corporations, GEO Group and CoreCivic are being paid with public tax dollars to run facilities staffed by a captive, uncompensated or near-uncompensated workforce, generating private profit from the elimination of union jobs and the exploitation of imprisoned human beings — a business model that is as anti-union as it is inhumane; and
WHEREAS:
Immigrant detainees have responded to these conditions with the courage and solidarity that defines the labor movement at its best: organizing hunger and labor strikes across detention facilities in New Mexico, Texas, California, Washington, New Jersey and Michigan — refusing to perform the forced labor that runs these facilities until their human dignity and labor rights are recognized; and
WHEREAS:
Out of this struggle, detained workers have built La Unión de Secuestrados por ICE (USI)/Union of People Kidnapped by ICE — a worker-led union formed inside detention centers by immigrants organizing collectively to assert their rights, end labor exploitation and demand humane treatment; USI represents exactly the kind of rank-and-file worker self-organization that AFSCME was built on and that our movement has a duty to recognize and support; and
WHEREAS:
The ongoing national immigrant workers’ strike — including the strike at Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey, which has already won the release of pregnant women, teenagers and detainees requiring urgent medical care — demonstrates that organized worker action, even under conditions of incarceration and repression, can compel justice and win real victories; and
WHEREAS:
Striking detainees have faced severe retaliation including solitary confinement, denial of medical care, physical abuse by detention staff, denial of access to family and legal counsel, threats of deportation and forcible transfer to other facilities — tactics of intimidation that mirror the anti-union repression workers have faced throughout labor history and that our movement has always condemned and resisted; and
WHEREAS:
Federal courts in Washington and Colorado have ruled that private detention corporations’ forced labor practices violate state wage laws, affirming that the labor extracted from detainees has recognized legal and economic value and that its forced extraction is unlawful exploitation; and
WHEREAS:
AFSCME has always understood that the labor movement and democracy are inseparable — that attacks on workers’ rights are attacks on democratic rights, and that the defense of democratic institutions requires the organized power of working people; the immigrant workers’ strike is not separate from the broader fight to defend democracy against fascist rule, but is one of its most powerful and visible expressions; every detention center shut down, every detainee freed, every forced labor demand defeated weakens the Trump administration’s fascist program and strengthens the movement of working people to reclaim our democracy; and
WHEREAS:
The mass mobilizations in support of immigrant rights — in Los Angeles; Minneapolis; Oakland, California; Portland, Oregon; New York; Atlanta; Chicago and cities and towns across this country — demonstrate the growing power of a united movement of workers, immigrants and communities standing together against fascism, and that the labor movement’s active solidarity with that movement is essential to its ultimate victory.
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED:
That AFSCME’s 47th International Convention declares its full and unconditional solidarity with immigrant detainee workers engaged in hunger and labor strikes across the United States, honors the courage of those who have organized under conditions of imprisonment and retaliation and calls on all AFSCME members, locals, councils and affiliates to actively stand with them; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED:
That AFSCME calls for the immediate shutdown of GEO Group and CoreCivic’s for-profit immigration detention operations and an immediate end to all public contracts with corporations that profit from forced immigrant labor and the destruction of union-scale public service jobs; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED:
That AFSCME demands that all strike demands be fulfilled: an immediate end to forced labor, fair compensation for all labor performed by detainees, humane living conditions, full and unrestricted access to medical care, unrestricted communication with family and legal counsel and an immediate end to all retaliation against workers who have organized or participated in strikes; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED:
That AFSCME declares that winning the immigrant workers’ strike, shutting down the for-profit detention system and freeing unjustly detained immigrants are inseparable from the broader struggle to defend democracy, workers’ rights and civil liberties against the fascist program of the Trump administration — and that AFSCME’s support for this strike is an expression of our union’s commitment to that broader democratic struggle; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED:
That AFSCME calls upon Congress to enact legislation prohibiting forced labor in immigration detention and requiring that any labor performed by detainees be compensated at no less than the applicable federal or state minimum wage, whichever is greater, with the full protection of state and federal labor laws; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED:
That AFSCME calls upon all affiliates to review pension and investment fund holdings in GEO Group, CoreCivic and any other corporation profiting from immigrant detention and forced labor and to take immediate steps to divest from those corporations; and
BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED:
That AFSCME calls upon all state governors and legislatures to enforce state wage and labor laws without exception in all detention facilities operating within their jurisdictions, to cease any collaboration with private detention corporations that violate those laws and to oppose the opening of new for-profit detention facilities in their states.
SUBMITTED BY:
Susan Ryan, President and Delegate
AFSCME Local 2920, Council 925
Michigan