Job Discrimination Against Immigrants

Job Discrimination Against Immigrants

By Jocelyn McMillan

Immigrants migrate to the U.S. in search of a better lifestyle which includes a safer environment, better paying jobs, and new opportunities. Although they often don’t know what kind of work they are getting themselves into, all the distress and possible risk they experience while working in the U.S. is dismissed in the hope of living the American dream.
Most immigrants occupy low-wage jobs in agriculture, construction, food-service, domestic work, and labor. The laws that are made to protect these workers limit their rights, in which employers often take advantage of immigrant workers because they use the threat of immigration enforcement. Research shows that immigrant workers experience more workplace fatalities and workplace injuries annually than native born workers.
It has also been proven that undocumented immigrants are more likely to experience dangerous working conditions than legal immigrants. For example, undocumented immigrants often work in private households, where they work for hours with little to no breaks and no overtime pay. On top of all that they may experience physical, mental and verbal abuse, as well as rape…
The question might come up as to why immigrant workers are often hesitant or afraid to call attention to the way their employer mistreats them. Reasons may be that they need to provide for themselves, or they might even have a family to provide for. So if they were to speak up they would be putting their job at risk, and might fear that no one else will hire them because they are undocumented…They fear if they do speak up they will have a chance of being deported. Even though laws have been created to “protect” immigrant workers, are they really being protected? Or is there more that can be done to protect undocumented workers? What can we do? Bringing more attention to this issue is probably the first place we can start. People are aware this is an issue, but they probably don’t know the severity of it. Not only that but creating more laws that can ensure undocumented workers that they will be safe and treated the same as all the other workers will help the most.

I am Jocelyn McMillan, I am from a small town called Winters located about an hour away from Sacramento. I am currently a Sophomore at Sonoma State University, although I plan to graduate in the fall of 2023.