Former Labor Secretary: Don't Forget the Hardworking Immigrants Targeted by Trump's California Campaign of Terror

Newsweek

2 days ago

"If you report me, I'll report you," is among the most common threats that immigrant workers hear from employers who abuse and exploit them.
Immigrants cross continents and oceans seeking a better life, many escaping abuse, violence, and desperate poverty. Once here, they help raise our children, care for our elderly, serve food in restaurants, clean our homes, move products in warehouses, and harvest our produce. They become indispensable to the lives of the communities they call home and the economies that depend on their labor.
Police officers clash with demonstrators during a protest following federal immigration operations in Los Angeles on June 9, 2025.
Police officers clash with demonstrators during a protest following federal immigration operations in Los Angeles on June 9, 2025.
RINGO CHIU/AFP via Getty Images
Many endure brutal working conditions. One tool to keep workers from advocating and organizing is the threat employers make that if workers speak up, they will be deported. For nearly 20 years, I represented low-wage workers in Los Angeles, including those who were trafficked to the United States and held against their will, not permitted to leave their workplace. Invariably, the constant tool of their oppression was the daily threat that if the workers reported their captors, the U.S. government would come for them.
Those who justify the Trump administration's campaign of terror on these hardworking communities argue that, because these immigrants shouldn't have come here in the first place, they deserve any mistreatment perpetrated against them. This argument is problematic for three reasons.
First, it's unconstitutional. Our Constitution guarantees some protections for all people in the United States. Specifically, the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments' right to due process, which includes the right to be heard and to present evidence in one's defense, and equal protection under the law apply to all "persons," not just "citizens." Given the Trump administration's willingness to throw the Constitution out at their whim, it isn't surprising that they disregard this argument. But that doesn't mean the rest of us should.
Second, it's bad economic policy. Undocumented immigrants perform essential labor. Without them, many of the industries we rely on would collapse. This is one reason many corporate leaders and industry associations have been at the forefront of advocating for comprehensive, humane immigration reform.
Third, it puts the government on the side of exploitation and against working people. Using workplaces as the site of immigration enforcement makes going to work dangerous. It reinforces the threats employers make, telling workers in no uncertain terms that the government can and will be weaponized against them. The federal government is responsible for enforcing labor laws, not aiding and abetting breaking them. What this administration is doing pushes violations further underground. The Trump administration only knows how to pit communities against each other, but the reality is that working people aren't struggling to pay their rent or mortgage because of immigrants. The anti-worker raids in Los Angeles are just the next front in this administration's ever-escalating war on working people.
Immigrant workers are our neighbors, our friends, and co-workers; the coaches on our kids' soccer teams and the adopted tios and tias who celebrate our children's birthdays with us. They're people like my friend, David Huerta, SEIU California president and long-time labor leader. That's one of the reasons the federal government's attacks on immigrant communities in Los Angeles have been met with protest.
The Trump administration's plan is to escalate the situation to justify increased violence, detention, deportation, and lawless deployment of power. The administration's pattern of hurting vulnerable communities and then criticizing people for standing by them is intended to create enough confusion that they can get away with anything. But we can't let them.
Trump has deployed more than 4,000 National Guards to Los Angeles against the wishes of Governor Gavin Newsom and despite local and state law enforcement officials' response. The last time the president of the United States deployed the National Guard without the state governor's cooperation was 60 years ago when former President Lyndon B. Johnson sent National Guard troops to Alabama to protect protesters marching across the Edmund Pettus Bridge to advance civil rights. The same move is now being used to incite violence, not prevent it; to promote racism, not combat it.
Julie Su is the former acting secretary of Labor and a senior fellow at The Century Foundation.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.