Union contracts provide innovative immigrant worker protections and mediate the implementation of federal immigration policy

As Congress has failed to reform its dated immigration policies, we have seen a trend of local actors taking autonomous action on this contentious issue. Virginia Parks argues that labor unions have emerged as key actors in shaping the implementation of federal immigration policy at the local level by negotiating immigration provisions in their collective bargaining agreements. She writes that the workplace immigration enforcement demonstrates the clash of illegality and legal rights for undocumented workers, which gives unions a compelling claim to the local bargaining process of the implementation of immigration policy.