LIUNA’s position on immigration reflects our history, values, and our desire to grow as a union. While we have proudly stood by our history of being a union built by and for immigrants, we are at a critical moment in the history of this country and must find the words and the conviction to stand by our values and our members.

While we ground our mission in building growth, solidarity, and justice, this is rooted in the belief that as a union, we represent and defend the rights of all workers - regardless of immigration status. Immigrant workers are under attack. LIUNA, founded by immigrants for all workers in 1903, had to fight prejudice against immigrant workers and pledged to organize and defend their rights even when others refused. This has not changed.

From the start, our Constitution has been clear: “to unite under its banner all persons engaged in work within its jurisdiction.” Today, the non-union construction workforce is mostly immigrants and workers of color. To organize these workers is to embrace our mission. But these escalating attacks on immigrant and worker rights threaten not only our immigrant members, but the core freedoms of all workers, voice, due process, and dignity at work. Our Immigration Principles reflect the current environment.

LIUNA’s Principles on Immigration

• Strong and Humane Border Enforcement. Secure borders and national security are essential, but enforcement must be humane, constitutional, and never used to divide or exploit workers.  

• A Path to Citizenship.   Immigrants who contribute to our communities deserve a path to permanent legal status and citizenship. We have supported the SECURE Act, the Dream and Promise Act, and the Registry Bill to reopen lawful pathways to legalization.  

• No New or Expanded Guest Worker Program. We oppose any policy that exploits workers. As it stands, programs like the H-2B in construction creates a second-class, exploitable workforce and undermines worker standards. Proposals like the “Golden Visa” are un-American and reduce citizenship to a financial transaction. LIUNA supports strong protections for all workers.  

• We reject policies that effectively deauthorize workers and strip them of their legal status. Many TPS and DACA holders are LIUNA members, deporting them would devastate their families, communities and our industries. These workers must not be targeted to justify and inflate a crackdown on immigrants.

• Immigrant rights are worker rights. No one should be punished simply for trying to make a living. Especially not the workers who are currently being targeted, punished and villainized. Immigrant rights are worker rights because immigrant workers face the same workplace challenges as all workers. They fall victim to wage theft, unsafe conditions, lack of benefits, and employer retaliation. We must protect all workers, because when employers can exploit one group, it drives down standards for everyone.

• Penalize exploitative employers, not workers. Exploitation is factored into an unscrupulous company’s cost of doing business. Employers must be penalized through higher fines and criminal prosecution to deter such practices. We must not turn a blind eye to those who knowingly exploit labor through wage theft, child labor, and health and safety violations. This creates an unfair advantage to law-abiding employers. As billions of dollars are being invested in border security and immigration enforcement, labor law enforcement has drastically decreased, making all work vulnerable to exploitation.  

• Division is our enemy. Anti-immigrant rhetoric is a tool to divide workers and weaken our labor movement. We must stand in solidarity and fight back against further division. Past generations of immigrant laborers built this union in the face of discrimination. Today, we honor that history by embracing immigrant workers fully and organizing them into LIUNA.

• Uphold constitutional rights, including due process. It is not a crime to work in this country, and workers are entitled to protection of their rights under the U.S. Constitution. We strongly oppose racial and industry profiling in an attempt to criminalize and terrorize immigrant workers and their communities.  

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