Tyrannizing Strangers for Profit: Wage Theft, Cross-Border Migrant Workers, and the Politics of Exclusion in an Era of Global Economic Integration

Abstract

There is a mutual need between the surplus of young workers in Central America and the demand for unskilled labor in the USA. Yet the refusal of the federal government to make its immigration policies economically relevant and rational has engendered lawlessness in our local communities. Using survey data from 160 day laborers from Palisades Park, New Jersey, patterns and correlates of wage theft against undocumented migrant workers were examined. In this sample, 728 separate incidents of wage theft were perpetrated with $238,112 in back wages owed to 112 victims over the period of 12 months. Day laborers with a history of violent victimizations in the USA and those displaying symptoms of post-traumatic stress syndrome were at the highest risk of becoming wage theft victims. The politico-legal depersonalization of undocumented workers creates incentives for legitimate businesses and ordinary citizens to prey on these vulnerable migrants. The market victimizes what the state has criminalized. Without a timely realignment, the disjuncture between the economic inclusion of cross-border migrant workers and their legal exclusion will continue to erode the rule of law and to hurt the long-term economic wellbeing of the American society.