Organized labor’s leading role in resisting Trump-era immigration enforcement marks a sharp reversal from its historic stance that immigration undercut wages and worker bargaining power.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
Labor unions that once warned immigration would erode American wages and weaken collective bargaining are now among the most active forces opposing Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations under the Trump administration, according to reporting from Just the News.
Since President Donald Trump returned to office, major unions including the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the United Auto Workers, and affiliates under the AFL-CIO umbrella have mobilized protests, strikes, and workplace campaigns against deportations and ICE enforcement actions. These efforts represent a dramatic shift from the labor movement’s long-held skepticism toward immigration, particularly illegal immigration, which unions historically viewed as a direct threat to domestic workers.
In recent months, unions have organized general strikes, coordinated demonstrations, and conducted “Know Your Rights” trainings aimed at limiting cooperation with ICE. According to a Just the News report, unions have emerged as central organizers of the nationwide anti-ICE resistance.
Close coordination with left-wing groups
Union activism has often intersected with efforts by far-left political organizations. As previously documented, unions have partnered with groups including the Party for Socialism and Liberation, the People’s Forum, Revolutionary Communists of America, and local chapters of the Communist Party USA.
AFL-CIO affiliates have helped coordinate strikes across the country and maintain a public map tracking labor actions organized by member unions. The federation has repeatedly condemned deportation operations, arguing they endanger workers and communities.
After two fatal shootings in Minnesota that authorities said occurred during interference with federal operations, the AFL-CIO called on ICE to leave the state. “America’s unions join the call for ICE to immediately leave Minnesota before anyone else is hurt or killed,” the federation said in a statement, demanding investigations and congressional action.
One of the victims, healthcare worker Alex Pretti, was a member of the American Federation of Government Employees, an AFL-CIO-affiliated union. Following the shootings, unions joined a broader coalition that ordered a general strike in Minneapolis, according to Just the News. The shutdown, announced by ICE Out Now and backed by AFL-CIO affiliates, called for a statewide pause in economic activity, including work stoppages, school closures, and consumer boycotts.
SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa has also hosted trainings instructing healthcare workers on how to respond if ICE appears at medical facilities and how to pressure employers to resist cooperation. One SEIU event graphic described ICE agents as “creating fear, chaos, and violence” in communities.
Protests escalate beyond demonstrations
SEIU has played a visible role in multiple rounds of anti-ICE protests. During immigration raids in Los Angeles last June, SEIU California president David Huerta was arrested after allegedly blocking a vehicle and was later charged with conspiracy to impede a federal officer. SEIU said Huerta was “peacefully bearing witness” when he was detained.
While early demonstrations were peaceful, later protests escalated. Rioters were filmed assaulting immigration officers, burning autonomous vehicles, shutting down highways, and throwing concrete at law enforcement, Just the News reported.
A sharp departure from labor history
The unions’ current posture contrasts sharply with their historical record. “Over its long history, few issues have caused the American labor movement more agony than has the issue of immigration,” labor economist Vernon Briggs testified to Congress in 2007, as the movement began shifting its position.
Briggs explained that unions historically faced a dilemma: restricting immigration risked alienating immigrant workers, while permissive policies risked flooding the labor market and weakening wages and bargaining power. Early unions largely chose restriction.
The National Labor Union, one of the country’s earliest labor organizations, lobbied for the Chinese Exclusion Act, which imposed a 10-year ban on Chinese labor immigration. The American Federation of Labor under Samuel Gompers also pushed for literacy tests and backed the Immigration Acts of 1921 and 1924, which capped immigration from outside the Western Hemisphere—policies the AFL-CIO still acknowledges in its historical record.
Labor icon Cesar Chavez similarly opposed illegal immigration while leading the United Farm Workers. Chavez blamed illegal labor for undermining union leverage and even encouraged members to form informal patrols to deter strikebreaking workers, as documented in historical accounts of the UFW.
The pivot toward amnesty
The modern shift is widely attributed to SEIU leadership in California, particularly Eliseo Medina, who helped push unions to abandon enforcement-focused positions as industries with large undocumented workforces grew. Medina told Talking Points Memo that representing undocumented workers forced unions to rethink their approach as raids and deportations increasingly affected organizing efforts.
By 2000, the AFL-CIO formally reversed its long-standing opposition to illegal immigration and called for broad amnesty, cementing a transformation that now places organized labor at the center of resistance to immigration enforcement.
The result is a labor movement whose present-day activism bears little resemblance to its historical role, reflecting shifting political alliances and economic realities as unions increasingly align themselves with broader left-wing coalitions opposing federal immigration policy.
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