It's Election Day and many issues that have gained national attention are also resonating here in Hawaiʻi.
One of those topics is immigration, both legal and undocumented. To gain a local perspective on this, HPR talked to immigration attorney Esther Yoo.
Yoo is the director of the Refugee and Immigration Law Clinic at the William S. Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawaiʻi.
Read the transcription below, edited for clarity.
ESTHER YOO: In this election, voters have indicated — especially Republican voters —that the economy and immigration are two of the top issues that they are thinking about. I think what's missing from the dialog is the fact that immigration plays a huge role in our economy and also in Hawaiʻi's economy. One of the examples that I think about is when hearing voters discuss their problems or concerns about today's economy, they talk about food prices and how in the last couple of years food prices have gone up and it's hurting them in the pocketbooks. What I don't think that many voters think about or realize is that close to 50% of the food production workforce are immigrants and I think about a quarter of that are undocumented immigrants. If Donald Trump went ahead and deported 11 million undocumented immigrants from the United States, our food production workforce — 25% of it — would vanish overnight. What would that do right to our food production systems? I think one of the disappointing things as an immigration lawyer is knowing that my clients work essential jobs in the U.S. economy but their contributions are overlooked. In the discussion, particularly in this election, the discussions about immigration and what's best for our U.S. immigration policy is very much divorced from the discussion of what's best for economic policy in the United States.
BILL DORMAN: That link between immigration and the economy here in Hawaiʻi, particularly, you look at the most common job for immigrants here in Hawaiʻi and it's overwhelmingly in one area and it's the hospitality industry.
YOO: Yes, exactly. So immigrants of foreign-born residents make up a huge proportion, a huge share of Hawaiʻi's hospitality workforce and some are lawfully here and some are not. Again, if this mass deportation scheme were to be effectuated by the Trump administration, Hawaiʻi would see a direct impact in the ability for the tourism industry to survive here without up to a quarter of its workforce.
DORMAN: And you made the point on the national level that food production is tied to immigration as well — and that's the case in Hawaiʻi as well.
YOO: Exactly. A lot of my clients work, for example, in the Kona Coast on the Kona coffee farms picking the coffee beans. Immigrants are also involved in the food processing sector. So across the nation — meat packing, processing plants and other types of food processing plants — the large share of workers in those factories are immigrants undocumented and documented. They're also involved in the transportation of food and also in retail. Specifically for Hawaiʻi, I was doing my research before I met with you. One area that I think about in particular for Hawaiʻi — and obviously everyone knows about the tourism industry and its importance to the Hawaiʻi economy. But another really important industry is the caregiving industry because we do have an aging population and many of them do need caregivers. I looked up, there's a study that was done by the Harvard Medical School, where they found that 70% of caregivers in Hawaiʻi are foreign-born. That's a huge huge percentage — these caregivers, they're vital right? Without caregivers for our elderly and for our children, many of us who are U.S.-born and educated professionals would not be able to go to work. Particularly women who are often given the caregiving duties when they can't find a caregiver for their parents.
DORMAN: One of the things about elections is that it's a snapshot in time, and it makes everyone take a look at that moment in time. But we're talking about trends here. We're talking about the future and how the future is developing and very specifically, how Hawaiʻi's future is developing. If you disrupt the immigration piece of this economy, it has severe consequences for Hawaiʻi's future, right?
YOO: I think, again, that hasn't come out in the discussions about the economy during this election. It's one of the things that I find unsettling — is this disconnect between the discussion about immigration and the discussion about the economy. I think my roles now as an advocate is to make people more aware of how vital and intertwined our economy and our society is with immigrants and immigration.
DORMAN: What do you see if you can prepare or lay the groundwork for what may or may not come next for you? How are you looking at this election?
YOO: Other than checking the news every five minutes and reading polls like everyone else, I was practicing immigration law during the first Trump administration. If Trump were re-elected, I think immigration lawyers have a good sense of what is likely to happen and there are different levers of power that the president has to change immigration policy. They range from executive orders like the Muslim ban and Trump now has a template. After three attempts he finally refined it enough to pass muster with the Supreme Court. There are other actions that are more squarely within the Executive Branch's power. For example, he could end Temporary Protected Status for many of the countries that currently have that designation very quickly. Then, of course, he can throw more resources into enforcement, as opposed to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which grants immigration benefits. He could put a lot more resources into the side of the Department of Homeland Security that enforces immigration laws as he has threatened many times to do during his campaign. In my mind, I can think of all the different ways that life could be different under his administration. I will say that, as an attorney, I'm probably preparing for it just by mentally bracing myself. I'm going to continue doing my job which is to defend immigrants in immigration court, try to seek relief where it is possible, relief from deportation. But I will just have to expect that I will be doing a lot more of it under his administration. Then the second part, I think, for a lot of immigrant advocates is that it now needs to become part of our role to change the narrative nationally and locally around immigration and immigrants. I think that's one piece that could use more work on our parts because we understand the system, we understand the needs, we understand the ways in which our laws and our immigration legal system could be better adapted and modernized to fill the needs of our society now and our economy now. I think part of our job is to educate and advocate and start changing narratives around immigrants.
DORMAN: No matter how the election comes out the national dialog about immigration seems to have shifted. Is that true in your view, and if so, how?
YOO: Yeah, definitely. I think when Joe Biden was running for president, he was running making campaign promises in the area of immigration that were very much in reaction to some of the policies that were implemented during the Trump administration. A big one was family separation during the Trump administration and that provoked a really large public outcry. I believe that President Biden wanted to appear to be more humane. Unfortunately, there was sort of a surge in numbers of people coming to the southern border. Politically, that's never been a very popular image that's splashed around. I think in reaction to that his administration has implemented policies to restrict the numbers of asylum seekers that can come.
DORMAN: What are your biggest challenges here in Hawaiʻi, in terms of immigration issues?
YOO: I do think that, especially in Hawaiʻi, immigrants and even undocumented immigrants, because of Hawaiʻi's diversity, they can remain invisible. They can sort of blend into the population. On one hand, that makes it feel safer for undocumented immigrants in Hawaiʻi. On the other hand, it makes invisible their contributions to this place. The fact is that immigrants not only work in essential jobs for Hawaiʻi's economy, but they themselves create additional demand for goods and services — so additional spending. They also pay taxes, which I don't think a lot of people outside of this field really understand — that even undocumented immigrants do pay into the payroll taxes, the Social Security and Medicare taxes. They pay state and local taxes as well. They are making enormous contributions to our economy. Also a lot of people they won't realize that their their friend, their neighbor, their caregiver, their child's classmate might be undocumented, right? I think one of the challenges surrounding the discourse around immigration in Hawaiʻi is that people don't really understand or realize how much of our society and economy actually depends a lot on immigrants. Whoever wins, there is a lot of work to do in terms of changing the dialog around immigration and also the tone and the tenor of it so that it's not it's not as polarizing. But in fact, just helping people to realize that there is a place for immigration in our economy and society. Now, the levels of it is up for debate. But just being able to have a reasonable fact-informed discourse would be a huge sign of progress.
This interview aired on The Conversation on Nov. 5, 2024. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. on HPR-1. Tori DeJournett adapted this story for web.
