Ghost Workers

Migrant farmworkers’ exclusion from many labor protections and forms of social assistance forces them to rely on informal and illicit subsistence strategies. One such strategy is “identity loan,” in which a migrant with legal status loans an undocumented migrant the work authorization documents that the latter needs to work. Unlike “identity theft,” then, “identity loan” is the voluntary and mutually beneficial exchange of work authorization documents. This chapter explores why document exchange flourishes in migrant communities, even as labor supervisors take advantage of such loans to reduce their labor costs. Labor supervisors often threaten to falsely position identity “loans” as “thefts,” denying “identity recipients” their right to workers’ compensation insurance when they are injured. Thus the recent trend towards governing immigration through crime—that is, federal and local officials’ reliance on criminal prosecution to deter undocumented migration— hands labor supervisors yet one more tool to create a docile labor force.