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Participants hold hands and pray during a vigil for immigration reform in Salt Lake City, Thursday, June 27, 2013.

Ravell Call, Deseret News

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WASHINGTON Wherever we were born and however we got here, workers need certain basic protections and opportunities to provide for our families and fully contribute to the American economy.

By legalizing the status and strengthening the bargaining power of immigrant workers, comprehensive immigration reform would be good for all workers, both native-born and newcomer.

Comprehensive reform means a realistic, balanced response to the presence of millions of undocumented workers in our midst. It would acknowledge the need to regain control of the immigration process while at the same time appreciating not demonizing this important segment of our labor force, whose members do some of our nations toughest jobs.

Under our current, broken immigration system, we essentially have two economies. In the regular economy most of us inhabit, workers secure in their citizenship or immigration status can fight back against egregious employer abuses unsafe working conditions, stolen pay, sexual harassment without fear of arrest and deportation. In the underground economy of the undocumented, workers must suffer in silence.

The two worlds are merging, but in the wrong direction. Workers in the open economy are losing rights and leverage, in part because of competition from the hidden economy. Wages have stagnated and opportunities for advancement been blocked. Truly comprehensive immigration reform would create one labor market that works for everyone.

Contrary to fears often stoked for political gain, immigrants dont take jobs from the native-born. Instead, several studies have found that immigrant and native employment support each other.

Untrained workers from abroad often initially take low-skill jobs that free up those already here for better-paying work: an immigrant who cleans up a construction site creates more jobs for carpenters and plumbers; a home health aid from overseas allows the adult child of an ailing parent to return to the workforce.

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