The Next Workforce: Undocumented

We stand on the edge, about to return to a dark period in our history—not the chains of the plantation, but a new form of labor, forged in law and sanitized by policy. Its roots are not in the Lost Cause but in Jim Crow, born of a single parenthetical phrase. It sits there in plain sight, unhidden, and dangerous—a legal justification waiting to be revived.

13th Amendment to the United States Constitution:
“Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

That loophole was not an afterthought. It was demanded and defended to secure the Amendment’s ratification in 1865. Southern states then weaponized it through convict leasing and chain gangs. A practice some want to pretend didn’t happen and want to erase or bury in vague history—as if it never really happened.

The logic is chillingly simple. Every undocumented entrant violates Federal law. First entry: misdemeanor. Re-entry: felony. The 13th doesn’t distinguish — a crime is a crime. Increasingly, arrests occur without warrants, and detentions blur the line of due process, regardless of the circumstances. Traditionally, the punishment has been deportation. However, deportation leaves a labor vacuum in construction, agriculture, manufacturing, and other services. A clear economic disaster and ample justification for yet another ‘National Emergency.’ The temptation is obvious: why expel “criminals” when you can harness their labor?

Congress has never summoned the courage to erase this parenthetical. For 160 years, the loophole has endured. A handful of States have purged it from their constitutions, but the Federal version reigns supreme. If it is exploited again, it could be a mix of State and Federal sponsored incarcerated labor. We’ve lacked the fortitude to change it, and now may pay the price for our lack of conviction and foresight.

The path forward isn’t clear—it could be problematic, but it doesn’t have to be. Rather than arresting, deporting, or conscripting, let’s build America’s future upon the hopes, dreams, and passion all of us have to offer. But that isn’t history’s pattern. And history’s show never ends—it simply changes costumes.