Posts tagged with 'ICE'
Weekly Diaspora: One Year After SB 1070, What’s Changed?
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by Catherine A. Traywick, Medica Consortium blogger
A year ago this month, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed SB 1070 into law, effectively pushing an already vibrant anti-immigrant movement to a new extreme. Over the following months, immigrant rights advocates prepared for the worst, and grappled with multiple setbacks as other states threatened to follow Arizona’s example.
Looking back, though, it’s clear that the draconian immigration law hasn’t quite measured up to its bad reputation—in part because a federal injunction blocked several of its more pernicious provisions. Kent Peterson at New America Media/Frontera NorteSur suggests that anti-immigrant policymakers “overreached” with SB 1070, pushing the restrictionist movement to its own peak with the controversial law.
Arizona’s political influence has waned
Certainly in the long term, the law seems to have done more harm than good to the movement. While it initially added plenty of fuel to the restrictionists’ fire, it has ultimately failed to spread through other states the way many expected it to. While a few states (see Colorlines.com’s infographic or Alternet’s rundown) are still considering SB1070-type laws, most others have backed off the idea.
As Seth Hoy explains at Alternet/Immigration Impact, “states learned from Arizona — the numerous protests, Supreme Court challenge, costly litigation, economic boycotts that are still costing state businesses millions — and rejected similar laws.” Peterson similarly notes that a number of states have moved away from Arizona’s example because of SB 1070’s unexpected economic consequences—chiefly, an estimated $769 million in economic and tax revenues lost as a result of boycotts.
Immigrants still marginalized
That’s not say that the law has had no effect on immigrants. While a federal judge stayed several of its provisions last summer, SB 1070 proved to be a precursor to other insidious state laws targeting immigrants. Empowered by their success with SB 1070 and the ensuing media frenzy, state legislators quickly moved forward with several other harsh laws. As Feet in Two Worlds’ Valeria Fernandez explains, many immigrants in Arizona continue to live in fear even though SB 1070 is only partially enacted. She writes:
When you talk to immigrants in the street, they’ll tell you that not much has changed. Some continue to live in fear that they could be stopped by the police and deported. Others are having a difficult time getting work due to another Arizona law that harshly sanctions employers who hire undocumented immigrants.
At Colorlines.com, Seth Freed Wessler elaborates on the real impact of bills like SB 1070. He writes:
[The bills] send waves of fear and confusion into immigrant communities. … In the period since SB 1070 passed, uncounted numbers of immigrants have fled their homes in Arizona. … And the provisions in the law that were not blocked by the court, including one that makes it a crime to harbor or transport undocumented immigrants, put everyone at risk.
The role of the federal government
Nevertheless, Wessler points out that the federal government—not SB 1070 and not Arizona—is to blame for the brunt of the damage inflicted upon undocumented immigrants in the last year. Besides deporting record numbers of immigrant detainees and significantly expanding border enforcement, the Department of Homeland Security laid the groundwork for SB 1070 with its 287(g) program—which enabled local law enforcement to act as ICE agents. Adding insult to injury, President Barack Obama never came to close to fulfilling his campaign promise of passing comprehensive immigration reform.
Whether he will do so this year is up for debate, but many reform advocates remain skeptical after last year’s ups and downs. As Marcos Restrepo of the American Independent reports, several immigrant rights activists voiced disappointment after Obama convened a White House meeting on immigration last Tuesday. Chief among the critics was Pablo Alvorado, director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, who said in a statement:
While we appreciate the President’s effort to keep immigration reform on the national agenda, his actions belie his intent…If the President genuinely wanted to fix the broken immigration system, he would respond to the growing chorus of voices calling for the suspension of the secure communities program and move to legalize instead of further criminalize our immigrant communities.
The American Prospect’s Gabriel Arana is similarly skeptical of both the president’s approach to the problem, and his ability to enact meaningful reform:
On one hand, it is laudable that the president has revived the immigration debate, but there is a reason it died last year, even with Democrats in firm control of Congress and the executive branch. Instead of trying to tack immigration reform to an enforcement bill, the president should change the frame and stop talking about immigration as a national-security issue rather than an issue in its own right.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Diaspora for a complete list of articles on immigration issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, and health care issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Pulse. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.
Weekly Diaspora: Anti-Immigrant Bills Faltering, Even in Arizona
by Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger
After orchestrating a divisive national campaign to deny citizenship to the U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants, Arizona legislators watched their own anti-birthright citizenship bill flounder in the state Senate this week.
ColorLines’ Jamilah King reports that Senate bill 1309—introduced with considerable fanfare only two weeks ago—met significant opposition during its first Senate hearing on Monday and was subsequently withdrawn by one of its chief sponsors, state Sen. Ron Gould (R). The swift defeat comes as a surprise to both supporters and opponents of the bill, as Arizona’s Republican-controlled legislature has managed to pass a number of controversial measures in the last year, without much difficulty.
What’s more, Arizona legislators—headed by Senate president Russell Pearce (R)—have brazenly led the charge against birthright citizenship, with legislation being introduced at both state and federal levels. So while 14 states are attempting to restrict citizenship and force a Supreme Court review of the 14th Amendment, according to Doug Ramsey at the Public News Service, Arizona had appeared to be the most likely to pass the controversial measure.
The effort isn’t completely dead, however. An identical measure introduced into the state House may still stand a chance, as it has yet to reach committee. Meanwhile, Gould will keep trying to secure votes for SB 1309, while Pearce considers reassigning the bill to a friendlier committee. Nevertheless, the measure’s easy defeat in a state notorious for embracing hard line immigration laws may bode ill for similar efforts elsewhere.
SB 1070 copycat measures provoke division in Colorado, New Mexico and Florida
Indeed, attempts to pass Arizona-style immigration laws in other states have been repeatedly slowed by myriad legislative roadblocks and growing division between and within political parties.
In Colorado, proponents of an immigration law modeled after Arizona’s SB 1070 say they are planning to withdraw the measure after weeks of deliberation and indecision, reports Scot Kersgaard at the Colorado Independent. Just days after Arizona lawmakers withdrew their vaunted birthright citizenship bill, Colorado Rep. Randy Baumgardner (R) told reporters that legislators—who had hoped to avoid the kinds of costly legal challenges provoked by SB 1070— had failed to resolve the “possibly unconstitutional” elements of the measure.
In New Mexico, an executive order issued by Governor Susanna Martinez (R) that requires police to investigate the immigration statuses of all criminal suspects has sparked the ire of state Democrats. The American Independent’s Matthew Reichbach reports that Democratic legislators held a press conference last week denouncing the order, which is similar to Arizona’s SB 1070 and could lead to racial profiling.
While Martinez was careful to prohibit law enforcement from asking victims and witnesses about their immigration statuses (a practice that has, in Arizona, discouraged immigrant victims and witnesses from reporting violent crimes), Rep. Antonio Maestas (D) voiced concerns that the order could inhibit domestic violence victims from coming forward. Often, law enforcement responding to domestic disputes regard both parties as suspect (even fingerprinting and taking both into custody) until full statements can be taken and assessed—at which time, the victim is released.
But, as I’ve written before, in such cases victims run the risk of being questioned about their immigration status and turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). In response, Democratic lawmakers are pushing several bills that would overturn the governor’s order.
Meanwhile, in Florida, Republicans are divided over the prospect of introducing their own SB 1070 copycat bill, reports Elena Shore at New America Media/La Prensa, Senate President Mike Haridopolos (R) argues that such a measure would be bad for the state, but newly elected Republican Governor Rick Scott (who campaigned on an anti-immigration platform) maintains that “police should have the ability to ask people for immigration papers while they go about their jobs, even during routine stops.”
Meanwhile, an SB 1070-type bill that was introduced last session may get a makeover as its author, Rep. William Snyder (R), tries to soften its provisions in advance of the upcoming legislative session, which opens March 8.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Diaspora for a complete list of articles on immigration issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, and health care issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Pulse. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.
Weekly Diaspora: Why We Need a Deportation Moratorium Now
by Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger
As a floundering Congress repeatedly impedes the passage of widely supported immigration measures like the DREAM Act, reform advocates are refocusing their efforts and calling on President Barack Obama to declare a moratorium on deportations.
Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), whose impassioned support of immigrant rights landed him in jail earlier this year, is at the forefront of that charge, reports Braden Goyette at Campus Progress. Joining a chorus of immigration reform groups, Gutierrez is asking for moratorium: “The President will tell us we need Republican votes in order to pass legislation, and he’s correct,” Gutierrez told a raucous crowd of New York immigrants last month. “But let me tell you something. With the executive stroke of that pen, he can stop the deportation and the destruction of our families.” (more…)
Weekly Diaspora: ICE Deports Children, Disabled, and Domestic Violence Victims
by Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger
For the past several months, the Obama administration has relentlessly professed its commitment to targeting only the most dangerous “criminal aliens.” But a new report released this week by the Immigration Policy Center suggests that misguided Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) polices render the administration virtually powerless to fulfill its promise.
As Braden Goyette at Campus Progress reports, ICE’s practice of outsourcing immigration enforcement to local police through the 287(g) and Secure Communities programs undermines the administration’s stated priority of deporting “the worst of the worst.” She writes:
By using these partnerships to increase its deportation figures, the federal government gives up control over front-line enforcement to local police, opening up the door to subjective judgment calls—essentially, all of the problems that plague everyday policing.
Law enforcement charged with enforcing immigration laws—particularly in areas where heavy enforcement is politically popular—routinely make discretionary arrests in direct defiance of the Obama administration’s stated priorities. As a result, tens of thousands of undocumented immigrants have been deported because of minor crimes, such as traffic offenses.
A bigger issue, though, is that ICE’s enforcement programs are fundamentally out of line with the Obama administration’s avowed commitment to targeting criminals. The Secure Communities program, which requires local law enforcement agencies to share fingerprints with ICE, is a key example of this disconnect. The program routinely nets even the victims of violent crime. Secure Communities is expanding rapidly, despite its deviance from the agency’s stated objective of pursuing criminals. (more…)
Weekly Diaspora: Lawless Judges, Immigrant Soldiers, and Deportee Pardons
by Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger
Here’s the harsh truth about our immigration system: When 392,000 immigrants are detained per year and 33,000 more are detained everyday with limited staff and minimal federal oversight, institutional misconduct is inevitable.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is moving record-breaking numbers of immigrants through its ancillary agencies and, in the process, immigrant women are being raped by Border Patrol agents, LGBT detainees are being sexually assaulted at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities, and citizens and legal residents are certainly being deported.
How can such things come to pass? Simple: a combination of overworked and overzealous officials are enforcing overly broad immigration laws. It should be no wonder that people, inevitably, slip through the cracks—whether immigrant, citizen, or soldier. (more…)
Weekly Diaspora: Why Detention Reform is Desperately Needed
by Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger
Last October, the Obama administration’s announced their intention to reform the detention system—to improve the management, medical care and accountability within detention centers, and make better use of low-cost alternatives to detention.
But one year later, a new report by the Detention Watch Network reveals that the “truly civil” detention system once promised by the administration has truly failed to materialize. And while the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been crowing over its record number of deportations, it’s suspiciously mum when it comes to the record number of detainees that still languish in woefully mismanaged detention facilities.
DHS gets an “F”
Elise Foley at the Washington Independent notes that, despite DHS’s assurances that “visible changes have been made” to the system, immigrant rights advocates are critical of the purported reforms.
The Detention Watch Network, which graded DHS on each of its proposed reform initiatives, concluded that the agency has achieved minimal progress and has not substantively improved conditions for the nearly 400,000 immigrants detained every year under “cruel and unusual,” prison-like conditions. DHS received particularly low marks on its promise to utilize low-cost and humane alternatives to detention, such as ankle bracelets or bond release.
Underscoring the case for alternatives to detention, Foley details the story of Pedro Perez Guzman, a 30-year-old undocumented immigrant who came to the U.S. at the age of eight. Guzman, who is married to an American citizen and has a young son, has been in detention since last year, when he was picked up on a deportation order. As a father, breadwinner, and long-time (albeit undocumented) resident, Guzman should be a good candidate for bond release or some other alternative to detention. But because DHS has failed to broadly implement such alternatives, he’s spending his last months in the U.S. behind bars instead of with his family.
Reform hasn’t curbed sexual abuse in detention
The administration’s failure to meaningfully reform the broken detention system has particularly pernicious consequences for women detainees. As I detailed in a special report for Campus Progress, women in detention are routinely subject to a variety of mistreatment that ranges from gender discrimination to rape.
The T. Don Hutto detention facility in Texas stands out as a prime example of how failed reforms have disproportionately impacted women. Four years ago, the facility came under fire after a guard was caught having sexual relations with a woman detainee—an act which, thanks to a loophole in federal law, wasn’t technically a crime in privately-operated ICE facilities.
Last year, DHS overhauled the Hutto detention center, publicly touting it as model facility that embodied the administration’s vision for “truly civil” detention reform. Then, this August, a Hutto guard was arrested for sexually assaulting several detainees while transporting them for deportation. To date, no one knows how many women he assaulted, or whether other guards have done the same.
Clearly, a DHS facelift wasn’t enough to correct a long-standing pattern of mismanagement, poor oversight, and discrimination that ultimately resulted in the victimization of an unknown number of immigrant women.
Traffic violations = mandatory detention
The ills plaguing the immigration detention system are further exacerbated by the growing number of detainees, which has reached a record of 33,000 per day and nearly 400,000 per year.
As Monica Fabian points out at Feet in Two Worlds, a significant proportion of these detainees have been pulled into the system by Secure Communities, a program which targets undocumented immigrants by allowing law enforcement to share fingerprints with federal authorities. Though Secure Communities is purported to target dangerous criminals, it has actually resulted in the detentions and deportations of a number of immigrants who had no criminal record or who were guilty of minor violations:
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) records obtained by the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and the National Day Laborer Organizing Network through a Freedom of Information Act request, 79% of individuals deported through the Secure Communities program from October 2008 through June 2010 had no criminal record or were arrested for minor offenses like traffic violations.
Consequently, the detention system is swollen with scores of non-dangerous, non-criminal immigrants whose mandatory detention is not only expensive but excessively punitive.
Maricopa County steps forward
Some of the worst detention conditions documented by immigrant rights advocates have been in Maricopa County, AZ—under the purview of the infamous Sheriff Joe Arpaio. While Arpaio is notorious for treating his prisoners inhumanely, his deputies’ treatment of pretrial immigrant detainees has ranged from racial discrimination and harassment to physical abuse and death.
Needless to say, federal reforms have not trickled down to Arpaio’s jails, and they likely never will. A lack of legally enforceable baseline detention standards, as well as varying contracts between ICE and municipal jails, virtually ensure that reforms won’t be comprehensively enacted or enforced.
Fortunately, the ACLU and other civil rights groups are stepping in where the government has failed to act.
Julianne Hing at Colorlines reports that the ACLU has received a favorable ruling in a lawsuit filed against Arpaio:
On Wednesday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a ruling by a lower court that charged Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio with mistreatment of detainees in his jails for serving them spoiled food and neglecting their health.
Yesterday’s ruling will set legal precedent, and help protect prisoners’ rights who are in Arpaio’s jails today. The order only applies to pre-trial detainees—those who cannot afford bail or are being held without bond, but have not been convicted of anything. According to the East Valley Tribune, that population is about 75 percent of the 8,000 people being held in Maricopa County jails.
While the ruling may be a step forward for detainee rights in Maricopa County jails, it’s hardly progress for Arizona as a whole. Like most others states which house immigrant detainees, Arizona boasts a number of variously owned and operated detention facilities whose standards of care and confinement range widely (often to the detriment of detainees). Immediate and comprehensive detention reform is critical.
As Victoria Lopez, an immigration attorney for the ACLU of Arizona, explained to me: “Frankly, when you’re dealing with the number of people that go through detention facilities in the U.S. and some of the life or death issues in these cases…I don’t know how much longer folks can wait for reforms to trickle down from Washington, D.C., to Eloy, AZ.”
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Diaspora for a complete list of articles on immigration issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, and health care issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Pulse . This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.
Weekly Diaspora: Will Immigration Reform Bills Bring Voters to the Polls?
by Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger
Riding the media blitz that followed the DREAM Act’s recent defeat, Senators Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT) unveiled their own comprehensive immigration reform bills just before Congress adjourned last week. The bills are enforcement-heavy, party-line bills that were immediately referred to committee, where they are expected to languish for some time.
Few expect much to come of either bill, given their untimely introduction and the broad failure of previous immigration reform efforts. Rather, these bills are perceived as last-ditch attempts to score political points before midterm elections. The Menendez bill could net support for Democrats from an increasingly unmotivated Latino electorate, conversely, Hatch’s bill reinforces the hard-line immigration stance so popular among Republican voters. (more…)
Weekly Diaspora: Hitting Immigrant Kids Where It Hurts
by Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger
After a long summer of name-calling and absurd attempts to deny birthright citizenship to children of immigrants, immigration hawks are now bullying immigrant children on their own turf: Public schools.
California, New York, Iowa and Colorado are among the states that have cracked down on immigrant students by hiring ICE agents to investigate residency statuses or unlawfully barring students from enrolling. Such blatant discrimination flies in the face of the 14th amendment and Supreme Court precedent, both of which guarantee all children the right to a public education regardless of immigration status.
The latest assault on immigrant students comes not from over-zealous school districts, however, but from state lawmakers adamant about stripping immigrants of the few rights they possess.
Kick ‘em out of school
As Matt Vasilogambros of the Iowa Independent reports, Iowa’s lieutenant gubernatorial candidate Kim Reynolds recently came out in support of denying public education to undocumented children, a sentiment she shares with her running mate, former Gov. Terry Branstad. Branstad’s position is even more extreme, however. He has argued that the Supreme Court decision in Plyer v. Doe—the 1982 case which guarantees immigrants the right to public education—should be overturned.
So far, only Colorado third party gubernatorial candidate Tom Tancredo has fully endorsed Branstad’s extreme opinion. Tancredo has even gone so far as to say that, if elected, he would ignore the Supreme Court ruling altogether.
Branstad and Tancredo may be on their own for the moment. But, if this summer’s birthright citizenship fiasco is any indication, anti-immigrant conservatives must be delighted to fall back on the age-old myth that immigrants are here to steal social services.
New York stands up
Last week, the New York Department of Education fired back at anti-immigrant activism in schools by issuing a memo that directs schools not to investigate the immigration status of their students.
According to Braden Goyette of Campus Progress, the memo came in response to a New York Civil Liberties Union report charging that 139 New York school districts were collecting information about prospective students’ immigration statuses—and barring or discouraging children from enrolling if they failed to provide proof of their citizenship.
Goyette notes that federal law only requires students to fulfill two simple requirements before enrolling: residency in the school district, and intent to remain in the school district. Immigration status is not a factor.
The memo is a victory for immigrant rights advocates, especially as it comes on the heels of reports that two California school districts are adopting even harsher anti-immigrant policies.
Negating Pyler v. Doe
As New America Media’s Jacob Simas and Elena Shore translate from a La Opinión, a daily Spanish-language newspaper based in Los Angeles. Both the Unified School District of Calexico and the Mountain Empire School District near San Diego have hired staff exclusively to investigate the immigration statuses of their students. The school districts are attempting to get around Pyler v. Doe by arguing that their proximity to the border necessitates stricter enforcement of federal residency requirements.
In other words, they’re worried that Mexican children are crossing the border to take advantage of our first-class, world-renowned public school offerings. The simple fact that student residency can be determined without revealing immigration status is obviously beside the point.
Cutting social services in New Jersey
Meanwhile, immigrants in New Jersey may be robbed of their own social services, as the state threatens to removes 12,000 non-citizens from it’s low-income family insurance plan.
As Change.org’s Prerna Lal reports, several legal immigrants have joined a class action lawsuit against New Jersey’s Department of Human Services, alleging that the state is violating “the equal protection guarantees of the United States and New Jersey Constitutions” by denying health care subsidies to legal permanent residents. Lal notes that legal permanent residents possess nearly all of the same rights as U.S. citizens, and pay taxes to both state and federal governments. They should, therefore, be safe from public policy discrimination.
But, while it’s well documented that both legal and undocumented immigrants pay into our social services system through income taxes, that fact is persistently overlooked by the anti-immigrant zealots who want to keep immigrants off Medicaid and out of public schools.
Even former President George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisors agreed that immigrants have a positive fiscal impact Social Security and Medicaid, contributing $80,000 more in taxes than they receive in public services. Other studies put that figure much higher.
Given their immense contribution to the social services net, guaranteeing immigrants’ access to those public services is more than a matter of justice—it’s a matter of fiscal responsibility.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Diaspora for a complete list of articles on immigration issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, and health care issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Pulse . This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.
Weekly Diaspora: The High Cost of Cheap Labor
by Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger
A new study about the effects of immigration on U.S. employment supports the long-standing arguments of immigration advocates: Rather than displacing American workers, immigrant labor actually makes our economy stronger. Kevin Drum has the details at Mother Jones.
Now, with reports that undocumented laborers are a mainstay of disaster relief efforts all over the country, Americans are beginning to get a sense of the unsavory work relegated to many immigrants, and the high price immigrants pay for the simple privilege of employment.
Undocumented workers driving wages up
Going back to Mother Jones, new research examining the relationship between immigration and U.S. employment found that—contrary to conventional anti-immigrant wisdom—immigration does not negatively affect American employment. Instead, immigration drives wages up by pushing low-wage American workers into higher-paying jobs.
Here’s how it works: As less-educated immigrants gravitate towards work that requires fewer English language skills (like manual labor), their less-educated American counterparts move on to higher-paying, communications-intensive work that capitalizes on their comparatively better English language skills. This naturally drives wages up, and makes for a more productive economy overall.
The irony, as Drum notes, is that those who complain about immigrants stealing American jobs are the same people who want immigrants to learn English and assimilate as quickly as possible. “If they did,” Drum argues, “then they’d just start competing for the higher paying jobs that natives now monopolize.”
Stiffed in New Orleans
The reality of being an undocumented worker in the U.S. is starker than most Americans realize. Not only are immigrants doing work that most would rather not, they are also often cleaning up the messes that Americans leave behind.
Five years after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, undocumented laborers remain a key component of reconstruction efforts. Initially drawn to the city by the prospect of work and the Department of Homeland Security’s decision to suspend employment immigration enforcement, many undocumented laborers relocated to New Orleans to assist with rebuilding. But, as Elise Foley reports at the Washington Independent, their immigration status renders them especially vulnerable to rampant wage theft, threats of deportation and workplace violence.
The situation is so dire for many workers that numerous nonprofit groups have initiated projects in the city and are calling for legislation to combat the problem. However, a key concern is that rising anti-immigrant sentiment in other parts of the U.S. could exacerbate difficulties in New Orleans. If such sentiment results in even greater labor abuses or renewed immigration enforcement, whole communities of people who have been dedicated to rebuilding the city could find themselves without livelihood, or even be displaced.
Exploited undocumented workers clean up oil spills
Given the reality that undocumented workers are charged with some of the dirtiest and most unsafe work American employers have to offer, it shouldn’t be surprising that U.S. companies rely on immigrant labor to clean up their worst messes. Not only do undocumented workers have fewer employment options, their immigration status renders them far less likely to report unsafe working conditions, exposure to hazardous materials, and underpayment—making them especially attractive to employers looking to save money or hide bad behavior.
So, naturally, undocumented workers were called in to deal with the catastrophic BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico (though their compliance only earned them the undue attention of Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and, more recently, an oil spill in Michigan.
As Todd A. Heywood at the Michigan Messenger reports, one company in particular has come under fire for hiring and then exploiting undocumented laborers. Hallmark Industrial, a Texas contractor hired to clean up the oil spill, allegedly paid its workers only $800 for up to 100 hours of work per week. Additionally, the company subjected them to unsafe and hazardous working conditions, and even failed to provide workers with on-site toilets—forcing workers to relieve themselves in the areas they were charged with cleaning.
Just 24 hours after the Michigan Messenger broke the story, Hallmark Industrial was fired from the oil spill clean up, its contract terminated by the company which hired it, Garner Environmental Services, Inc. Whether that’s a victory is questionable. Following the termination of the contract, 40 undocumented workers were arrested in Texas, on a bus chartered by Hallmark—presumably just returned from Michigan. While the termination of the contract ensures that its workers won’t be subjected to further workplace abuses, it also ensures that those same individuals must begin the difficult task of finding similar work elsewhere.
Unemployed in California labor camps
Clearly, despite an inexorable willingness to perform low-wage manual labor, undocumented workers are not impervious to the unemployment epidemic. In U.S. labor camps—where migrant agricultural workers can find seasonal or even long term lodging near ranches—farm work is increasingly harder to come by.
As David Bacon highlights at New America Media, both undocumented immigrants and legal “guest workers” are adversely affected by the recession. While the latter possess work visas and may therefore stay in the country legally, both groups live together in the same labor camps, where they remain, ironically, unemployed. Given the present economic climate, there isn’t enough work for even the lowest-wage workers. And in spite of their legal status, even guest workers are barred from applying for unemployment benefits.
The recession has cast both undocumented and legally sanctioned agricultural workers into circumstances even more dismal than those advertised by UFW when it launched its “Take Our Jobs” campaign earlier this summer. Outlining the long hours, low pay, and back-breaking labor associated with farm work, UFW satirically invited American citizens to replace the scores of overworked and undocumented laborers that keep our agricultural industry afloat.
Though meant to be a tongue-in-cheek response to the misconception that immigrants steal American jobs, the campaign exposes a real, if unfortunate, truth about undocumented workers: Even as their presence drives Americans into higher paying jobs, Americans employers are all too happy to subject the undocumented to the worst indignities.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Diaspora for a complete list of articles on immigration issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, and health care issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Pulse . This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.
Weekly Diaspora: Immigrants Abused, Denied Social Services in Broken Immigration System
by Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger
After decades of misguided policies and patchwork practices, the high human costs of our disordered immigration system are only starting to emerge. Stricter immigration policies and overcrowded detention centers aren’t making our streets safer or our social services more accessible.
Instead, mounting evidence shows that our immigration policies are just creating a space for immigrants to be brutalized—socially, financially and physically. From reports of sexual abuse inside of detention centers to news of legal residents being denied social services, the ineffectiveness of the prevailing system has never been more apparent, nor the need for reform so great.
Women and children sexually assaulted in detention centers
As Michelle Chen writes at Colorlines, allegations of sexual abuse within a Texas detention center have sparked investigations by the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch. According to reports, a guard at the T. Don Hutto Residential Center sexually assaulted several women while transporting them prior to their release. (more…)