MataHari: Eye of the Day

Interview transcript of author Sapphire, on her novel "Push"

2010-03-18T20:27:00.000-07:00

Excerpt of Interview with Sapphire, author of "Push"/"Precious"

"Sexism is a worldwide phenomenon and the patriarchy is a phenomenon that exists among all peoples of the world. Black men are not exempt from it. They are not worse than other men and they are not better.

Women own two percent of this world’s property, call the UN and check up on it. That’s called sexism. That’s called producing the bodies that fuel this world, doing most of the labor, the cooking the cleaning, the working of the fields and you own two percent of the property.

As we speak right now, a female baby in China is being murdered. In India, when the husband dies, the wife must be murdered also. There are women in Africa being cliterendectomized. In Sweden and Denmark there are child porn films being made. This is what sexism is.

I remember when my own parents divorced. My father had everything, the house, the car, everything. My father died with six figures, my mother died on welfare. This is one family. That’s real. That’s what sexism is.

It isn’t necessarily about getting beaten up and raped and all that. It’s the same thing as racism. We can be all dressed up and everything but the net worth of African Americans is only one quarter that of whites in this country. We are just talking about some material conditions that exist and from those conditions arise mental and social conditions such as female slavery, prostitution, the murder, the abuse of children and rape of women. This has nothing to do with “black people.”

When you finish Push, Precious talks about the good things too: her life, learning, her child, her friends, Langston Hughes. In the beginning, she’s full of anger. But she’s really full of love. She loves everyone. They don’t love her. She’s loves the black men that don’t want to be her boyfriend because she’s fat and black. She loves Madonna. She loves Alice Walker, Langston Hughes. It’s not a book about hate and vindictiveness. It’s a book about redemption and love. It’s about how one abused child comes forward to become a strong woman.

The hardest material happens in the first chapter. What would be the point of writing a novel if there was no change or growth in the end? The book is not about pain, it’s about push. You can either lie down and do nothing or you can stand up and be strong.

Precious could have gone out and hurt other people or become a crack addict. Why doesn’t someone like her go out and do something like what happened in Littleton, Colorado? Why does she try to go to school, try to get money for diapers for her baby? Why does she try when so many who have suffered less than her take the darker path?

In the beginning of the book, she gives birth to a child. What is dark about that? What could be brighter than that? It would have been dark if she had done like that girl at the prom who strangled her baby. The criticism of Push sometimes baffles me.

And don’t you think it [sexual abuse] disturbs the people it’s happening to? This is happened to 40 percent of American women. Don’t you think it disturbs them? It’s not my fault. Forty percent of women say that they have been sexually abused under the age of 15, whether it’s by parents or the bus driver. This is something that happens to women in western culture. Right now, you can get on the net and surf for the child porn of your choice.

If it really disturbs you, there are ways that we can work to stop the abuse of women and children. And I’m not going to stop writing about it until it stops happening.

NO MORE RAIDS! NO MORE DEPORATIONS! No Human Being Is Illegal!

2009-05-02T16:07:00.000-07:00

Community,

Please take a look at this fact sheet of human rights violations against our immigrants occurring in our Commonwealth.

THIS SUMMARY BORROWS FROM AN ACLU-MASSACHUSETTS REPORT ON ICE
DETENTIONS: http://www.aclum.org/ice/

FOR MORE INFORMATION AND TO HELP STOP THE RAIDS, DETENTIONS AND DEPORTATIONS, CONTACT:
MA Raid & Deportation Resistance Network: ma.stop.raids.detentions@gmail.com or 617-448-0993

The MA Raid & Deportation Resistance Network is a coalition of concerned community members, activists and organizers dedicated to bringing an end to the inhuman treatment of immigrants and communities of color in our Commonwealth

ICE DETENTIONS IN MASSACHUSETTS

800! Every day in Massachusetts, approximately 800 immigrants and asylum-seekers are in detention in
county jails around the state waiting to be deported or fighting a legal battle to stay in the country. None of
those persons are serving sentences for having committed a crime. They have not been judged by a jury of their peers.
350,000! This is part of a national deportation plan formulated by the Immigration & Customs Enforcement authorities. In 2008, this resulted in a record number of deportations — 349,041 people for forcibly removed from the United States.ICE created a network of approximately 400 jails and detention facilities around the country where it now holds over 30,000 persons on any given day. In Massachusetts, the ALCU interviewed 40 detainees who were detained for an average length of 11 months with one having been incarcerated for 5 years!

IMPRISONED! The deportations have reinforced already-existing prison machinery: in Massachusetts. These facilities, which already are overcrowded at up to two and a half times their capacity, receive funding from the federal government at a rate of between $80 and $90 a day plus guard hours, but little or no guidance or oversight to protect detainees' and their rights.

MOVED! ICE raids and detentions result in shell game involving people and an abuse of their due process rights: ICE has almost unlimited power to detain them in any facility in the country and to move them from one facility to another without justification or advance notice. ICE takes full advantage of this power, transferring detainees on a daily basis all over the country. In 2007, ICE spent more than $10 million to transfer nearly 19,400 detained persons. In New England, ICE arrests twice as many people as the region holds; this means that half of those arrested are taken quickly to detention centers in places as far away as Texas and Louisiana.

LOST! Despite its multi-million dollar budget for daily transfers, ICE has no real-time tracking system to monitor the location of its detainees. In the New England region, relatives or lawyers of detained persons call the ICE-New England headquarters for information on the location of their loved one or client and can wait for days for an answer because ICE computers do not have an up-to-date location.

THREATENED! Detainees report that ICE agents used threats, coercion and physical force... Some reported threats of forced sedation, others of forced removal from their cells and transfer to vans and planes.

OVERCROWDING! In some facilities, detained immigrants sleep side by side with inmates in cells meant to hold one person that currently hold two or three.

PUNITIVE! The detainees reported being held in the same unit or the same cell with violent criminals; having to submit to strip searches and cell searches; unhealthy food and dirty water; a lack of access to bathrooms; difficulties in receiving visits from lawyers and family members; a phone system that makes it excessively expensive to call loved ones; no access to a legal library; no access to an outside recreation area; no access to educational services and no access to newspapers or reading materials.

MEDICAL CARE DENIED! The ACLU (MA) documents two cases in
which care was delayed or denied based on the belief that the ill persons would soon be
deported or released, and a third case in which care for a broken finger was refused because the fracture had occurred days prior to the person's arrest, forcing him to stay in detention for months with a finger that became increasingly deformed and painful. There is no standardized process by which a detained person can ask for release based
on a medical condition.

LABOUR-MALAYSIA: Hit Foreign Workers First Govt Tells Employers

2009-03-26T20:27:00.000-07:00

By Anil Netto

PENANG, Mar 23 (IPS) - An official guideline for employers to retrench their foreign workers ahead of local employees has alarmed civil society society groups who fear that indebted migrant workers could be sent home with inadequate compensation.

Worries about retrenchment and unemployment have been mounting as Malaysia sinks into a recession, its export-oriented economy taking a hit from a slump in global consumer demand.

In the last quarter of 2008, the economy grew by just 0.1 per cent and many fear the economy will shrink this year despite a huge 60 billion ringgit (16 billion US dollars) government stimulus package.

In January, exports dropped by 28 percent and the number of workers employed by the manufacturing sector fell by nine per cent against the previous year.

Thousands have been retrenched in the last few months. Labour Department statistics for the month of January alone show 4,325 workers retrenched of which 2,153 were local and 2,172 foreign. These of course are only reported figures.

The steady rate of retrenchments has worried the government, which has announced a principle of foreign workers first out (FWFO), meaning that employers should lay off foreign workers before they retrench locals.

Even the country's trade union movement is worried about the influx of migrant workers at a time when retrenchments are rising.

The issue came under the spotlight when the Bangladeshi labour counsellor said that 70,000 workers from that South Asian country with approved visas would be arriving soon to take up jobs in the plantation, construction and services sectors.

A senior official of the Malaysian Trades Union Congress pointed out that thousands of Bangladeshi workers were experiencing employment uncertainty. He said it would be better to revoke their visas while they were still in their country, instead of landing here and becoming unemployed or under-employed.

But activists point out that many of the foreign workers in Malaysia have paid small fortunes to agents in their home countries to work in Malaysia. Most of the foreign workers in the country are from Indonesia, Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Vietnam, Nepal and the Philippines.

They are lured here by foreign recruitment agents or representative of the more than 250 registered outsourcing countries operating in Malaysia.

If visas are cancelled, foreign workers are unlikely to obtain refunds from the agents. Bangladeshi and Indian workers, for instance, have to raise or borrow around 8,000 to 10,000 ringgit (2192 – 2740 dollars) to pay for agents fees and other charges.

Employment agreements are usually for a period of three years while work permits have to be renewed annually.

But the government has reportedly slashed its work permit approvals by over 70 percent this year. It has also approved a proposal to double the foreign workers' levy imposed on employers to discourage the hiring of foreign workers.

Activists worry that employers could pass down these higher charges for their foreign workers to absorb. In the case of restaurant owners, this could reportedly amount to 3,600 ringgit (988 dollars) per worker. Employers could also be tempted to hire undocumented workers due to the higher levies.

Foreign workers usually have to work one or two years before they can recover what they incurred - or repay the loans they took - in their home countries. If they are sent back earlier, they could well find themselves in debt upon their return home.

Indonesia has expressed fears that some 100,000 of the two million Indonesian workers in Malaysia could be retrenched as companies here shed workers.

"This has not yet happened, so don’t exaggerate it," outgoing Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi was quoted as saying in the Indonesian media during a two-day visit to Indonesia this week. "And if it ever happens, it will not only happen to migrant workers but also to Malaysians."

In a joint statement, fifty civil society groups from South and South-east Asia endorsed a statement, pointing out it would be a great injustice if Malaysian employers were allowed to prematurely terminate their foreign workers' employment agreements and send them back home.

Early termination of their employment agreements means they would usually end up in a worse condition than when they first entered into the agreement.

“This is a great injustice, and it is inhumane,” said the statement. “If there is going to be early termination of employment agreements which are for a minimum fixed period of employment, then the worker must be paid adequate compensation, at the very least basic wages for the remaining duration of their employment agreement.”

Paying migrant workers the usual termination benefits that Malaysian workers are entitled to - calculated based on the number of years in service - would not be fair either in view of the huge costs the foreign workers incurred in arriving in Malaysia.

Before they send back anybody, the employers should pay what they owe the workers, says Ruth Paul, the coordinator of the Foreign Workers Service Centre on mainland Penang.

“These workers don't have (statutory) retrenchment benefits; so if, say, they have a year remaining on their contract, the employers could pay their outstanding wages (for the remaining period) plus the cost of flight tickets,” Paul said.

She mentioned a couple of cases in the city of Ipoh recently, where migrant workers were sent back home without their wages because the company was shutting down.

Paul also fears that some employers might just shut down their factories without adequately compensating their migrant workers, leaving them in a lurch.

In the past, she had encountered cases where the employers, who had held on to their workers' passports, suddenly disappeared and could not be contacted. “The only thing I tell them is to make a police report and contact their embassy.”

Human rights lawyer and blogger Charles Hector suggests that a new policy could be adopted: if a migrant worker has been retrenched, and if he or she has worked less than three years in Malaysia, a new amended work permit could be given to allow the worker to be employed in another sector that needs workers.

“They may be non-citizens, but they are workers and human beings, and they need to be treated as such,” he wrote in his blog. “The government needs to develop just policies and principles."

Haitians facing deportation look to Obama for help

2009-03-02T19:35:00.000-08:00

http://www.southernstudies.org/2009/02/will-obama-help-haitian-immigrants.html

The United States is set to deport more than 30,000 Haitians to their impoverished homeland, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials announced this week. A protest in response to the decision has been planned for Saturday, Feb. 21 in Broward County, Florida. Haitian activists and immigrants are calling for a halt to the arrests and a suspension of the deportations.

Deportation orders have been processed for 30,299 Haitians and they are starting to be implemented. Hundreds of Haitians have been put in camps awaiting the return home, while others have been put under a form of house arrest and are being monitored with electronic ankle bracelets, the AFP reported.

As the poorest nation in the western hemisphere, Haiti's troubles significantly increased with the passage of four deadly back-to-back storms last fall -- Fay, Gustav, Hanna and Ike -- that killed more than 800 persons and worsened the nation's food crisis. The storms devastated the small, impoverished island nation, washing away roads, bridges and crops. Thousands lost their homes. By some estimates, 80 percent of the country's population had been displaced by wide-ranging flood damage. A joint World Bank, United Nations and European Commission assessment released last November determined that total losses from the storms -- "the largest disaster for Haiti in more than 100 years" – could equal 15 percent of Haiti's gross national product.

Haitian President René Préval has urged the United States to grant Haitians nationals in the United States temporary protection status as victims of natural disasters, insisting Haiti is still struggling to recover from last year's devastating hurricanes and cannot handle the return of its citizens. Haitian officials even said they will not issue the travel documents needed to process the deportees. But ICE argues that Haiti's resistance will force people to languish longer in crowded detention centers.

The U.S. government did halt deportations to Haiti for three months last year, starting in September. After resuming flights in December, the administration of then President George W. Bush denied Haiti's request for "temporary protected status." Temporary protected status, or TPS, is a special state granted to immigrants of certain nationalities who are unable to return to their countries because of armed conflict, environmental disasters, or other extraordinary and temporary conditions, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. The designation would have allowed Haitians living in the United States illegally to stay and work temporarily as their home country recovered from the devastating storm season.

Several Florida lawmakers criticized the Department of Homeland Security's decision to resume deportations last December. Haitian grassroots activists and immigration advocates have since renewed the call for TPS for Haitian nationals in the United States. Haitian advocates are upset that the new Obama White House seems to be maintaining the same policy of the past administrations -- one that advocates say represents a double-standard in dealing with Haitian immigrants.

Protected status has been granted and extended by the DHS to people from a handful of African and Central American countries because of natural disasters. For instance, Hondurans are still getting TPS from a natural disaster that occurred in 1999. In addition to Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Sudan have temporary protected status through 2010. Yet, Haiti has never been granted such a status. Over the years, the United States has become notorious for turning away Haitian "boat people" coming into South Florida seeking refuge and asylum from political upheaval and disaster.

The impact of U.S. and multinational policies continue to haunt the country. Over the years, due to harsh policies and pressure from the United States, World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, Haiti was forced to undergo strict structural adjustment policies that had a devastating impact on its local economy. Critics argue that international lending organizations helped worsen hunger in Haiti by pursuing free market policies that undermined domestic rice production and turned the country into a market for U.S. rice. This food crisis was further compounded by crippling sanctions, political destabilization, and environmental destruction.

Now Haitian advocates are wondering if the Obama era will bring in fair immigration reform or just more of the same.

Haitians shocked at mass deportation order

2009-03-02T19:31:00.000-08:00

By Suzan Clarke
The Journal News, Feb. 21, 2009

Haitian-Americans here and across the nation are outraged over a federal judge's decision to deport more than 30,000 undocumented Haitians, and have vowed to fight the order.

Joseph Desmaret, a Haitian-American and elected official in Spring Valley, which is home to a large number of Haitians, said immigration violations are no reason to target Haitians.

He said he had no problem with the deportation of violent criminals but noted that the majority of those under the order had not violated criminal law.

"I don't think it's fair for a country like Haiti, that is in the backyard of the United States, to (be treated) like this," he said, adding that Haiti was unable to accept the deportees because the country was devastated by several hurricanes last year.

Millions of undocumented immigrants from other countries who live in America were not targeted by deportation efforts, he said, adding that the United States' policy toward certain nations was inherently unfair.

"There are many other immigrants, like ... Cubans, they are welcomed to the United States. They have almost the same problems like the Haitians. They accept them, they help them out, and why not us?" he said.

This week, the federal government announced that 30,299 Haitians had been placed under final deportation orders by a federal judge. The news has been met with outrage, and protests have been staged in Miami.

The Haitian government is reportedly in talks with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in an attempt to find a solution.

Haiti's consul general in the New York area, Felix Augustin, yesterday said the Haitian government was hopeful that the talks would produce results. Even so, Haitians in Haiti as well as in the U.S. are worried.

"We had four hurricanes in the span of less than a month" last year, "and Haiti is recovering from all those disasters," Augustin said. "We don't have the safety net, the social safety net, to accept such a large number of people."

The United States deported 1,024 Haitians between January and Dec. 17 of last year, said Barbara Gonzalez, a spokeswoman for the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

As for the final orders of removal, they affect people whose cases may have been pending over time, and were not all ordered in one swoop, she said.

Of the 30,299, fewer than 600 were in ICE custody. The remaining prospective deportees were expected to comply with the deportation order and leave voluntarily.

Those who failed to comply would be considered fugitives. Gonzalez said the government had "fugitive alien teams" across the country whose sole purpose was to capture people who evaded deportation orders.

Gonzalez denied that Haitians were being treated more harshly than nationals of other countries.

"We enforce the law consistently across the board, regardless of a person's nationality," she said. "Our law enforcement officers have a duty and an obligation to enforce our nation's laws, and that's what they do every single day."

Haiti's government has said it cannot accept the returning citizens now, and has renewed a call for the U.S. to temporarily suspend deportations until the country is in better shape. Haitian authorities are reportedly declining to issue travel documents to the intended deportees.

The U.S. cannot return people to their country if they do not possess travel documents. In such cases, Gonzalez said, an immigrant in U.S. custody without travel documents would probably spend a longer time in detention.

Gonzalez could not immediately say how many of those Haitians under final deportation order were in New York state.

Desmaret, of Spring Valley, said Haitians across the diaspora were abuzz about the planned removals. He himself, along with Spring Valley Deputy Mayor Noramie Jasmin, who also is Haitian, have reached out Rep. Eliot Engel, D-Bronx, for help.

"We're determined to take steps to stop this. ... And if we have to march in Washington, we'll mobilize our resources, we'll go to Washington and march in Washington for justice for those people," Desmaret said.

Engel, speaking by telephone yesterday from Jamaica, agreed that the deportations to Haiti at this time were "ridiculous."

Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere, is suffering even more because of the troubled world economy.

"If you deport somebody back to a country like Haiti, chances are overwhelming that that person will not be able to find employment, not be able to sustain himself or herself. ... I think that sometimes we need to have a little bit of a heart," he said.

Haiti's ambassador to the United States, Raymond Joseph, has been in talks with the Department of Homeland Security regarding the possibility of granting those Haitians special temporary protected status, according to Augustin.

TPS is a temporary immigration status granted by the United States to eligible nationals of certain countries who are unable to safely return to their home countries because of armed conflict, environmental disaster, or other extraordinary and temporary conditions.

Engel has sponsored legislation to extend TPS to Haitians. When he returns to the U.S., he said, he will meet with federal officials on the matter.

"I would just say that the temporary protected status has been granted to nationals of many countries ... because of earthquakes, hurricanes," he said. "I see no reason why Haitians should be treated any differently. I resent it."

El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Sudan and Sierra Leone are among the countries that have had TPS extended to their nationals.

Haiti, Venezuela pose early tests for Obama administration

2009-03-02T19:26:00.000-08:00

By David Adams, Times Latin America Correspondent | February 21, 2009

The Obama administration is getting an early reality check on some of the sticky issues facing U.S. foreign policy in this hemisphere.

Take just two recent examples: Haiti and Venezuela.

Immigration advocates, some of whom worked for the Obama campaign, are dismayed by growing reports of Haitians being deported to the hurricane-wrecked island, despite ongoing legal appeals.

Meanwhile, Venezuelan opposition activists are equally appalled by the State Department's endorsement of Sunday's controversial referendum in which President Hugo Chávez won the right to unlimited re-election.

While Venezuela and Haiti are not considered priorities in U.S. foreign policy - at least not compared with Iraq, Afghanistan or Iran - they are likely to pose significant challenges for the State Department during the next four years. History has proven that American presidents ignore them at their peril.

In Haiti a new political crisis is looming over presidential elections due in 2010 that are likely to be hotly contested. The country is in even more severe economic distress than usual after four hurricanes last year killed 800 people, flooded the country's second-largest city, and destroyed roads, bridges and crops.

Meanwhile, Chávez has over the last decade turned Venezuela into an ideological crucible of anti-U.S. sentiment in Latin America. Venezuela still supplies more than 10 percent of U.S. daily petroleum needs, and is leading efforts at the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to push prices higher.

The Bush administration halted deportations to Haiti between September and mid December. But they have since resumed, including four people on Jan. 23, only three days after Obama's inauguration. Thousands more are in detention and face similar fates.

Immigration advocates are appealing for another moratorium, arguing that the devastation from hurricane season has left the country in no condition to handle large numbers of returnees.

"All we are asking for is reinstating the halt to deportation orders," said Steve Forester, with the group Haitian Women of Miami.

As a humanitarian gesture, others say the United States should grant Haitians who are in this country illegally what is known as Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, effectively freezing action on their cases. Haiti's cash-strapped economy depends heavily on remittances from families abroad, which would be hurt if deportations continue, they say.

Some of those being deported are noncriminal Haitians who have often been
living here for more than a decade, and have young, U.S.-born children, as well as U.S. spouses, he said.

Forester cited the example of Louiness Petit-Frere, a Haitian man who was deported Jan. 23 after almost 10 years in this country. Petit-Frere is married to a U.S. citizen, his brother is an injured Iraq war veteran, and his mother is a permanent resident.

"He is calling his mother every day saying he has nothing to eat," said his attorney Candace Jean. "But he came (to Miami) on a boat and the law says you have to go back to your country for 10 years. It makes no sense."

Obama officials had another surprise this week after Chávez won Sunday's referendum allowing him to stand ad infinitum. State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid described the vote as "entirely consistent with the democratic process," despite overwhelming evidence of misuse of state resources.

From that assessment it might appear that the Obama administration "has opted to turn its back on democracy in Venezuela," said Pedro Burelli, a Chávez critic and former board member of Venezuela's state oil company.

Privately, some officials are saying that the spokesman misread his guidance notes. But no one has officially come forward to correct him.

"The fact is that the Obama administration hasn't yet focused on the Venezuela challenge and hasn't decided how it is going to deal with Chávez," said Michael Shifter, at the Washington-based Inter-American Dialogue. "The result is some carelessness and contradictory signals."

Ditto Haiti.

Call to Action

2009-03-02T19:23:00.000-08:00

Communities must fight back against FIRST WORKSITE raids of the Obama Administration in Washington state 2.24.09

Tell the Obama Administration: Stop the Raids, Pass Just and Humane Immigration Reform

- Raids hurt our communities, our economy and all workers and immigrants. Raids victimize the very people that helped to bring change to the White House and elect President Barack Obama.
- Yesterday, 28 workers, incuding 3 mothers, were chained and arrested in a factory in Bellingham, WA as part of ICE enforcement operations.
- In this time of economic hardship it is completely unacceptable for the Obama administration to be executing raids on our workers, businesses and communities- it is time for him to hear from us.

CALL the WHITE HOUSE NOW: 202-456-1414 to speak to the President

Tell President Barack Obama:
- The raid in Washington state is unacceptable, and hurts all of our communities.
- He must stop the raids NOW, and work to pass comprehensive immigration reform - NOW!.

or

FAX a letter to: 202-456-2461

Federal immigration agents raid Bellingham business

2009-03-02T19:22:00.001-08:00

JOHN STARK AND ANNA WALTERS / THE BELLINGHAM HERALD

BELLINGHAM - After federal agents raided Yamato Engine Specialists Ltd. and detained 28 employees Tuesday, Feb. 24, company officials expressed dismay about how U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers handled the matter.

"They arrived in force," said Asiff Dhanani, a co-owner of the company at 2020 E. Bakerview Road. "They surrounded the whole perimeter."

Most of the workers detained were taken off in handcuffs, Dhanani said, except for three women who apparently were processed and released because they had children in local schools or daycare centers. The 28 made up about one-third of the engine remanufacturing company's production force.

"Some of these guys have been with us a long time," Dhanani said, adding that at least two of the workers detained Tuesday had been cleared by an earlier federal immigration audit that began in 2005 and was competed in 2006.

The arrested workers included 25 men - 22 Mexican nationals, one Salvadoran, one Guatemalan and one Honduran - and three women, all Mexican nationals, said ICE spokeswoman Lorie Dankers. She added that some of those arrested had phony documents, such as Social Security cards.

The 25 men were taken to the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, and all will be entitled to a hearing before an immigration judge to determine if they have any legal grounds to remain in the U.S., Dankers said.

Shirin Dhanani Makalai, Yamato's administrative manager, said the company has done its best to comply with immigration law in its hiring practices. She provided a copy of a 2006 letter to her from ICE, over the signature of assistant special agent in charge Roy Hoffman, praising the company's compliance.

The letter says, in part: "Yamato Engine Specialist Ltd. is in full compliance with the record keeping requirements of the law and is making a good faith effort to insure (sic) that all new positions are filled by American citizens and by aliens authorized to work in the United States. You and Yamato Engine Specialist Ltd. may be proud of the contribution which your diligence and resolve are making to the success of this program. Your efforts are a genuine investment in the economic well-being of our nation."

Makalai said ICE removed several workers after the 2005-06 audit, but that enforcement action was carried out in a less disruptive way. Agents came to the plant, interviewed workers, and departed with those who were working illegally.

"They said they would work with us because they didn't want to cause us undue hardship," Makalai said of the earlier enforcement. "It was very dignified and humanely done. We just didn't expect this."

Dankers said there was nothing unusual about the Tuesday raid, which was authorized by search warrant after an investigation that began last spring.

"Individuals can dispute whether they think that is the appropriate tactic or not, but it is something we are allowed to do under the law," Dankers said.

Many of those detained admitted they were in the country illegally when questioned by federal officers Tuesday, Dankers added.

Makalai said the range of wages for Yamato's production workers begins at $9 and can be as high as $25 to $30 for the most skilled. She and Dhanani said the loss of the workers left them scrambling to fill orders.

"Because these are skilled jobs, there are only limited people that can do some of these jobs," Dhanani said. "You can't just get someone off the street and put someone in these positions."

Makalai said Yamato gets the federally required I-9 documentation from every worker at the time of hiring, but she and other employers have a difficult time making sure that workers' documents are legitimate.

"They forged them, they bought them, we don't know," Makalai said. "They (the federal agencies) do not have an information system. ... Then they come in and ambush you."

But Sharon Rummery, spokeswoman at the regional office of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in San Francisco, said employers could check employees' documents with relative ease by using the federal E-Verify system. Any employer can enroll in the free system, which then provides a quick online verification system that, among other things, attempts to match names with Social Security numbers.

Makalai, Dhanani and other members of the family that launched Yamato are themselves immigrants who fled persecution in Uganda in the early 1970s.

"We know about paperwork and following the law," Makalai said. "We know about living in fear. ... It's not something we like to see other people experience."

Immigration officials raid Bellingham plant

2009-03-02T19:19:00.000-08:00

By Lornet Turnbull
Seattle Times staff reporter

Immigration officers today raided an engine remanufacturing plant in Bellingham, arrested 28 illegal immigrant workers and began processing them for deportation.

The arrests are part of an ongoing investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials at Yamato Engine Specialists in Bellingham.

ICE officials say the 25 men and three women — most of them from Mexico — may have gained employment at Yamato using phony social security numbers and other counterfeit identity documents.

Yamato officials, who said they had been cooperating with ICE since last fall when investigators began looking at employment documents, were shocked by today's raid.

In fact, three of the workers arrested today had been cleared as having legitimate documents during an employment records audit by ICE in 2005, said Yamato spokeswoman Shirin Dhanani Makalai.

We have been audited before so we do due diligence to get the proper paperwork," Makalai said. "People bring you paperwork that by law you are required to accept. You can't always tell if it's not correct."

With about 100 workers, Yamato specializes in rebuilding Japanese car engines and transmissions.

ICE investigators began looking into its employment records following the arrest of a criminal illegal immigrant who had previously worked there.

After being processed earlier today, officials released three of the immigrants on humanitarian grounds. The others are being held at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma.

"The lure of jobs in the United States continues to be one of the primary factors fueling illegal immigration," said Leigh Winchell, special agent in charge of the ICE Office of Investigations in Seattle.

"ICE remains committed to investigating cases where the evidence shows employment laws are being violated."

Lornet Turnbull: 206-464-2420 or lturnbull@seattletimes.com

Cuban 5 Appeal to Supreme Court for New Trial

2009-02-09T19:10:00.000-08:00

Attorneys for the Cuban Five have filed an appeal with the Supreme Court asking for a new trial. The five men were convicted in 2001 for spying on the US military and Cuban exiles in southern Florida. They they weren’t spying on the US, but trying to monitor right-wing Cuban groups that have organized violent attacks on Cuba. We speak to their attorney, Thomas Goldstein. Watch or listen to the interview at http://www.democracynow.org/2009/2/6/cuban_5_appeal_to_supreme_court.

Also, the documentary "Against the Silence: The Family of the Five Speak Out" (a half hour documentary that Sally O'Brien and Jennifer Wager made) is now online. This important tool in the struggle to free the Cuban Five it is in Spanish and English. See it at http://blip.tv/file/1737961.

International Conference on Martí, Juárez, and Lincoln in the Soul of Our America

2009-02-09T19:09:00.000-08:00

From the Latin American Studies Association
http://lasa.international.pitt.edu/members/conferences/JoseMarti.asp

Date(s): May 17-19, 2009
Location: Monterrey, Mexico

Description:
The Contributions of José Martí, Benito Juárez, Abraham Lincoln, and other leaders of what Martí called ‘Our America.’ is the theme of a conference in Monterrey, Mexico, from May 17-19. Guided by Martí’s statement, ‘To be educated is the only way to be free,’ the principal goal of the conference is to promote an Alternative for the Americas Inspired by the Ideas of Martí (in Spanish, Alternativa Martiana para las Américas—ALMA, or soul). Among the special guests will be Cuban leader Armando Hart, president of the Cuban National Commission of the Martí Program. Initial conference sponsors include the Latin American Studies Program, University of Houston and the Universities of Nuevo León, Coahuila, and Guadalajara.

Proposal deadline:
April 19, 2009

Contact information:
Proposals are to submitted to Dr. Águeda Marisel Oliva of the Instituto José Martí de Educación Superior in Monterrey at marisel.oliva@josemarti.edu.mx. U.S. contacts are

Dr. Susan Kellogg, Director of the University of Houston Latin American Studies Program (alma2008@uh.edu); Prof. Dionicio Valdés, Department of History, Michigan State University (valdesd@msu.edu); Prof. August Nimtz, Department of Political Science, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis (animtz@umn.edu).

Sex slavery: Living the American nightmare

2009-01-13T18:12:00.000-08:00

Shadowy multibillion-dollar industry far more widespread than expected
By Alex Johnson and Cesar Rodriguez
MSNBC
December 22, 2008

When FBI and immigration agents arrested a 28-year-old Guatemalan woman three months ago in Los Angeles, they announced that they had shut down one of the most elaborate sex trafficking rings in the country. It was also the family business.

The woman, Maribel Rodriguez Vasquez, was the sixth member of her family to be rounded up in the two-year multi-agency investigation. Vasquez, five of her relatives and three other Guatemalan nationals were charged with 50 counts, alleging that they lured at least a dozen young women — including five minors as young as 13 years old — to the United States with promises of good jobs, only to put them to work as prostitutes. All remain in custody as investigators attempt to unravel the complex case.

Vasquez — quickly dubbed the “L.A. Madam” — attracted attention because she had been featured on the fugitive-hunting television program “America’s Most Wanted.” But it was one of only a few such cases to be spotlighted by national media, contributing to the false impression that cases of immigrant sex trafficking are isolated incidents, law enforcement officials and advocates for immigrants say.

The reality is that human trafficking goes on in nearly every American city and town, said Lisette Arsuaga, director of development for the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking, a human rights organization in Los Angeles.

“Human trafficking is well hidden,” Arsuaga said. “I consider it a huge problem.”

Her assessment is shared by authorities in Bexar County, Texas, where the Sheriff’s Office has formed a task force with Shared Hope International, an anti-slavery organization founded by former Rep. Linda Smith, D-Wash. Bexar County is considered a crossroads of the cross-border Mexican sex slave trade because two Interstate highways that crisscross the state intersect there, some 150 miles from the Mexican border.

“I could go to a truck stop in South Texas right now and get on a CB radio and ask for some sweet stuff, and someone’s going to come out and offer something to sell,” Sheriff’s Deputy Chris Burchell said.

A $9.5 billion-a-year industry
Federal officials agree that the trafficking of human beings as sex slaves is far more prevalent than is popularly understood. While saying it is difficult to pinpoint the scope of the industry, given its shadowy nature, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials estimated that it likely generates more than $9.5 billion a year.

Last year alone, the FBI opened more than 225 human trafficking investigations in the United States. Figures for 2008 are not yet available, but in a coordinated nationwide sweep in July, federal, state and local authorities made more than 640 arrests and rescued 47 children in just three days.

In congressional testimony this year, FBI Director Robert Mueller called sex trafficking “a significant and persistent problem in the U.S. and around the world.”

Most cases involve “international persons trafficked to the United States from other countries,” who are generally less aware of their rights, probably do not speak English and are frightened to go to the authorities, he said. “Victims are often lured with false promises of good jobs and better lives and are then forced to work in the sex industry.”

While an increasing number of young men and boys are being forced into the commercial sex industry, more than 80 percent of victims are women and girls, the State Department estimated this year. Of those, 70 percent are forced into prostitution, stripping, pornography or mail-order marriage.

That allegedly was the case with the L.A. Madam.

Prosecutors said in court documents that the Vasquez ring sold Guatemalan women and girls to one another like slaves for several years. Ring members also would try to keep them in line by taking them to witch doctors who threatened to put curses on them and their families if they ran away, the prosecution said.

In one incident, three of the defendants repeatedly kicked and hit one of the victims to punish her for trying to escape, the documents allege.

“These young women were enticed into coming to this country by promises of the American dream, only to arrive and discover that what awaited was a nightmare,” said Robert Schoch, an ICE special agent.

A modern-day form of slavery
Less publicized cases reveal ordeals just as horrific.

In August, three owners and operators of Asian massage parlors in Johnson County, Kansas, near Kansas City, pleaded guilty to human trafficking of women they recruited from China and forced into prostitution.

Charging documents said the defendants, all Chinese nationals, arranged the women’s travel, meeting them at the Kansas City, Mo., airport and driving them directly to one of two massage parlors they operated in Overland Park. There, the women were forced to work from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. seven days a week performing “sexual services on male patrons in exchange for money.”

Occasionally, one of the women would be sent to a nearby apartment to provide “extended sexual services,” prosecutors said. Otherwise, they lived in the massage parlors, monitored 24 hours a day by surveillance cameras.

The case made it clear that “human trafficking is a modern-day form of slavery that reaches from the other side of the globe to the suburban Midwest,” U.S. Attorney John F. Wood said.

Last month, police in Nashville, Tenn., arrested two men and charged them with holding a young Mexican woman as a sex slave, driving her across Tennessee, Georgia and Florida, where she was forced to engage in prostitution with as many as seven men a day, court records said.

Investigators alleged that the woman, 22, was tortured, stabbed and cut with an ice pick to ensure her obedience. They said the men also threatened to kill her family in Mexico and her sister in Atlanta if she did not follow their orders.

“The account given by this woman is very, very disturbing,” said Don Aaron, a spokesman for the Nashville police.

Beatings, rapes and forced abortions
In New York, meanwhile, Consuelo Carreto Valencia, a 4-foot-10, 61-year-old grandmother, pleaded guilty in July to smuggling dozens of women from Mexico and violently coercing them to perform sex acts.

Prosecutors said that Valencia was the matriarch of an extensive prostitution ring based in Mexico. The victims were compelled to perform sex acts 12 hours a day and were subjected to beatings, rape and forced abortions, they said.

Valencia agreed to the guilty plea after her attorney, John S. Wallenstein, told her she could go to prison for life if she were convicted on all counts.

“I said the jurors are going to want to jump out of the jury box and tear you to pieces,” Wallenstein was quoted as saying.

Cases hard to build
But law enforcement officials say that such successes are relatively rare. Often, victims are too frightened to cooperate with investigators, and when they are willing to help, they often speak little or no English, making it problematic to present cases that commonly rest on one person’s word against that of another.

“We have cases come up all the time, but no one really knows about it because Hispanic illegal immigrants fear being deported,” said Sara Sherman, an anti-slavery activist with Free For Life Ministries in Nashville.

Sheriff’s Deputy Keith Bickford, coordinator of the Human Trafficking Task Force in Multnomah County, Ore., said “The girls need help,” but he said they are “so difficult to deal with that we don’t have anyone trained to deal with them.”

Catching ringleaders in the act is particularly difficult, said Minneapolis Deputy Police Chief Valerie Wurster.

“We don’t find people who are chained to beds,” Wurster said. “What we’re finding is people who are very frightened, who don’t have resources locally, being managed by someone who is telling them things that aren’t very true about the environment that they’re living in.”

Federal authorities said that because the victims of sex slavery are captive and cannot come forward, they need more help from the public.

The Justice Department maintains a human trafficking hotline at 1-888-428-7581, but there is a great deal of work left to do, said Carmen Pitre, executive director of the Task Force on Family Violence, an agency that supports victims of trafficking in Milwaukee.

“We’ve come to learn that cases of trafficking are all around us in plain sight,” Pitre said. “Today, you can buy a human being for $200 in any major city in the world.”

Gordon College students prepare gift boxes for local families

2009-01-13T17:57:00.000-08:00

By Sarah Durfey
Gordon College Graduate
December 2008

Near the end of this fall semester students at Gordon College wanted to do something for the many women and girls who have been abused, enslaved, or are suffering injustice – especially those who are right here in Boston. We had recently formed a group on campus called the Gordon College Abolitionist Movement, responding to the issue of modern slavery, recognizing the need to act – and raise our voices in our communities and in the government.

We had heard of a student group at another school putting together Christmas boxes for women in a safe house in Cambodia. We decided it would be awesome to make boxes for women right here in Boston.

Through the abolitionist movement we sent out emails and put up flyers around campus, spreading the word that we were collecting donations to bring a bit of Christmas to these woman who have been through such darkness.

Donations started flowing in, and right before finals we had a “boxing party” and organized everything into gift boxes. It was exciting to see the generosity of students (and their parents) as we were able to make over 20 boxes!

There is much to be done, but it is encouraging to know there are people ready and willing to step up and take action.

Listen to the show Laws do little to curtail sex slavery

2009-01-13T17:54:00.000-08:00

Interview by Kai Ryssdal
American Public Media

Kai Ryssdal: Modern day slavery is a topic that's not easy to discuss. But it's too important and too big to avoid.

By some estimates, slavery as an industry is worth about $91 billion a year. Sex slaves represent about 4 percent of all slaves around the world. But they account for about 40 percent of the profits. And as the global economy worsens so could the lives of those women and children. Siddarth Kara's book about them -- and the business -- is called "Sex Trafficking."

Welcome to the program.

Siddharth Kara: Thanks. It's good to be here.

Ryssdal: As a purely business model question, slavery is all up-side? I mean, it sounds flip, but really it's almost hard to lose money doing it.

Kara: That is a very good point. The fundamental economics of slavery is to maximize profit by minimizing the cost of labor, in this case, zero or close to zero. So, yes, there is a tremendous profit incentive. There should be more risk to the commission of these crimes. Slavery is illegal in just about every country in the world. But, there is almost no real risk to the exploitation of slaves around the world.

Ryssdal: Why is that? I mean, if it's illegal, if governments know about it, which they all do because we're talking about it -- and everybody talks about it from time to time -- why is this the case?

Kara: Weak laws. In India, for example, there is actually no financial penalty for exploiting a sex slave, but there is a $44 fine for owning a brothel. Now you can actually make, as a brothel owner, close to $13,000 a year per slave in profit. So, even if you rounded up every exploiter of sex slaves each and every year and fine them that $44, sex slavery would still be a high-profit enterprise to be in.

Ryssdal: As you think about how to eradicate sex slavery -- and that's a good part of the book -- you talk about the supply side and the demand side. But with access to sex slaves so cheap and human biology being what it is, can you ever really eradicate the demand side?

Kara: I do believe that the most effective attack on the sex slave industry in the near-term, is an attack on the demand force. To eradicate slavery in the long-term you'll have to address the supply side -- issues relating to poverty, lawlessness, corruption, etc. But I, in the book, focus on what I call two strategic points of intervention in the fundamental business structure of sex slavery and that's slave owner demand for profit and consumer demand for low-priced commercial sex. And if you can significantly increase the risk inherent to the system -- increase the cost of committing these crimes -- you can make a strong negative impact on both slave owner and consumer demand.

Ryssdal: This is obviously an incredibly emotional topic. How do you remain so analytical about this, because you clearly do?

Kara: I -- it's not easy. As I sit here and talk with you about this business analysis -- I have a business and legal background -- my mind is still filled with the faces of so many of the slaves I met: Hundreds of slaves who have suffered unspeakable acts of savagery. Women and children who are raped, tortured and killed every day. And I believe that a business and economic analysis is the best way to attack a fundamentally economic crime, slavery. But the moral outrage of these crimes and the human cost of these crimes, is going to be what motivates us to initiate more effective efforts to redress these crimes.

Ryssdal: Are you optimistic that anything is going to come of what you clearly hope to achieve from this book?

Kara: I go through waves of emotion. There are some real down days and there were some down days on the research trail. For me this book is step one. Step two is to get in front of the right audiences, governments, international organizations, and argue for the case I'm making for a new brand of global abolitionist movement that will design and deploy more effective tactics to abolish slavery once and for all.

Ryssdal: The book by Siddharth Kara is called "Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery." He sits on the board of directors of the group Free the Slaves. Siddharth, thanks a lot for coming in.

Kara: Thank you.

ACLU Claims Catholic Bishops Misusing Grant Money

2009-01-13T17:44:00.000-08:00

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
January 12, 2009

BOSTON (AP) -- A federal lawsuit filed Monday claims Roman Catholic bishops are wrongly imposing their religious beliefs on victims of human trafficking by prohibiting grant money to be used for emergency contraception, condoms and abortion care.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed the complaint in federal court in Boston against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The suit claims the agency, which distributes money to help trafficking victims, has allowed the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to limit the services its subcontractors provide. The ACLU claims the bishops' conference is misusing taxpayer money and attempting to impose its religious beliefs on trafficking victims.

The federal government estimates that between 14,500 and 17,500 people -- mostly women -- are brought into the United States each year and exploited for labor, often prostitution. Through the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, a law passed by Congress in 2000, the federal government distributes money to cover services needed by victims of severe forms of trafficking.

''The whole goal of this program is to provide the full range of services, and the concern is that because of a main contractor's religious beliefs, it will be much more difficult for women to get these services,'' said Brigitte Amiri, a staff attorney with the ACLU's Reproductive Freedom Project.

A spokesman for HHS did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

The bishops' conference, which promotes Catholic activities and does charitable and social welfare work, began administering the funds under the trafficking law in 2006, using social service organizations as subcontractors to provide the services. In its lawsuit, the ACLU said the agreements between the conference and the subcontractors explicitly prohibit them from using the funds to provide ''referral for abortion services or contraceptive materials.''

''We will continue to provide those services in the contract that are consistent with our belief in the life and dignity of the human person,'' said Sister Mary Ann Walsh, a spokeswoman for the bishops' conference, which was not named as a defendant in the complaint.

In its lawsuit, the ACLU said the bishops' conference has received a total of $6 million since 2006 under the program. Some of the services provided include food stamps, torture treatment and career counseling.

The Bush administration, backed by evangelicals, made the battle against sex slavery a high priority, appointing former Republican U.S. Rep. John R. Miller as an ambassador on slavery for the State Department and leader of its Office to Monitor and Combat Human Trafficking.

Carol Gomez, the founding director of MataHari, a Boston-based non-profit that provides services to trafficking victims but does not contract with the bishops' conference, said victims often experience physical and emotional trauma, have a high risk of pregnancy and can be exposed to sexually transmitted diseases.

''Part of the healing process ... is returning power back to the victim, and this means for the person to have full rights over determining his or her medical care issues and his or her reproductive health issues,'' Gomez said.

(This version DELETES an incorrect reference to the actual amount received as $5.3 million. Walsh says the $6 million figure is not in dispute. )

State wage laws also protecting illegal workers

2009-01-13T17:40:00.001-08:00

By Maria Sacchetti
The Boston Globe
December 29, 2008

Except for his meticulous records, the fish man was invisible.

He hustled for years in anonymity behind the seafood counter at Super 88 supermarket in Boston, serving up heaps of swordfish, salmon, and striped bass for $6 an hour. What customers did not know was that he earned less than the minimum wage, and that he was never paid overtime for his 14-hour shifts. Sometimes, he was not paid at all.

Because the fish man is an undocumented immigrant, he was unlikely to complain to government officials. Then one day, he took a plastic bag of pay stubs to a lawyer, who used these and other documents to file a complaint with the state attorney general's office demanding his full pay.

To the fish man's enormous surprise, he won.

Super 88 agreed to pay $200,000 in back wages and fines this summer, divided among the fish man and more than 300 other workers, a major victory in a burgeoning statewide effort to curb increasing workplace abuses against immigrants. Increasingly, officials are enforcing a state law that requires that all workers, even those here illegally, are paid for their labor.

"I was just collecting what was rightfully owed to me," the fish man, who declined to use his name because he fears deportation, said in Spanish in his lawyer's offices at Greater Boston Legal Services. "They already pay us a miserable amount of money. Why do they have to rob us?"

Authorities say such exploitation has proliferated in recent years as immigrants surged to 17 percent of the state's workforce, nearly double the amount in 1980. Immigrants - legal and illegal - are easy prey for unscrupulous bosses because immigrants may be uncertain of the laws, language, and customs of their new land, advocates say. Illegal immigrants who fear deportation are the most vulnerable.

Super 88's general counsel Glenn Frank said the company's owners are Vietnamese immigrants who were also unfamiliar with the state's labor laws. He said they had hired people they thought were following the rules. Now, he said, they have paid fines and back wages and are being monitored by the state.

Lawyers and advocates say that beyond the unfairness to victims, abuses against immigrants are a threat to American workers, because the practices - common in cleaning, construction, and other industries - could spread to the general workforce during the economic downturn.

"It's a huge problem," said Russ Davis, executive director of Massachusetts Jobs with Justice, which, with other nonprofits, launched the "Fair Wage Campaign" three years ago after reports of immigrant workers exploitation. "We really need some major way to address it, and if not, the economy in Massachusetts is going to spiral down into sweatshop conditions."

In the past year, Attorney General Martha Coakley's office has hired more bilingual staffers, made it possible to file a complaint in 90 languages, and distributed a logbook to nonprofits that serve immigrants so that workers can track their hours and wages.

The crackdown by lawyers and state officials is forcing companies to pay.

Last month, Greater Boston Legal Services brokered an $850,000 settlement on behalf of 764 former workers at a New Bedford factory raided last year by immigration agents. The factory had failed to pay overtime and other obligations. In May, the attorney general's office got C-Mart Supermarket in Chinatown to pay more than $66,000 in wages and fines for failing to pay workers the state's minimum wage, now $8 an hour, plus overtime and other wages. Centro Presente, a nonprofit in Somerville, said it had recovered more than $10,000 for workers in various businesses this year.

As part of its investigations, the attorney general's office does not ask workers about their immigration status, saying it is enforcing state law and not federal immigration law. The approach has drawn criticism from groups that oppose illegal immigration.

"No government resources should be devoted to the rights of people who are here illegally," said Steve Kropper, cochair of Massachusetts Citizens for Immigration Reform, which favors stricter controls on immigration. "They broke the law by being here. They had no right to the job."

Coakley was unavailable for an interview for this story.

Typically, immigrants file complaints through immigrant rights groups from Boston to Springfield, such as the Chelsea Collaborative or the Brazilian Immigrant Center in Allston. The groups are strapped for cash, but the demand for help is growing.

One recent night, two dozen workers bundled in coats and hats crowded into a chilly room, lighted by a bare bulb, in the Brazilian Immigrant Center. A volunteer took their complaints.

Luiz, a drywaller here illegally from Brazil, said he was owed more than $2,000 for a drywalling job. Izabeli, also from Brazil, said she was never paid $325 for scrubbing toilets four nights a week in a Copley Square restaurant. When she pressed for the money, her boss left her a telephone message in English asking for her green card.

"I don't want him to think we are stupid, that you can do that to people," said Izabeli, who speaks only Portuguese.

Some companies are accused of taking elaborate steps, such as setting up sham companies, to hide abuses.

At Super 88, the fish man said, he was paid both by check and in cash. The check made it appear that he worked normal hours and was paid overtime. In reality, he worked 14-hour shifts six days a week - for a flat rate of $6 an hour. The cash made up the difference.

The man, a soft-spoken father of five from Guatemala, said he took the job at Super 88 in late 2004 after a construction job grew too dangerous. He was painting houses for $10 an hour on rickety ladders without safety harnesses.

"It's like we're worth nothing," he said, shaking his head. "I was worried. But I was also worried about my family because I had to send them money."

He acknowledged that he had broken the law and paid a smuggler $6,000 to sneak him into the United States in 2004, but he said he did that because he could not find a job and wanted his children to stay in school. He had to drop out in second grade to work.

At Super 88, the fish man briskly attended long lines of customers. He knew he earned less than the minimum wage, which was $6.75 at the time. Every few months, he asked for a raise.

Each time, he said, the supervisors laughed and refused.

"I tried to give them the best service I could," he said. "My work is important to me."

Soon, his hours were unexpectedly cut back. Money started disappearing from his paycheck.

Then one day he went to file income taxes with a lawyer at Greater Boston Legal Services - something many illegal immigrants do, using special identification numbers from the IRS, in hopes that it will help them if they ever have a chance to apply for legal residency.

He told the lawyer about his problems at work. Using his pay stubs and log of hours worked, they filed a complaint with the AG's office. He was fired last year before the complaint was resolved, he said, after being falsely accused of stealing food. The fish man has since got a new job in a restaurant.

Frank, the Super 88 counsel, said he hopes the state will now enforce the same wage rules against Super 88's competitors, to keep them from undercutting the company's business.

ICE Raids: The New Frontier Immigration Raid in Fargo, North Dakota Targets Courageous Survivors of Trafficking

2008-12-01T07:07:00.000-08:00

Dear friends and allies,

Earlier this year, you supported the Indian guestworkers who risked everything in a heroic fight against human trafficking after Signal International (Signal) and its labor recruiters brought them to the Gulf Coast under false pretenses in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Despite their valiant efforts and your support, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has refused to grant them protections as victims of trafficking-including continued presence-and has not yet filed charges against any of the traffickers. Now in a horrific example of what happens when victims are not protected, a group of the workers have been targeted in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid and face federal prosecution as a direct result of their public campaign. We are asking for your support as these workers continue their fight for basic protections and for the DOJ and ICE to prosecute human traffickers and not their victims. This workplace raid on trafficking victims further highlights this outgoing Administration's misguided priorities. If change is coming under the Obama Administration, we must make sure these workers are included in it.

When defense subcontractor Signal trafficked them to labor camps in the Gulf Coast and held them in forced labor, these workers fought back. They escaped indentured servitude, triggering a major DOJ investigation into criminal trafficking. They walked from New Orleans to Washington, DC in the footsteps of Mahatma Gandhi, to show Congress the brutal realities of the US guestworker program. And they launched a 29 day-long hunger strike, to pressure the DOJ to prosecute Signal on charges of criminal trafficking.

As a result of speaking out publically, a group of these men were targeted in an ICE raid. On October 28, 2008 - days before the presidential election - ICE arrested over 20 of these workers in a terrifying immigration raid in Fargo, North Dakota. In line with their recent strategy, ICE charged them with federal crimes. In a press conference after the raid, an immigration official charged the workers with stealing American jobs. Now in federal custody, these courageous men face the threat of years in prison.

These survivors of trafficking came forward voluntarily to report Signal to the DOJ. Six months later, the DOJ is now prosecuting the trafficking victims, while no charges have been brought against the traffickers.

At every step, ICE has aggressively countered the workers' organizing. When Signal learned the workers were holding meetings, the company's armed guards imprisoned them, and attempted to deport them. Signal stated it retaliated aggressively after consulting with ICE. When workers visited a site honoring martyrs of the civil rights movement in Montgomery, Alabama on their way to Washington, DC, ICE terrorized them with a covert surveillance operation. In addition, ICE has offered special protections for workers hand-picked by Signal to testify on behalf of the company while denying those same protections to worker testifying against the company. ICE has now gone a step further by targeting and detaining the workers who have come forward to report Signal to federal authorities.

The workers and their supporters are demanding:

The Department of Justice must release the workers immediately, and drop all charges.
The Department of Justice must prosecute Signal International on charges of criminal trafficking and grant "continued presence" in the US to all 250 trafficked workers - the basic minimum protection offered by law to victims of trafficking.
ICE must release its hold on the detained workers and cease any further investigations of any of these guestworkers, and focus instead on investigating Signal and its agents.

ACT NOW: The workers need your support! You can help by:

Write to the workers in detention to show your support. In order to stay strong, the workers need to know they have the community's support and people are looking out for their well being. Remember that all letters will be read by jail personnel first. The letter itself should be addressed to the Indian Worker Congress. The envelopes should be addressed to: Cass County Jail, Christopher Glory, 450 34th St, Fargo, ND 58103.
Donate funds so that detained workers can stay in touch with their families during this difficult time. Jail calling cards cost $.80 a minute to India. Donations can be made through the website for the New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice: http://www.neworleansworkerjustice.org/
Click here to read a "Letter From Fargo Jail".

New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice
803 Baronne Street
Phone: (615) 423-0152, Facsimile: (504) 309-5205
New Orleans, Louisiana 70113

Election spurs "hundreds" of race threats, crimes

2008-11-30T12:49:00.000-08:00

By JESSE WASHINGTON, AP National Writer

Cross burnings. Schoolchildren chanting "Assassinate Obama." Black figures hung from nooses. Racial epithets scrawled on homes and cars. Incidents around the country referring to President-elect Barack Obama are dampening the postelection glow of racial progress and harmony, highlighting the stubborn racism that remains in America.

From California to Maine, police have documented a range of alleged crimes, from vandalism and vague threats to at least one physical attack. Insults and taunts have been delivered by adults, college students and second-graders.

There have been "hundreds" of incidents since the election, many more than usual, said Mark Potok, director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate crimes.

One was in Snellville, Ga., where Denene Millner said a boy on the school bus told her 9-year-old daughter the day after the election: "I hope Obama gets assassinated." That night, someone trashed her sister-in-law's frontlawn, mangled the Obama lawn signs, and left two pizza boxes filled with human feces outside the front door, Millner said.

She described her emotions as a combination of anger and fear.

"I can't say that every white person in Snellville is evil and anti-Obama and willing to desecrate my property because one or two idiots did it," said Millner, who is black. "But it definitely makes you look a little different at the people who you live with, and makes you wonder what they're capable of and what they're really thinking."

Potok, who is white, said he believes there is "a large subset of white people in this country who feel that they are losing everything they know, that the country their forefathers built has somehow been stolen from them."

Grant Griffin, a 46-year-old white Georgia native, expressed similar sentiments: "I believe our nation is ruined and has been for several decades and the election of Obama is merely the culmination of the change.

"If you had real change it would involve all the members of (Obama's) church being deported," he said.

Change in whatever form does not come easy, and a black president is "the most profound change in the field of race this country has experienced since the Civil War," said William Ferris, senior associate director of the Center for the Study of the American South at the University of North Carolina.

"It's shaking the foundations on which the country has existed for centuries."

"Someone once said racism is like cancer," Ferris said. "It's never totally wiped out, it's in remission."

If so, America's remission lasted until the morning of Nov. 5.

The day after the vote hailed as a sign of a nation changed, black high school student Barbara Tyler of Marietta, Ga., said she heard hateful Obama comments from white students, and that teachers cut off discussion about Obama's victory.

Tyler spoke at a press conference by the Georgia chapter of the NAACP calling for a town hall meeting to address complaints from across the state about hostility and resentment.

Another student, from a Covington middle school, said he was suspended for wearing an Obama shirt to school Nov. 5 after the principal told students not to wear political paraphernalia.

The student's mother, Eshe Riviears, said the principal told her: "Whether you like it or not, we're in the South, and there are a lot of people who are not happy with this decision."

Other incidents include:

Four North Carolina State University students admitted writing anti-Obama comments in a tunnel designated for free speech expression, including one that said: "Let's shoot that (N-word) in the head." Obama has received more threats than any other president-elect, authorities say.

At Standish, Maine, a sign inside the Oak Hill General Store read: "Osama Obama Shotgun Pool." Customers could sign up to bet $1 on a date when Obama would be killed. "Stabbing, shooting, roadside bombs, they all count," the sign said. At the bottom of the marker board was written "Let's hope someone wins."

Racist graffiti was found in places including New York's Long Island, where two dozen cars were spray-painted; Kilgore, Texas, where the local high school and skate park were defaced; and the Los Angeles area, where swastikas, racial slurs and "Go Back To Africa" were spray painted on sidewalks, houses and cars.

Second- and third-grade students on a school bus in Rexburg, Idaho, chanted "assassinate Obama," a district official said.

University of Alabama professor Marsha L. Houston said a poster of the Obama family was ripped off her office door. A replacement poster was defaced with a death threat and a racial slur. "It seems the election brought the racist rats out of the woodwork," Houston said.

Black figures were hanged by nooses from trees on Mount Desert Island, Maine, the Bangor Daily News reported. The president of Baylor University in Waco, Texas said a rope found hanging from a campus tree was apparently an abandoned swing and not a noose.

Crosses were burned in yards of Obama supporters in Hardwick, N.J., and Apolacan Township, Pa.

A black teenager in New York City said he was attacked with a bat on election night by four white men who shouted 'Obama.'

In the Pittsburgh suburb of Forest Hills, a black man said he found a note with a racial slur on his car windshield, saying "now that you voted for Obama, just watch out for your house."

Emotions are often raw after a hard-fought political campaign, but now those on the losing side have an easy target for their anger.

"The principle is very simple," said BJ Gallagher, a sociologist and co-author of the diversity book "A Peacock in the Land of Penguins." "If I can't hurt the person I'm angry at, then I'll vent my anger on a substitute, i.e., someone of the same race."

"We saw the same thing happen after the 9-11 attacks, as a wave of anti-Muslim violence swept the country. We saw it happen after the Rodney King verdict, when Los Angeles blacks erupted in rage at the injustice perpetrated by 'the white man.'"

"It's as stupid and ineffectual as kicking your dog when you've had a bad day at the office," Gallagher said. "But it happens a lot."

349,041 immigrants deported in 2008

2008-11-30T12:37:00.000-08:00

Tarah Park Friday, November 07, 2008
http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2008/11/us-deporting-record-levels-of.php

[JURIST] The 2008 fiscal year led to record deportations of undocumented immigrants in the US according to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) [official website] reports Thursday. Nationwide, ICE deported 349,041 immigrants during the 2008 fiscal year ending September 30, as opposed to the 288,663 reported as removed in the 2007 fiscal year [ICE report, PDF] and 2004's 174,000 deportations. The reports [Denver ICE release, PDF], released by local ICE offices throughout the country, also cited local deportations which have gone up as well. About a third of the deported immigrants had criminal records. The Pew Hispanic Center [official website] recently released a report [text, PDF] showing a decreased number of undocumented immigrants in the US from 2005 to 2008. While not identifying a specific a reason for the decrease, that report noted increased enforcement of immigration laws. The Miami Herald has more. AP has additional coverage.

The increase in deportations comes despite ICE's recent abandonment of its voluntary deportation program [JURIST report]. ICE maintains a wide range of other initiatives [facts sheets] to combat illegal immigration, including raids. The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University reported this summer that US immigration prosecutions hit record levels [JURIST report] early this year. TRAC attributed the increase in prosecutions to Operation Streamline [WP backgrounder], a joint federal program under which federal prosecutors levy minor charges against illegal immigrants crossing the US-Mexico border. "Reentry of a deported alien" is by far the most common charge in immigration prosecutions.

Officials say 23 arrested at ND ethanol plant

2008-11-30T12:32:00.000-08:00

By DAVE KOLPACK, Associated Press
10.29.08
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2008/10/29/ap5619043.html

FARGO, N.D. - Twenty-three workers for a Fargo construction company suspected of being illegal immigrants were arrested after their employer tipped off authorities, federal prosecutors said. An advocate for the workers said they are victims of human trafficking.

The men were helping to build a Casselton ethanol plant and were taken into custody without incident Tuesday morning while attending a meeting, U.S. Attorney Drew Wrigley (nyse: WWY - news - people ) said at a press conference.

Wrigley said they will be formally charged Friday with possessing counterfeit documents.

The leader of a Louisiana worker's group who heard about the arrests told The Associated Press that the men came to the United States from India to help rebuild after Hurricane Katrina and were victims of a human trafficking scheme.

"They paid $20,000 apiece to recruiters and were promised green cards and permanent residency," said Saket Sony (nyse: SNE - news - people ), director of the New Orleans Worker's Center for Racial Justice. He didn't know how they wound up in North Dakota.

Wrigley said he was aware of the allegations of human trafficking.

"It was looked into," he said. He had no further comment.

Wrigley said the workers had obtained driver's licenses from other states and were using phony Social Security cards. The group came into the country legally, on limited status, he said.

Wrigley said the driver's licenses were from Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi and Nebraska. "That provides them that second form of identification when they come in and adds the appearance of legitimacy to what they're doing," he said.

The men had been working at Wanzek Construction Inc. "for a matter of months," Wrigley said.

"(Company officials) have cooperated throughout the investigation in this case and they are to be complimented for making this investigation possible at all through their initial report," Wrigley said.

The Friday hearing for the workers is at the Cass County Jail, where they are being held, rather than the federal courthouse.

"There's some logistical difficulties, as you might imagine, with a case that involves 23 defendants all coming in en masse like this," Wrigley said.

National Wholesale Li quidators to Pay $255,000 to Settle EEOC National Origin, Religious Bias and Sexual Harassment Lawsuit

2008-11-30T12:28:00.001-08:00

Retail Chain Store Abused South Asian Employees, Federal Agency Charged

NEW YORK - A Hempstead, N.Y.-based chain of retail discount stores, National Wholesale Liquidators, Inc., will pay $255,000 and agree to injunctive relief to settle a lawsuit brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the agency announced today. The EEOC had charged that the company subjected employees to a hostile work environment based on their race, national origin and religion and sexually harassed an employee.

In its lawsuit, the EEOC said a National Wholesale Liquidators store manager subjected South Asian workers to taunts about their national origin and religion. The EEOC also charged that the store manager sexually harassed a female employee. The woman, a Sikh, was told by the manager to remove her turban because she "would appear sexier without it."

The consent decree resolving the case, submitted for approval to U.S. District Judge Joseph F. Bianco, provides $255,000 to nine victims of the harassment and injunctive relief including anti-discrimination training and monitoring. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York on June 21, 2007 (Civil Action No. 07 CV 2507), after the agency investigated, found that discrimination had occurred, and first attempted to reach a voluntary settlement.

"The EEOC hopes this settlement encourages employers to take steps to educate their managers and employees: harassing employees based on national origin, sex or religion is unacceptable and will not be tolerated," said Margaret A. Malloy, the EEOC trial attorney assigned to the case.

EEOC New York District Director Spencer H. Lewis said, "This case should remind employers to take seriously allegations of harassment, especially where managers in positions of authority are involved in the misconduct."

The EEOC enforces federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination. Further information about the EEOC is available on its web site at www.eeoc.gov.

'We need slaves to build monuments'

2008-11-30T12:18:00.000-08:00

It is already home to the world's glitziest buildings, man-made islands and mega-malls - now Dubai plans to build the tallest tower. But behind the dizzying construction boom is an army of migrant labourers lured into a life of squalor and exploitation.
Ghaith Abdul-Ahad
Wednesday October 8 2008
The Guardian

The sun is setting and its dying rays cast triangles of light on to the bodies of the Indian workers. Two are washing themselves, scooping water from tubs in a small yard next to the labour camp's toilets. Others queue for their turn. One man stands stamping his feet in a bucket, turned into a human washing machine. The heat is suffocating and the sandy wind whips our faces. The sprinkles of water from men drying their clothes fall like welcome summer rain.

All around, a city of labour camps stretches out in the middle of the Arabian desert, a jumble of low, concrete barracks, corrugated iron, chicken-mesh walls, barbed wire, scrap metal, empty paint cans, rusted machinery and thousands of men with tired and gloomy faces.

I have left Dubai's spiralling towers, man-made islands and mega-malls behind and driven through the desert to the outskirts of the neighbouring city of Abu Dhabi. Turn right before the Zaha Hadid bridge, and a few hundred metres takes you to the heart of Mousafah, a ghetto-like neighbourhood of camps hidden away from the eyes of tourists. It is just one of many areas around the Gulf set aside for an army of labourers building the icons of architecture that are mushrooming all over the region.

Behind the showers, in a yard paved with metal sheets, a line of men stands silently in front of grease-blackened pans, preparing their dinner. Sweat rolls down their heads and necks, their soaked shirts stuck to their backs. A heavy smell of spices and body odour fills the air.

Next to a heap of rubbish, a man holds a plate containing his meal: a few chillies, an onion and three tomatoes, to be fried with spices and eaten with a piece of bread.

In a neighbouring camp, a group of Pakistani workers from north and south Waziristan sit exhaustedly sipping tea while one of them cooks outside. In the middle of the cramped room in which 10 men sleep, one worker in a filthy robe sits on the floor grinding garlic and onions with a mortar and pestle while staring into the void.

Hamidullah, a thin Afghan from Maydan, a village on the outskirts of Kabul, tells me: "I spent five years in Iran and one year here, and one year here feels like 10 years. When I left Afghanistan I thought I would be back in a few months, but now I don't know when I will be back." Another worker on a bunk bed next to him adds: "He called his home yesterday and they told him that three people from his village were killed in fighting. This is why we are here."

Hamidullah earns around 450 dirhams (£70) a month as a construction worker.

How is life, I ask.

"What life? We have no life here. We are prisoners. We wake up at five, arrive to work at seven and are back at the camp at nine in the evening, day in and day out."

Outside in the yard, another man sits on a chair made of salvaged wood, in front of a broken mirror, a plastic sheet wrapped around his neck, while the camp barber trims his thick beard. Despite the air of misery, tonight is a night of celebration. One of the men is back from a two-week break in his home village in Pakistan, bringing with him a big sack of rice, and is cooking pilau rice with meat. Rice is affordable at weekends only: already wretched incomes have been eroded by the weak dollar and rising food prices. "Life is worse now," one worker told me. "Before, we could get by on 140 dirhams [£22] a month; now we need 320 to 350."
The dozen or so men sit on newspapers advertising luxury watches, mobile phones and high-rise towers. When three plastic trays arrive, filled with yellowish rice and tiny cubes of meat, each offers the rare shreds of meat to his neighbours.

All of these men are part of a huge scam that is helping the construction boom in the Gulf. Like hundreds of thousands of migrant workers, they each paid more than £1,000 to employment agents in India and Pakistan. They were promised double the wages they are actually getting, plus plane tickets to visit their families once a year, but none of the men in the room had actually read their contract. Only two of them knew how to read.

"They lied to us," a worker with a long beard says. "They told us lies to bring us here. Some of us sold their land; others took big loans to come and work here."

Once they arrive in the United Arab Emirates, migrant workers are treated little better than cattle, with no access to healthcare and many other basic rights. The company that sponsors them holds on to their passports - and often a month or two of their wages to make sure that they keep working. And for this some will earn just 400 dirhams a month.

A group of construction engineers told me, with no apparent shame, that if a worker becomes too ill to work he will be sent home after a few days. "They are the cheapest commodity here. Steel, concrete, everything is up, but workers are the same."

As they eat, the men talk more about their lives. "My shift is eight hours and two overtime, but in reality we work 18 hours," one says. "The supervisors treat us like animals. I don't know if the owners [of the company] know."

"There is no war, and the police treat us well," another chips in, "but the salary is not good."

"That man hasn't been home for four years," says Ahmad, the chef for the night, pointing at a well-built young man. "He has no money to pay for the flight."

A steel worker says he doesn't know who is supposed to pay for his ticket back home. At the recruiting agency they told him it would be the construction company - but he didn't get anything in writing.

One experienced worker with spectacles and a prayer cap on his head tells me that things are much better than they used to be. Five years ago, when he first came, the company gave him nothing. There was no air conditioning in the room and sometimes no electricity. "Now, they give AC to each room and a mattress for each worker."

Immigrant workers have no right to form unions, but that didn't stop strikes and riots spreading across the region recently - something unheard of few years ago. Elsewhere in Mousafah, I encounter one of the very few illegal unions, where workers have established a form of underground insurance scheme, based on the tribal structure back home. "When we come here," one member of the scheme tells me, "we register with our tribal elders, and when one of us is injured and is sent home, or dies, the elders collect 30 dirhams from each of us and send the money home to his family."

In a way, the men at Mousafah are the lucky ones. Down in the Diera quarter of old Dubai, where many of the city's illegal workers live, 20 men are often crammed into one small room.

UN agencies estimate that there are up to 300,000 illegal workers in the emirates.

On another hot evening, hundreds of men congregate in filthy alleyways at the end of a day's work, sipping tea and sitting on broken chairs. One man rests his back on the handles of his pushcart, silently eating his dinner next to a huge pile of garbage.

In one of the houses, a man is hanging his laundry over the kitchen sink, a reeking smell coming from a nearby toilet. Next door, men lie on the floor. They tell me they are all illegal and they are scared and that I have to leave.

Outside, a fistfight breaks out between Pakistani workers and Sri Lankans.

The alleyways are dotted with sweatshops, where Indian men stay until late at night, bending over small tables sewing on beads.

A couple of miles away, the slave market becomes more ugly. Outside a glitzy hotel, with a marble and glass facade, dozens of prostitutes congregate according to their ethnic groups: Asians to the right, next to them Africans, and, on the left, blondes from the former Soviet Union. There are some Arab women. Iranians, I am told, are in great demand. They charge much higher prices and are found only in luxury hotels.

Like the rest of the Gulf region, Dubai and Abu Dhabi are being built by expat workers. They are strictly segregated, and a hierarchy worthy of previous centuries prevails.

At the top, floating around in their black or white robes, are the locals with their oil money. Immaculate and pampered, they own everything. Outside the "free zones", where the rules are looser, no one can start a business in the UAE without a partner from the emirates, who often does nothing apart from lending his name. No one can get a work permit without a local sponsor.

Under the locals come the western foreigners, the experts and advisers, making double the salaries they make back home, all tax free. Beneath them are the Arabs - Lebanese and Palestinians, Egyptians and Syrians. What unites these groups is a mixture of pretension and racism.

"Unrealistic things happen to your mind when you come here," a Lebanese woman who frequently visits Dubai tells me as she drives her new black SUV. "Suddenly, you can make $5,000 [£2,800] a month. You can get credit so easy, you buy the car of your dreams, you shop and you think it's a great bargain; when you go to dinner, you go to a hotel ... nowhere else can you live like this."

Down at the base of the pyramid are the labourers, waiters, hotel employees and unskilled workers from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Ethiopia, the Philippines and beyond. They move deferentially around the huge malls, cafes, bars and restaurants, bowing down and calling people sir and madam. In the middle of the day, during the hottest hours, you can see them sleeping in public gardens under trees, or on the marble floors of the Dubai Mosque, on benches or pieces of cardboard on side streets. These are the victims of the racism that is not only flourishing in the UAE but is increasingly being exported to the rest of the Middle East. Sometimes it reminds you of the American south in the 1930s.

One evening in Abu Dhabi, I have dinner with my friend Ali, a charming Iraqi engineer whom I have known for two decades. After the meal, as his wife serves saffron-flavoured tea, he pushes back his chair and lights a cigar. We talk about stock markets, investment and the Middle East, and then the issue of race comes up.

"We will never use the new metro if it's not segregated," he tells me, referring to the state-of-the-art underground system being built in neighbouring Dubai. "We will never sit next to Indians and Pakistanis with their smell," his wife explains.

Not for the first time, I am told that while the immigrant workers are living in appalling conditions, they would be even worse off back home - as if poverty in one place can justify exploitation in the other.

"We need slaves," my friend says. "We need slaves to build monuments. Look who built the pyramids - they were slaves."

Sharla Musabih, a human rights campaigner who runs the City of Hope shelter for abused women, is familiar with such sentiments. "Once you get rich on the back of the poor," she says, "it's not easy to let go of that lifestyle. They are devaluing human beings," she says.

"The workers might eat once a day back home, but they have their family around them, they have respect. They are not asking for a room in a hotel - all they are asking for is respect for their humanity."

Towards the end of another day, on a fabulous sandy beach near the Dubai marina, the waves wash calmly over the beautiful sand. A couple are paragliding over the blue sea; on the new islands, gigantic concrete structures stand like spaceships. As tourists laze on the beach, Filipino, Indian and Pakistani workers, stand silently watching from a dune, cut off from the holidaymakers by an invisible wall.

Behind them rise more brand-new towers.

"It's a Green Zone mentality," a young Arab working in IT tells me. "People come to make money. They live in bubbles. They all want to make as much money as possible and leave."

Back at the Mousafah camps, a Pakistani worker walks me through his neighbourhood. On both sides of the dusty lane stand concrete barracks and the familiar detritus: raw sewage, garbage, scrap metal. A man washes his car, and in a cage chickens flutter up and down.

We enter one of the rooms, flip-flops piled by the door.

Inside, a steelworker gets a pile of papers from a plastic envelope and shoves them into my lap. He is suing the company that employed him for unpaid wages. "I've been going to court for three months, and every time I go they tell me to come in two weeks." His friends nod their heads. "Last time the [company] lawyer told me, 'I am in the law here - you will not get anything."

Economically, Dubai has progressed a lot in the past 10 years, but socially it has stayed behind," says Musabih. "Labour conditions are like America in the 19th century - but that's not acceptable in the 21st century."

Stand with Marichu and DAMAYAN Migrant Workers Association in demading for justice.

2008-07-27T18:25:00.001-07:00

**please forward widely, apologies for cross-posting**
To sign online: http://www.gopetition.com/online/20400.html

Justice for Marichu! End Trafficking and Modern Day Slavery of Filipino Domestic Workers!
Date: July 9, 2008
To: Philippine President Gloria Macapagal- Arroyo
Department of Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo
United Nations Human Rights Council Vice President Erlinda Basilio

Filipino domestic workers in New York and New Jersey, and our families, allies and supporters are demanding that Phil. Pres. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's administration and the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) conduct a full investigation of former United Nations Ambassador Lauro Baja, wife Norma Baja, daughter Elizabeth Baja Facundo and their travel agency, the Labaire International Travel Inc. on charges of human trafficking, involuntary servitude, racketeering and US wage and hours violations filed by our fellow domestic worker Marichu Boaonan on June 24, 2008 at the US District Court Southern District of New York.

We call on the United Nations Human Rights Council Vice President Erlinda Basilio to head the DFA investigation on the charges against the former Ambassador who was also the former UN Security Council President.

We also support the demand of Marichu Baoanan for a public apology from the Bajas for violating her human dignity and subjecting her to involuntary servitude.

Like Marichu, about 30,000 Filipino domestic workers in New York work for very long hours and low wages, for less than the US minimum wage, and no overtime pay. In the private homes of our employers, we have no protection against abuse, maltreatment and slavery. We suffer from exclusion from major federal and state labor laws. We are also subjected to discrimination and harassment due to immigration status.

According to the preliminary results of a DAMAYAN survey of 210 Filipino domestic workers in the New York metropolitan area, 63 percent reported experiencing one or more wage and hour violations, and 34 percent of survey respondents reported being abused.

We are outraged by the thought that the Department of Foreign Affairs is not our haven, and that even top ranking Philippine officials could be traffickers instead of our protectors.

We are the lifeline of the Philippine economy. We will remit about $16 billion dollars, and more than $20 billion including informal channels to the Philippines this year. We were forced to leave our homeland due to the poverty and lack of opportunities in the Philippines. For these reasons, we demand respect and dignity.

We are appalled at the abuse, exploitation, inhumane treatment and suffering that Marichu and her family have undergone. We call on all Filipino and non-Filipino domestic and low-wage workers, professionals, women, immigrants, racial and social justice advocates, allies and supporters in New York, the US and internationally to show and build solidarity and power for Marichu and all Filipino domestic workers. Justice for Marichu! Justice for all Filipino domestic workers!

-- Ana Liza Caballes
Overall Coordinator
DAMAYAN Migrant Workers Association
406 West 40th Street, 3rd Floor
New York City, NY 10018
E-mail: contact@damayanmigrants.org
Office Telephone: (212) 564-6057
Fax: (718) 502-9965

South Asian Network Bears Witness to Migrant Deaths on the US-Mexico Border

2008-07-27T18:21:00.000-07:00

In Solidarity…
Migrant Trail: We Walk for Life

June 6, 2008

During the week of May 26 – June1, 2008, South Asian Network (SAN) staff Joyti Chand, Prakash Ghimire and Hamid Khan walked in the 5th annual Migrant Trail -Walk for Life. SAN walked with 65 others in the migrant rights movement to bear witness to the thousands of migrants who have died crossing the border and to raise awareness about the unjust policies of the U.S. government.

The Migrant Trail - Walk for Life is a 75 mile walk on the Arizona/U.S and Sonora/Mexico border. It allowed SAN staff to walk in the footsteps of other migrant men, women and children who attempt to cross the border. This walk was sponsored by a coalition of more than a dozen organizations, including Coalicion de Derechos Humanos, No More Deaths, BorderLinks and Witness for Peace - Mexico.

South Asian Network is a grassroots, community based organization dedicated to advancing the health, empowerment and solidarity of persons of South Asian origin. Fundamental to the mission of SAN is equality for all. SAN is working to improve the lives of the South Asian community, immigrants, and people of color.

SAN staff had the opportunity to learn about the negative impact that immigration and trade policies have had on communities on both sides of the border. These policies include Operation Gatekeeper, passed in 1994, which has forced migrants to cross through the most dangerous and hazardous routes. Extreme hot and cold temperatures, lack of food and water, violence by bandits and border patrol agents, and animal/insect bites, all lead to high rates of death and/or detention for migrants attempting to cross.

During the walk, the participants were approached by two migrant men who had been traveling with two women in a larger group when a border patrol helicopter spotted them and forced the group to separate. The men told the walkers that the women were unable to walk and ran out of food and water. Three walkers went back with these men but were unable to locate the women. The men feared that the women had been picked up by border patrol or bandits.

Since 1994, more than 5000 dead bodies have been recovered along the border. Many more remain missing. One family has been searching for their missing loved ones for eight years, hoping to find them. This is common. Entire communities have been displaced from their land.
Migrant women who are attempting to cross the border have increased risks of being sexually assaulted and raped. According to the organizers, about 90% of women begin taking birth control pills two weeks prior to crossing because of being raped and impregnated by border enforcement, coyotes (smugglers), or other people.

The experience of the migrants crossing through the US/Mexico border resonates with many of the experience of immigrants from the South Asian community in the U.S.

In the past several years there has been much debate in the South Asian community about immigration issues and policies. False messages are being spread in the community that there will be a large legalization program that will legalize people soon. Unfortunately, a majority of the policies that have been proposed by the U.S. government will compromise the rights and dignity of all immigrants and people of color in the U.S. If passed, they will further dramatically increase the current internal and external militarization and policing in our communities, such as local police and immigration enforcement partnerships, F.B.I. surveillances, warrant less wiretapping, increase numbers of detention centers being built, more reasons to deport non-citizens, and will give power to local law enforcement to ask for immigration status.

Although the media and politicians are giving this false message that a full legalization program is under way and that the immigration debate only impacts Latinos, we know that the South Asian community and other people of color will continue to be negatively impacted across the board by this militarization.

Participating in The Migrant Trail – Walk for Life was a stark reminder of our own history of colonial oppression and affirmed SAN's position against supporting any policy that would lead to increase militarization and more death on the border, reduction of immigrant rights, and increased deportation of immigrants. As a community, we must not compromise!

For more information about the Migrant Trail – Walk for Life, please contact South Asian Network at 562-403-0488. You can also visit our office at 18173 South Pioneer Blvd., Ste I, Artesia, CA 90701 or log onto http://www.southasiannetwork.org/.

Joyti Chand
Lead Community Advocate
Civil Rights Unit

South Asian Network
18173 S. Pioneer Blvd, Suite I
Artesia, CA 90701
Tel: 562 403 0488 x 108
Fax: 562 403 0487
http://www.southasiannetwork.org/

Indian Workers Decry Recruitment Tactics

2008-07-27T18:15:00.001-07:00

Protesters Cite 'Lifetime Settlement' Offer

By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 12, 2008; A12

Vijay Kumar was working as a contract welder in the sweltering United Arab Emirates two years ago, far from his wife and family in southern India, when he spotted an advertisement offering welders and pipe fitters "permanent lifetime settlement in the USA for self and family."

Kumar answered the ad to find that workers were being recruited to rebuild oil rigs in Mississippi and Texas destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. He returned to India, signed a contract and paid a recruiter $20,000 to travel to the United States. He told his wife, who had just given birth to a son, that he would send for them as soon as he could.

"I sell my house, my wife sell her jewels, we borrow money from friends. We dream of living in America together," Kumar, 34, said yesterday. He stood outside the U.S. Justice Department during a protest with several dozen other Indian workers, all of whom have been staging a hunger strike in Washington for weeks.

When about 500 Indian recruits reached Mississippi in the fall of 2006, Kumar and the others said, they found that they had been deceived. Their new employer, Signal International Corp., had hired them as temporary "guest" workers with 10-month H2B visas. There was no possibility of obtaining permanent residency for themselves, let alone their families back home. Signal denies that it knew the workers had been promised U.S. residency.

With support from the AFL-CIO, law firms and advocacy groups, more than 100 of the recruited Indians have filed a federal lawsuit in Louisiana against Signal and several recruiting agents, under a federal law that prohibits "human trafficking" by fraud or force for labor or services.

The group also asked for a Justice Department investigation and for permission to remain in the United States, even though they are no longer employed here, while their court case is pending. Some of the workers, who quit Signal in March and made their way to Washington, have staged an intermittent hunger strike outside the Embassy of India to draw attention to their case. Eighteen members of Congress have signed a letter to Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey on their behalf.

In addition to the hiring process, the workers complained about their treatment in the United States. They said they were squeezed into crowded bunk rooms with too few toilets, given bad food and little freedom to leave the work site and had to labor in hot and dirty conditions, cleaning and repairing the damaged oil rigs.

"None of the promises were kept," said Shivan Raghavan, 45, another Indian worker at yesterday's protest, who said he paid the recruiter an additional $4,500 to send later for his wife and two children. "The work was dirty and dangerous. There was little air, and it was hard to breathe. When we complained, we were told we could be deported.

"We were cheated, and we want justice," he said.

Signal International officials said yesterday that they had been shocked to learn that recruiters had lured the foreign workers with false offers of permanent immigration, and that Signal had played no part in that process. They also said the living arrangements they offered at their U.S. operations were not only of good quality but also tailored to the needs and tastes of South Asian immigrant workers.

"The company was incredibly angry when we found the recruiters had misled people and charged them outrageous fees to come over. Signal feels betrayed by the recruiters, and to an extent betrayed by the workers for making false allegations," said Erin Casey Hangartner, counsel for Signal, in a telephone interview from Mississippi.

She said she did not know whether Signal officials knew of the deceptive advertisements, only that "we did not fully understand the green card process. We acted in good faith at every turn." She also said Signal has entered the Indians' lawsuit as a plaintiff, accusing several recruiters in India and the United States of hiring workers under fraudulent conditions.

Attempts were made to reach lawyers at an immigration law firm in New Orleans that allegedly acted as a central conduit in the recruitments. An assistant at the firm said the lawyers would have no public comment. Documents filed in the federal lawsuit show numerous large checks from recruiters in India paid to the firm, plus receipts. Some are marked, "H2B visa and employment based permanent residence visas for USA."

Hangartner defended Signal's treatment of the workers, saying the company built them living quarters with Internet access, billiard tables, laundry service, meals provided by an Indian caterer and free shuttles to the nearest towns. She said that the protesting workers received the same pay and benefits as the others and that a number of Indian immigrants are still happily employed there.

According to labor and political groups helping the Indians, the case was an important example of illegal human trafficking, abetted by the complex rules governing the U.S. guest worker program and exacerbated by the urgent and chaotic conditions that characterized the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

"These workers came to help rebuild the Gulf, and on arrival their nightmare began," Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D-Ill.) said at yesterday's protest. "We recognize that modern-day slavery exists, but the U.S. Congress has passed laws that protect the victims. We have faith in the U.S. system of justice, and we believe these workers should place their faith in the U.S. system of justice, too."