New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice

Through My Eyes: Louisiana’s First Independent Evacuation Shelter Monitoring Report

Evacuation can never be effective, humane or legal without prioritizing community community input and decision making in evacuation planning, preparation, and implementation.  This grassroots monitoring report is one step towards building adequate transparency and accountability into Louisiana’s emergency preparedness and response.

The purpose of this report is to provide families of Southeast Louisiana with a comprehensive and honest assessment of Louisiana’s evacuation plan and sheltering readiness prior to a mandatory evacuation.  The information comes from community assessors – 90% were former evacuees in state run shelters during the 2008 mandatory Gustav evacuation.

STAND’s specific priorities were: (1) to determine the readiness of the State of Louisiana’s 2009 Evacuation and Sheltering Plan: (2) to assess the humanitarian standards in place at ‘State-run’ Critical Transportation Needs Shelters (CTNS) and Medical Special Needs Shelters; and (3) to evaluate the state’s shelter management and organization.

To download the full report, click here.

DETENTION CONDITIONS AND HUMAN RIGHTS

UNDER THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION

Immigrant Detainees Report From Basile, Louisiana

IN THE LAST MONTH, OVER 100 IMMIGRANT DETAINEES HAVE ACTED AS HUMAN RIGHTS MONITORS IN THE PRIVATELY-RUN IMMIGRATION DETENTION CENTER IN BASILE, LOUISIANA.   THEY HAVE REPORTED EGREGIOUS VIOLATIONS TO JAIL STAFF, IMMIGRATION OFFICIALS, AND ADVOCATES.

ON THE DAY THAT THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION DECIDED TO REJECT A FEDERAL COURT PETITION CALLING FOR LEGALLY ENFORCEABLE DETENTION STANDARDS, DETAINEES IN BASILE, LOUISIANA DECLARED A HUNGER STRIKE, PROTESTING INHUMANE CONDITIONS.

THIS REPORT COMPILES THE ACCOUNTS OF DETAINEE HUMAN RIGHTS MONITORS, REVEALING THAT THE FACILITY FALLS BELOW ICE’S OWN STANDARDS – AND ALL STANDARDS OF HUMAN DECENCY.

Compiled by the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice

based on the reports of over 100 detainee human rights monitors.

Click here to download full report

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STAND with Dignity v. Housing Authority of New Orleans

STAND with Dignity is a grassroots membership organization that monitors and seeks to improve HANO’s administration of the Housing Choice Voucher Program (“HCVP”), also known as Section-8, as an integrated component of a comprehensive plan for affordable housing in New Orleans.

During the summer of 2009, STAND and its members created external accountability mechanisms and documented how HANO’s corruption continues to hamper the long term re-development of New Orleans.  STAND’s goal was to ensure affected low-income residents participate in the development and implementation of a plan to address the housing needs of the community’s low-income families, including the immediate administration of a program resulting in the release of available Section-8 vouchers.

To download the full writ of mandamus, click here.

Day Laborers, Community Advocates & Allies Fill City Council Chambers for Public Hearing on Wage Theft

Tuesday, June 30, 2009 marks a historic moment for The Congress of Day Laborers in their campaign to stop wage theft in New Orleans. Member-leaders and organizers of the Congress directed a deeply moving public hearing in City Council chambers and commanded the attention of a wide array of supporters and elected officials. The City Council Public Hearing was a testament to the vast amount of support for the Congress and their efforts to end wage theft. Attendees included over fifty members of the New Orleans Congress of Day Laborers, along with advocates and allies from the African American community and Organized Labor. With a full panel of speakers, including members of the Congress, the hearing was heard by the City Council Special Development Projects and Economic Development Committee.

Ted Quant, Director of Loyola University’s Twomey Center for Peace through Justice, emphasized that wage theft is not an isolated issue, but rather it is an “international problem of human slavery.” One of the purposes of the hearing was to shed light on the ubiquitous nature of exploitation and discrimination against the immigrant day laborer community in New Orleans. Wage theft impacts thousands of workers and their families. In a recent survey of day laborers, 80% reported that they had personally experienced wage theft.

The hearing was also a call to legally criminalize wage theft perpetrators. This would, in effect, hold wrongful employers accountable for their actions under the law. Current remedies are not adequately resolving this widespread problem. At present, there is no specific federal or state statute that addresses this issue. While workers are able to file civil suits against employers, they often have to overcome several obstacles due to their immigrant status. Contractors use workers’ immigration status as weapons against them. With the help of police and immigration enforcement agents, many contractors retaliate against honest workers who attempt to organize or report wage theft to authorities.

While Councilman Fielkow asserted that most New Orleans’ contractors are honest employers and “a small few [are giving] a bad name to the whole group,” Jacinta Gonzalez, organizer for the Congress of Day Laborers, insisted that this is not merely an issue of a few bad apples. One speaker declared: “Wage theft is a disease. It’s contagious.”

Feilkow committed to working with the Congress of Day Laborers to pass a law to criminalize employers that exploit workers, and Councilwoman Willard-Lewis expressed her immense support for the passage of such a policy. In his closing statement Councilman Feilkow that he expects the rest of City Council to support the ordinance which he hopes to be drafted by August.

“We came to rebuild and to help our families. But what we found here are contractors who abuse us. When we stand up for our rights the police arrest us. With the help of the Congress we want the City to make sure this stops. We need the City to pass a law so that when contractors don’t treat us like human beings, they face consequences.”

Rep. Ellison, rights groups show support for jailed Indian workers

by Dan Gunderson, Minnesota Public Radio
December 17, 2008

Twenty-three men from India jailed in Fargo are getting support from human rights advocates and members of Congress.

St. Paul, Minn. – The workers are charged with having false documents and they say they are victims of human trafficking.

Seven of the men entered guilty pleas Wednesday in federal court in Fargo. They will be turned over to Immigration officials who will decide if they should be deported.

Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison and other supporters started a 24-hour fast this afternoon to show support for the jailed workers.

The men came to the U.S. on worker visas as welders and pipefitters in the wake of hurricane Katrina. The workers say they promised to pay $20,000 each and in turn were told they would get permanent U.S. citizenship.

Saket Soni, with the New Orleans Workers Center for Racial Justice, said dozens of workers came from India only to discover their visa expired in 10 months.

“It was impossible to recover $20,000 in earnings in 10 months, so these workers essentially were held in forced labor,” Soni said. “They were held in involuntary servitude in the labor camps of Mississippi and Texas.”

Earlier this year, the men walked away from their jobs and filed a complaint with the U.S. Justice Department.

Signal Corporation, the company the workers allege held them against their will, issued a press release calling the claims baseless and unfounded.

The workers asked for something called continued presence. That would keep them from being deported while their claims were investigated.

In October, U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement arrested 23 of the Indian workers at an ethanol plant under construction near Fargo.

Their worker visas were expired and ICE said they were using false documents. The Fargo company that hired them is not under investigation.

The jailed workers case has attracted the attention of human rights advocates and members of Congress including Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison.

Ellison joined labor and religious leaders Wednesday in Minneapolis for a 24-hour fast to show support for the jailed workers.

“You know, we should go after the main movers who are the traffickers,” Ellison said.

In this particular case, the U.S. Attorney made the point these workers broke the law.

“Well the trafficker broke the law too,” Ellison said. “And if we don’t deal with the trafficker aren’t we just going to get more trafficked individuals? I think the emphasis may not be in the right place.”

Ellison said Congress passed laws to protect immigrant workers who claim they are victims of trafficking. He questions whether those protections are being adequately honored by the U.S. Justice Department.

The U.S. Attorney’s office and the federal Public Defenders office declined comment on the case.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Tim Counts also declined to comment on the case of the 23 Indian workers jailed in Fargo.

But he did agree to talk about the issue of human trafficking. Counts said last year 156 people were arrested in the U.S. on charges of human trafficking.

He said workers brought to the U.S. on temporary visas are vulnerable. Counts added that sometimes their passports are taken away, they’re forced to work long hours and told their families will be harmed if they don’t stay on the job.

Counts said human trafficking is not just a big city problem.

“One of our most significant cases happened in a small town in South Dakota where a couple had brought people in from the Philippines on temporary visas, but when they got here they were held as virtual slaves,” Counts said.

He also said that investigation can be difficult because workers often don’t understand their rights or don’t know where to go for help.

Soket Soni of the New Orleans Workers Center for Racial Justice said that’s one reason the case of workers jailed in Fargo is important. He said if the workers are sent to prison or deported, it will have a chilling effect on other human trafficking investigations.

“If this group of workers does not get continued presence then we believe many more workers will never come forward,” Soni said. “Because, what is the basis for trusting that the protections that congress turned into law will actually be enforced?”

Soni says the immigrant workers are only asking for enforcement of those worker protection laws already in place.

Broadcast Dates
* All Things Considered, 12/17/2008, 4:50 p.m.

MEDIA ALERT:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT – SAKET SONI, 504 881 6610, saketsoni@hotmail.com

New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice

GUESTWORKERS SUE MAJOR LOUSIANA GROWER FOR LABOR TRAFFICKING, SLAVE-LIKE CONDITIONS

H-2A farmworkers who escaped involuntary servitude return to take employer to court for violations of federal law

Mexican guestworkers who were subjected to involuntary servitude in the strawberry fields of Louisiana from 2006 to 2008 today brought major civil litigation against their former employer, Bimbo’s Best Produce and Charles “Bimbo” Relan.

In Israel Antonio-Morales et al.  v. Bimbo’s Best Produce, the guestworkers claim that  Charles “Bimbo” Relan violated federal laws inluding those prohibiting  forced Labor; trafficking with respect to peonage, slavery, involuntary servitude, or forced labor; and subminimum wages.

The workers were recruited in Mexico to work in Louisiana on temporary H-2A visas  as strawberry pickers for Charles “Bimbo” Relan and his company, Bimbo’s Best Produce.  Upon their arrival in Amite, Louisiana, Relan illegally confiscated their passports in order to prohibit them from escaping from his fields.  He held the workers in forced labor, subjecting them to humiliation and degrading treatment.  “He treated us like animals. We were not human beings to him,” said Guestworker Plaintiff J. Jesus Martinez-Hernandez.  “We worked hunched over for hours doing backbreaking work.  If we tried to rest, he would threaten to call immigration and deport us.  And he had our passports – so we could not escape.”   Workers are members of the Alliance of Guestworkers for Dignity, a membership organization of guestworkers in the Gulf Coast and a project of the New  Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice.

The complaint, filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, details how Relan “subjected [the workers] to a scheme of psychological coercion, threats of serious harm, and threatened abuse of the legal process to maintain control over them and force them to continue laboring in his strawberry fields,” and asserted that he “exploited his physical power and control and took advantage of the workers’ geographic, linguistic, and cultural isolation,” and “took advantage of the rules of the structure of the H-2A guestworker program – which renders guestworkers are completely dependent on the sponsoring employer for legal status, employment, and housing – to further coerce and threaten the guestworkers.”

“These kinds of abuses are unconscionable, but not uncommon,” said Saket Soni, Director of the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice. “Employers have consistently manipulated the U.S. guestworker program to subject workers to involuntary servitude in Louisiana and across the South.”

As detailed in the complaint, Relan made brutal and theatrical demonstrations of his power over the guestworkers, firing his shotgun over their heads, spraying them with pesticides, and physically assaulting at least one worker.  The complaint also details how Relan threatened the workers with unlawful arrest, eviction, and deportation and paid below the federal minimum wage.

“The workers wanted to escape, but felt they had no choice but to work for Relan,” said Daniel Castellanos, organizer with the Alliance of Guestworkers for Dignity.  When  members of the African American and immigrant communities of New Orleans came forward to offer workers their protection, workers escaped involuntary servitude.

Relan is also the subject of an FBI criminal investigation into human trafficking crimes, opened earlier this year after workers brought his crimes to the attention of federal authorities.  Some of the guestworkers were granted “continued presence” in the United States as cooperating witnesses to the FBI’s investigation, basic protection and legal status granted to victims of trafficking who cooperate with US federal authorities to bring their traffickers to justice.

“These guestworkers have come forward to file litigation at a time when a new administration needs to hear their message,” said Soni.  “Workers need U.S. laws enforced for their protection – and federal authorities need to go after employers like Bimbo Relan.  If change is really coming in Washington, it needs to include these workers.”

The New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice brought the litigation on behalf of the workers.  Workers’ claims also include violations of the minimum wage (FLSA); breach of contract; and battery.  Community members who assisted workers in escaping involuntary servitude included New Orleans residents Ted Quant (a longtime labor organizer and professor), Damien Ramos, and Gerald Lenoir, Director of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration.

For further information about the civil litigation please contact:

Jennifer Rosenbaum, Counsel, New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice – (615) 423-0152, jjrosenbaum@gmail.com

High Plains Reader editorial by Zach Kobrinsky

Nov. 20, 2008

A century-and-a-half after the Emancipation Proclamation, these United States of America are still sick with the grossest kind of exploitation—slavery. We have come a long way in terms of human decency, but not nearly far enough.

The U.S. Bureau of Public Affairs defines human trafficking as “modern-day slavery, involving victims who are forced, defrauded or coerced into labor or sexual exploitation.  Annually, about 600,000 to 800,000 people—mostly women and children—are trafficked across national borders, which does not count millions trafficked within their own countries.”

On the global scale, the issue is far more severe. Slavery in Niger only officially became illegal in 2003, and even then, an estimated 8 percent still remain in bondage. The trafficking of sex slaves is even more appalling. A report by DePaul University’s International Human Rights Law Institute said an estimated 30,000 women (some as young as six) die annually from abuse, torture, neglect and disease, as a result of sexual slavery worldwide.

Sex slavery and bonded servitude may seem like opposite ends of the slavery spectrum, but slavery is slavery, no matter how you look at it. The willful exploitation of another human being should simply not be tolerated.

Signal International

Right now, 23 Indian men sit in the Cass County Jail, as a result of human exploitation. Their story began in Pascagoula, Miss. where they were employed by Signal International as welders and pipe-fitters to help in the post-Hurricane Katrina rebuilding effort.

The Cass County 23, along with a couple hundred other Indian workers, claim that they paid $20,000 to come to the United States and work for Signal International in exchange for permanent resident status. They said that the promise of a green card was not kept, and that they were given only temporary worker visas. Once could argue that a language barrier is accountable for this discrepancy, but that seems far-fetched.

The Indian men of Signal International said the living conditions were unspeakable, and that they were mistreated, abused, and threatened with deportation. Through a long and perilous series of events, including an Immigrations raid, 30-day hunger strike, and a grievance with the U.S. Department of Justice, these men ended up dispersed throughout the country.

Their visas were null and void, having left the worksite, and they remained stranded in the U.S., without money or legal status. Twenty-three of them found employment at an ethanol plant near Casselton. On Oct. 29 they were arrested by Immigrations, and have resided in the Cass County Jail ever since.

The Cass 23

India has an estimated 40 million bonded laborers within its borders. How cruel that these men should spend such a horrendous amount of cash in the name of a better life, only to be tricked and trampled on by the boot of America.

Maybe if we spent more time and effort investigating companies that utilize such questionable hiring tactics, and less time investigating the employees, we might stumble upon an important piece of the puzzle.

Men like the Cass 23 had no intention of being illegal aliens. They were promised the world, and when it didn’t pan out, they were left with no choice but to break immigration laws. Who is to blame here? Why are we spending so much time and effort incarcerating victims of human trafficking, instead of seeking out American employers who force the situation upon them?

In a 2006 report (under the direction of George W. Bush), called the Assessment of U.S. Government Efforts to Combat Trafficking in Persons, necessary steps to combat human trafficking are listed.

“In the September 2005 Assessment, four recommendations were made for improving the U.S. Government’s efforts to combat TIP [Trafficking in Persons]:

- The U.S. Government, its state and local partners, and nongovernmental organizations (“NGOs”) need to improve their ability to find and rescue victims.

- The U.S. Government should conduct more research to determine an accurate estimate of the scope of the trafficking problem in the United States, including both domestic and foreign victims.

- The U.S. Government should attempt to measure the impact of its anti-trafficking activities both domestically and internationally, including, for example, enhancing U.S. embassies’ abilities to monitor and evaluate anti-trafficking projects, requiring grantees to provide self-assessments of their anti-trafficking projects, and conducting more site visits.

- The U.S. Government should ensure that its Task Forces are well-functioning and should encourage states to adopt and aggressively implement their own anti-trafficking laws.

This notion of helping victims of human trafficking was apparently ill-achieved under Bush’s reign. Perhaps now, with a new, promising president, we can reach a new age of human decency. Don’t let us down, Barack.

As for the Cass 23, that is in our hands. We urge everyone to learn as much as they can about this case, and to take action. Write some senators. Stand on a soapbox. Do whatever it is you do, but do something. They stand trial on Jan. 12. If we don’t do something now, it could be too late by then.