By Kate Groetzinger and Frida Garza, Quartz
June 30, 2016
Omar Trinidad immigrated to the US from Mexico nine years ago and started working as a jornalero, as day laborers are known in Spanish, in New York City. Six years ago, he worked at a job site for a week, with the promise that he would be paid when the work was complete. But when Friday came, his employer disappeared.
“I felt bad because I didn’t know what to do,” he says. “I said, ‘Okay, how do I report this?’”
Wage theft happens to at least one out of five day laborers each month, according to Maria Figueroa, a professor at the Cornell University-School of Industrial and Labor Relations. Cal Soto, a coordinator at the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON), says each of the 45 workers’ centers affiliated with the group across the US reports at least 10 instances of wage theft each week.
Today, Trinidad is helping create a tool that he hopes will reduce those numbers. He is working with Cornell, NDLON, and a New York City-based artist named Sol Aramendi to develop a mobile phone app called Jornalero.[...]
Read the full article:
http://qz.com/683594/this-app-will-help-immigrant-workers-fight-back-against-rampant-wage-theft-in-the-us/
Saturday, July 23, 2016
Friday, July 22, 2016
An Atlanta Campaign Demands Immigration Reform, End to Policies of Deportation and Detention
A coalition of local community organizations have launched an ICE Free Zones campaign.
By Paul McLennan, Azadeh Shahshahani, and Adelina Nicholls, AlterNet
June 16, 2016
On June 15, coordinated actions were held across the world including in Atlanta, seeking justice for Berta Caceres, an indigenous human rights and environmental justice activist who was assassinated in Honduras on March 3. Several of those charged with her murder have ties to the Honduran military, including at least one high-ranking officer who reportedly was trained by U.S. Rangers.
At the Atlanta action, we also drew attention to the recent ICE raids that have targeted women and children fleeing horrific persecution, rape, murder, and torture in Central American countries such as Honduras, who were seeking a safe haven in this country. Caceres' assassination was only the latest example of this systematic, patriarchal violence, in part facilitated by U.S. government policies and decades of intervention in the region.
The actions of the Obama administration and Immigration and Customs Enforcement combined with the racist rhetoric coming from Republican Party candidates are responsible for generating fear and anxiety in our immigrant and refugee communities. This is only gearing up in the wake of the horrific Orlando attack with attempts to scapegoat Muslim communities.[...]
Read the full article:
http://www.alternet.org/immigration/campaign-demands-end-government-policies-raids-detention-and-deportation
By Paul McLennan, Azadeh Shahshahani, and Adelina Nicholls, AlterNet
June 16, 2016
On June 15, coordinated actions were held across the world including in Atlanta, seeking justice for Berta Caceres, an indigenous human rights and environmental justice activist who was assassinated in Honduras on March 3. Several of those charged with her murder have ties to the Honduran military, including at least one high-ranking officer who reportedly was trained by U.S. Rangers.
At the Atlanta action, we also drew attention to the recent ICE raids that have targeted women and children fleeing horrific persecution, rape, murder, and torture in Central American countries such as Honduras, who were seeking a safe haven in this country. Caceres' assassination was only the latest example of this systematic, patriarchal violence, in part facilitated by U.S. government policies and decades of intervention in the region.
The actions of the Obama administration and Immigration and Customs Enforcement combined with the racist rhetoric coming from Republican Party candidates are responsible for generating fear and anxiety in our immigrant and refugee communities. This is only gearing up in the wake of the horrific Orlando attack with attempts to scapegoat Muslim communities.[...]
Read the full article:
http://www.alternet.org/immigration/campaign-demands-end-government-policies-raids-detention-and-deportation
Thursday, July 21, 2016
Activists Build a Wall for Trump in Cleveland
Anti-Trump Activists Form a Human Wall Outside the RNC
Pro-immigrant groups and other progressive protesters rebuke the Republican nominee.
By Joshua Alvarez, In These Times
July 20, 2016
CLEVELAND—The morning after Donald J. Trump officially became the Republican candidate for President of the United States on a platform promising a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, activists in Cleveland, Ohio built a wall of their own.
About 150 protestors arrived in Public Square and distributed canvas tarps painted with bricks and fencing, with the words “Wall Off Trump.” The canvas, which stretched 2,000 feet, was cut into both long chunks and individual ponchos that participants draped over themselves.
From the square they marched, chanting and singing, to the convention, surrounded by a swarm of media that threatened to outnumber the activists themselves. Upon arriving near the barricaded entrance to the convention, they stretched out into a single file line and held hands or linked arms and formed a painted human wall that stretched down the block.[...]
Read the full article:
http://inthesetimes.com/article/19310/activists-wall-off-trump-in-cleveland
July 20 Updates from #WallOffTrump Protest at the RNC
By Mijente
July 20, 2016
In response to Trump’s insults, threats and his promises of mass deportation and building a border wall to separate neighbors, communities are travelling to Cleveland to give him a wall of their own.
“If Trump is set on building a wall. We’re going to give it to him,” explains Marisa Franco, director of Mijente. “But we’ll be walling off his hate. We won’t go quietly as he campaigns to put us back in the closet, back across the border, or to the back of the bus.”
Eva Cardenas of the Ruckus Society added, “Standing with front-line communities to create a line of defense against Trump’s hate and racism is all of our responsibility. We’re not just sending a message against Trump, we’re calling on everyone to stand up and take responsibility for the future of this country.”[...]
Read the full article:
http://mijente.net/2016/07/20/updates-wallofftrump-protest-rnc/
Monday, July 4, 2016
Five Immigration Actions Obama Should Take Before Leaving Office
By Carl Lipscombe, Truthout
June 23, 2016
Comprehensive immigration reform has failed. Millions of immigrants have been deported. President Obama's executive action programs are in limbo.
As President Obama enters his final six months in office, his legacy on immigration has yet to be determined. Will he go down as the savior who stretched the limits of his power to provide relief for millions of Dreamers? Or as the Trojan Horse who rode in promising hope and change while opening the door to raids on immigrant families, communities and record deportations?
If President Obama wants to rescue his immigration legacy while shedding the lame duck president stereotype, he should take bold, decisive action on immigration. Here are some ideas:
1. Take a stand against the 1996 laws that criminalized millions of immigrants.
Over the last year the Obama administration has taken stands against the war on drugs and the war on crime, acknowledging both as failed policies that overwhelmingly impacted communities of color. In fact, just last fall the administration announced the release of 6,000 prisoners who were convicted of drug offenses. Unfortunately, the administration has yet to speak out against the impact of these same failed policies on immigrants. As a result of two laws enacted in 1996, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA), immigrants convicted of certain criminal offenses were deemed mandatorily deportable.[...]
Read the full article:
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/36551-five-immigration-actions-obama-should-take-before-leaving-office
June 23, 2016
Comprehensive immigration reform has failed. Millions of immigrants have been deported. President Obama's executive action programs are in limbo.
As President Obama enters his final six months in office, his legacy on immigration has yet to be determined. Will he go down as the savior who stretched the limits of his power to provide relief for millions of Dreamers? Or as the Trojan Horse who rode in promising hope and change while opening the door to raids on immigrant families, communities and record deportations?
If President Obama wants to rescue his immigration legacy while shedding the lame duck president stereotype, he should take bold, decisive action on immigration. Here are some ideas:
1. Take a stand against the 1996 laws that criminalized millions of immigrants.
Over the last year the Obama administration has taken stands against the war on drugs and the war on crime, acknowledging both as failed policies that overwhelmingly impacted communities of color. In fact, just last fall the administration announced the release of 6,000 prisoners who were convicted of drug offenses. Unfortunately, the administration has yet to speak out against the impact of these same failed policies on immigrants. As a result of two laws enacted in 1996, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA), immigrants convicted of certain criminal offenses were deemed mandatorily deportable.[...]
Read the full article:
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/36551-five-immigration-actions-obama-should-take-before-leaving-office
Sunday, July 3, 2016
Before Orlando, Omar Mateen Worked for Human Rights Abusers
G4S, where Omar Mateen worked as a security guard, profits from both U.S. border militarization and the Israeli occupation.
By Phyllis Bennis, Foreign Policy in Focus
June 13, 2016
How do we even talk about the horrific killings in Orlando, which left at least 50 LGBTQ revelers dead and more than 50 more injured in the middle of pride month? First we mourn. Then we rage. Then we hug our loved ones, especially our LGBTQ friends, comrades, and family members.
Then we look again, and we see the horror — that this murderer was licensed to carry guns and had no trouble buying incredibly powerful military-style weapons. So casually. So legally. So common, across our country. That’s when we start to rage again.
More troubling still, Omar Mateen worked for a company that was perpetrating systemic violence against vulnerable people long before he took up arms against his LGBTQ neighbors. For nine years Mateen worked for G4S Security, a British-based corporation that contracts with the U.S. and Israeli governments for work that often violates human rights on a massive scale.
G4S, which brags about having 600 staffers on the southern border, has contracts with U.S. immigration authorities to detain and deport people back to Mexico, as well as to run private juvenile detention facilities.[...]
Read the full article:
http://fpif.org/orlando-omar-mateen-worked-human-rights-abusers/
By Phyllis Bennis, Foreign Policy in Focus
June 13, 2016
How do we even talk about the horrific killings in Orlando, which left at least 50 LGBTQ revelers dead and more than 50 more injured in the middle of pride month? First we mourn. Then we rage. Then we hug our loved ones, especially our LGBTQ friends, comrades, and family members.
Then we look again, and we see the horror — that this murderer was licensed to carry guns and had no trouble buying incredibly powerful military-style weapons. So casually. So legally. So common, across our country. That’s when we start to rage again.
More troubling still, Omar Mateen worked for a company that was perpetrating systemic violence against vulnerable people long before he took up arms against his LGBTQ neighbors. For nine years Mateen worked for G4S Security, a British-based corporation that contracts with the U.S. and Israeli governments for work that often violates human rights on a massive scale.
G4S, which brags about having 600 staffers on the southern border, has contracts with U.S. immigration authorities to detain and deport people back to Mexico, as well as to run private juvenile detention facilities.[...]
Read the full article:
http://fpif.org/orlando-omar-mateen-worked-human-rights-abusers/
Saturday, July 2, 2016
New Report: Aggressive Immigration Enforcement Quotas Also Used to Detain Mothers and Their Children
By Center for Constitutional Rights
June 16, 2016
Contact: press@ccrjustice.org
Practice of Guaranteed Minimums, 93 Percent for Private Companies, Found Far More Prevalent Than Initially Thought
June 16, 2016, Washington, D.C. and New York – Today, Detention Watch Network (DWN) and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) released a new report that reveals for the first time that mothers and their children are jailed under guaranteed minimum bed contracts for local jails. The report shows the extent to which ICE grants financial benefits to private and public entities that detain immigrants through government contracts requiring ICE to pay for a set number of beds at detention facilities, rendering immigrants, including children and families, a source of profit for contractors.
“While the Obama administration continues to support the use of aggressive raids to unconstitutionally detain and deport immigrants, our report exposes the extent to which local lockup quotas incentivize the incarceration of immigrants and fuel ICE to pursue punitive and unjust enforcement practices,” said Silky Shah, Co-Director of Detention Watch Network. “The costs of detention are two-fold: moral and financial. American taxpayers are paying over $2 billion a year to tear apart hundreds of thousands of families across the country.”
The widespread use of local lockup quotas throughout the immigration detention system was exposed in DWN and CCR’s report, Banking on Detention: Local Lockup Quotas and the Immigrant Dragnet, in June 2015. Since then, the government has released additional documents that shed light on the continued use of local lockup quotas, covering at least 24 detention facility contracts. Today’s report updates the earlier one with new information, including uncovering a local quota at Essex County Detention Facility in New Jersey where just this week Luis Alonso Fino Martinez died for yet to be determined reasons.[...]
Read the full press release:
http://ccrjustice.org/home/press-center/press-releases/new-report-aggressive-immigration-enforcement-quotas-also-used
Download the rerpot:
http://www.detentionwatchnetwork.org/sites/default/files/reports/Banking%20on%20Detention%202016%20Update_DWN,%20CCR.pdf
June 16, 2016
Contact: press@ccrjustice.org
Practice of Guaranteed Minimums, 93 Percent for Private Companies, Found Far More Prevalent Than Initially Thought
June 16, 2016, Washington, D.C. and New York – Today, Detention Watch Network (DWN) and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) released a new report that reveals for the first time that mothers and their children are jailed under guaranteed minimum bed contracts for local jails. The report shows the extent to which ICE grants financial benefits to private and public entities that detain immigrants through government contracts requiring ICE to pay for a set number of beds at detention facilities, rendering immigrants, including children and families, a source of profit for contractors.
“While the Obama administration continues to support the use of aggressive raids to unconstitutionally detain and deport immigrants, our report exposes the extent to which local lockup quotas incentivize the incarceration of immigrants and fuel ICE to pursue punitive and unjust enforcement practices,” said Silky Shah, Co-Director of Detention Watch Network. “The costs of detention are two-fold: moral and financial. American taxpayers are paying over $2 billion a year to tear apart hundreds of thousands of families across the country.”
The widespread use of local lockup quotas throughout the immigration detention system was exposed in DWN and CCR’s report, Banking on Detention: Local Lockup Quotas and the Immigrant Dragnet, in June 2015. Since then, the government has released additional documents that shed light on the continued use of local lockup quotas, covering at least 24 detention facility contracts. Today’s report updates the earlier one with new information, including uncovering a local quota at Essex County Detention Facility in New Jersey where just this week Luis Alonso Fino Martinez died for yet to be determined reasons.[...]
Read the full press release:
http://ccrjustice.org/home/press-center/press-releases/new-report-aggressive-immigration-enforcement-quotas-also-used
Download the rerpot:
http://www.detentionwatchnetwork.org/sites/default/files/reports/Banking%20on%20Detention%202016%20Update_DWN,%20CCR.pdf
Friday, July 1, 2016
Growing temp industry shuts out black workers, exploits Latinos
“Whether it’s low-wage Hispanic workers or low-wage African American workers, each of them are trying to make a decent living, and they’re being pitted against each other,” said Faye Williams, regional attorney for the Memphis office of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
By Will Evans, The Chicago Reporter
June 8, 2016
The code word for black workers caught Rosa Ceja by surprise.
She was working for a temp agency in spring 2014, supervising workers at a big brick packaging plant northwest of Chicago. Crews of minimum-wage temp workers in hairnets boxed consumer products such as adult diapers and energy drinks in shifts around the clock.
She knew the company wanted only men for some jobs and only women for others. And she knew those codes: “heavies” for men, “lights” for women.
But when Ceja asked the recruiting office to send more heavies, she was told there were only “guapos” available. She was confused. “Guapo” means “good-looking” in Spanish. “I'm like, ‘Who cares if he's cute?’ ” Ceja remembers saying.
Guapo, her fellow recruiters told her, meant a black worker. Black people didn’t want to work hard or get their hands dirty, they explained, so they were called the pretty ones. Latinos, the “feos” or ugly ones, were what the company wanted.[...]
Read the full article:
http://chicagoreporter.com/growing-temp-industry-shuts-out-black-workers-exploits-latinos/
By Will Evans, The Chicago Reporter
June 8, 2016
The code word for black workers caught Rosa Ceja by surprise.
She was working for a temp agency in spring 2014, supervising workers at a big brick packaging plant northwest of Chicago. Crews of minimum-wage temp workers in hairnets boxed consumer products such as adult diapers and energy drinks in shifts around the clock.
She knew the company wanted only men for some jobs and only women for others. And she knew those codes: “heavies” for men, “lights” for women.
But when Ceja asked the recruiting office to send more heavies, she was told there were only “guapos” available. She was confused. “Guapo” means “good-looking” in Spanish. “I'm like, ‘Who cares if he's cute?’ ” Ceja remembers saying.
Guapo, her fellow recruiters told her, meant a black worker. Black people didn’t want to work hard or get their hands dirty, they explained, so they were called the pretty ones. Latinos, the “feos” or ugly ones, were what the company wanted.[...]
Read the full article:
http://chicagoreporter.com/growing-temp-industry-shuts-out-black-workers-exploits-latinos/
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