Farm Worker Update: Organizing in NY, Protesting in WA

Farm workers in upstate New York constantly face hurdles in their efforts to organize. As reported in an important article from Documented, the workers, who tend to be immigrants, are currently suing to have the state include them in labor protections afforded other workers. But if some industry groups have their way, these farm employees will eventually be replaced by guest workers. Much of the state’s farming is in dairy, and there’s a lot of pressure to have the H-2A program extended so that dairy farmers can take advantage of it. David Bacon’s recent article in The American Prospect describes some of the abuses H-2A guest workers are subjected to, in this case by farm owners in Washington state.

New York’s diary farmers and others are in fact suffering economically, but it’s not because their workers are getting paid too much or have an excess of labor rights. The causes, according to the New York Times, are global warming, Trump’s tariffs, and a shortage of immigrant workers intimidated by the threat of ICE raids.—TPOI editor

Farmworkers Struggle to Unionize in New York. Crispin Hernandez May Change That

Crispin Hernandez and the NYCLU are taking on the New York Farm Bureau

By Clara McMichael, Documented

August 17, 2018

Crispin Hernandez doesn’t want to talk about his personal life. He’s originally from Mexico. He’s 23. Everyone asks him about his favorite food, he says, but he doesn’t want to talk about that either, because you can’t find it here in New York.

What he does want to talk about is the potentially groundbreaking court case that has dominated his life for the past two years. Hernandez is fighting the New York Farm Bureau, which represents agricultural interests, to win the right for farmworkers to organize for collective bargaining without retaliation. State Supreme Court Judge Richard J. McNally, Jr. dismissed his case at the state Supreme Court in Albany in January, but the New York Civil Liberties Union, which represents Hernandez, has appealed the judgment.[…]

Read the full article:

https://documentedny.com/2018/08/17/farmworkers-struggle-to-unionize-in-new-york-crispin-hernandez-may-change-that/

August 5 farm worker protest in Washington state. Photo: David Bacon

What Was the Life of This Guest Worker Worth?

While Washington state agencies reduce farmworker pay and find employers faultless for a death in the fields, Trump and congressional Republicans back proposals to turn farmworking into permanent indentured servitude.

By David Bacon, American Prospect

August 15, 2018

On Sunday, August 5, a group of 200 farmworkers and supporters began walking at sunrise along the shoulder of Benson Road, heading north from Lynden, Washington, toward Canada. When they reached O Road, the marchers turned right to walk along the border. Unlike the frontier with Mexico, with its walls, floodlights, and patrols, the border line here is no line at all—simply a road on each side of a weed-choked median.

The procession, chanting and holding banners, passed a succession of blueberry fields for the next 14 miles, finally reaching the official border crossing at Sumas. Pausing for a protest in front of the local immigrant detention center, it then continued on until it reached its objective one mile further on—the 1,500-acre spread of Sarbanand Farms. There, in front of the ranch’s packing and warehouse facilities, participants staged a tribunal.[…]

Read the full article:

https://davidbaconrealitycheck.blogspot.com/2018/08/what-was-life-of-this-guest-worker-worth.html
http://prospect.org/article/what-was-life-guest-worker-worth

How to Organize Against ICE Raids, and Why We Need to Do It

May 1, 2018 demo. Photo: Pioneer Valley Workers Center

Building a Rapid-Response Network to Defend Immigrant Workers

By Dan DiMaggio and Pioneer Valley Workers Center Staff, Labor Notes

August 16, 2018

As the Trump administration cracks down on undocumented immigrants, it’s urgent for worker centers and unions to organize to defend immigrant members.

In Western Massachusetts, the Pioneer Valley Workers Center has created a rapid-response network it calls “Sanctuary in the Streets” (SiS). The worker center, founded in 2014, organizes restaurant workers and farmworkers in the area. Worker committees set the network's priorities.[…]

Read the full article:

http://www.labornotes.org/2018/08/building-rapid-response-network-defend-immigrant-workers

  

Immigration Raid in Nebraska Devastates Local Agriculture Industry and Families

By Melissa Cruz, Immigration Impact

August 13, 2018

A small town in Nebraska was rocked last week when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents raided multiple businesses, arresting 133 undocumented immigrant workers in an operation which has already created upheaval in the community and its local agriculture industry.

This raid is the latest amid a series of enforcement operations conducted by the Trump administration, including raids in Tennessee and Ohio. In addition to the workers, 17 employers were served arrest warrants last week for allegedly exploiting undocumented labor, among other crimes.[...]

Read the full article:

http://immigrationimpact.com/2018/08/13/immigration-raid-nebraska-agriculture-industry/

Resistance at Tule Lake Now Available for Schools!

From Resistance at Tule Lake

Our film is now live on the Third World Newsreel catalogue for educational distribution - on DVD and via streaming!

Buy or Rent Now for the Upcoming Semester!

The real history of Japanese American incarceration is minimized in most school curricula. As a result, the general American public does not know nearly enough about these experiences, and most have never heard of Tule Lake.

Why is it important for young people to learn about this shameful chapter of American history, and how thousands of Japanese Americans risked everything to stand up for their civil rights?

"Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it."

Today, we are seeing similar government-sponsored abuse of immigrant communities, as well as the same tactics that were used to soften the reality of the experience. Breaking this cycle has been foremost in the conversations this film has sparked across the country, and our educational distribution is an opportunity to inspire the next generation.

Bringing Resistance at Tule Lake to classrooms across the country will empower students and educators to fully engage with this urgent, hidden history. This meticulously crafted and researched documentary is driven by powerful first-hand accounts, illuminated by expert commentary. It is accompanied by a comprehensive curriculum guide that invites students to delve deeply into this history, and draw connections to current issues faced by immigrants, refugees and communities of color.

Our hope is that instead of asking "what is Tule Lake?" more people will ask "what can we learn from Tule Lake?"

Click here to include the film in your curriculum

Read more:

https://mailchi.mp/8abdb36bb825/ylir49fjsq-2122497

Update on Ravi Ragbir’s First Amendment Case

Photo by Erik McGregor

From: Ravi’s Defense Committee

August 16, 2018

On August 14, 2018, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit heard oral argument in Ragbir v. Homan, the First Amendment case filed by Ravi and immigrant rights groups, CASA, Detention Watch Network, National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild, New York Immigration Coalition and New Sanctuary Coalition (the “plaintiffs”).

William Perdue of Arnold & Porter deftly argued before a packed courthouse that Ravi and the New Sanctuary Coalition should receive a stay of deportation. Perdue stated that there is strong evidence that the government retaliated against Ravi because he has been outspoken about the injustices of our current immigration system and he, the New Sanctuary Coalition, and the community have exposed ICE’s cruel and unjust practices.[...]

Read the full update:

https://istandwithravi.org/2018/08/16/first-amendment-case-update/

Trump Welcomes Immigrants, but Only if They Can Be Exploited

After three years of telling his base that he “puts American jobs first,” surely Trump wouldn’t try to expand the guest worker programs — or would he?

By David L. Wilson, Truthout

July 31, 2018

The US mainstream media had two competing events to cover the night of April 28: the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington, DC, and a Trump rally in Macomb County, Michigan, a predominantly white working-class suburb of Detroit. Journalists mainly focused on the dinner, but the more important story may have been a remark President Trump made in the course of his 80-minute speech at the rally.

As reported by the immigration-restrictionist Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), around 33 minutes into his talk, Trump began praising guest worker programs. “For the farmers it’s going to get really good,” he started.[...]

Read the full article:

https://truthout.org/articles/trump-welcomes-immigrants-but-only-if-they-can-be-exploited/

An H-2A guest worker picks oranges. Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Families For Freedom: “Ears to the Ground”

"We can't always check in with everybody, but if we have our ears to the ground and the people in our hearts, we have to use all of our senses to stay accountable to them.”

Families For Freedom

July 13, 2018

The calls to abolish ICE are long overdue, though the how-to is far from being clear. And while some have audaciously placed themselves as the ones who have the answer(s), it is going to take substantially more than just talk to get where we need to be. When we operate outside of movement yet impose demands or otherwise try and assert "leadership," we replicate systems of oppression by negating the reality of the people we pretend to lead. Conscious or not, this arrogance is rooted in disdain for those at the bottom because it serves those at the top.

The people who don't get their hands dirty are the most presentable to the ones in the big house, but

by staying clean they remain out of touch. With no desire to get dirty—either because they don't know how or because they wish to 'escape' those conditions without working to change them—their representation of what needs to be done is limited, always skewed by their seeking approval from those in power. Then they assume the role of getting the folks in line (sometimes called education) in order to be acceptable to those in power. These intermediaries work to corral those who are sweaty and messy and sometimes have dirty hands, to get in alignment with those above. This is the opposite of supporting those below to build collective power so that they are well-positioned to make demands and force those above to get in alignment with them.

Before we open our mouths about where we are going in the struggle, how we think we should get there, and what we think a win or victory would look like, we should imagine saying those words to the most stigmatized and marginalized people in whose names we are being paid or in whose names we get some type of "movement status," and imagine the looks on their faces, their responses to our plans. We can't always check in with everybody, but if we have our ears to the ground and the people in our hearts, we have to use all of our senses to stay accountable to them.

It gives strength to those who are still under the thumb, in the internment centers and in jails and prisons, to see and hear of the many who are in the streets marching and laying siege to the system. But the laying of sieges is among the least effective of strategies if the masses are unprepared to endure to the end. This does not mean not to siege, but rather that ample resources must be allocated to the besiegers. Legal, physical, and mental are among the most necessary resources needed. Now is the time for sincere leadership to engage the masses and guide them forward to not only the abolition of ICE and the entire prison industrial complex, but to the end of the white supremacist resurgence permeating this country and many others around the world.

[This is an excerpt from the latest Families For Freedom newsletter. To subscribe to the newsletter, write info@familiesforfreedom.org. You can contribute to FFF here.—TPOI editor.]

Two Reports Describe Abuses at Detention Center

'Terrorized': Report Details Conditions at Child Detention Centers

A report filed in federal court details hunger, dehydration and forced sleeplessness at child detention centers in the Southwest.

By Alfonso Serrano, ColorLines

July 18, 2018

Frigid cells with foul-smelling drinking water. Children given rotten food and forced to sleep on concrete floors. No showers or clean clothes for days. Overflowing toilets in “dog houses.” These are just a few of the things detained children highlighted about the facilities where they were held.

“It was cold, very cold. I only had a t-shirt so I pulled my hands inside my t-shit to try to keep warm. There were no mattresses. We slept directly on the floor,” said Justin, a 13-yer-old immigrant from El Salvador. “I haven’t been able to call my father since I was locked up. I want to tell him where I am, and I want to talk to him.”

Justin’s description of United States detention centers, and testimony from interviews with 200 other immigrant children and adults, are part of an extensive report filed in federal court this week in Los Angeles by the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law.[…]

Read the full article:

https://www.colorlines.com/articles/terrorized-report-details-conditions-child-detention-centers

Read the report:

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4609538-Flores-0716-459-4.html

Report finds more than 800 complaints of hate-related abuse in immigration detention

ImmigrationProf Blog

July 19, 2018

“Shut your black ass up. You don’t deserve nothing. You belong at the back of that cage.” - Warden to M.C. at the West Texas Detention Facility in Sierra Blanca, TX

“[Go] look in the mirror to see King Kong.” - Officer to A.B. at Bristol County House of Corrections, North Dartmouth, MA

“No one will believe baboon complaints.” - Officer to A.B. at Bristol County House of Corrections, North Dartmouth, MA

These are a few of the comments discussed in a report published by Freedom for Immigrants, a California-based nonprofit that visits people held in immigration detention.[...]

Read the full post:

http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2018/07/report-finds-more-than-800-complaints-of-hate-related-abuse-in-immigration-detention.html

Read the report:

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a33042eb078691c386e7bce/t/5b3174e46d2a73f2d1f56aab/1529967847644/FFI_NatReportAbuse_062518.pdf