Friday, December 29, 2023

Refugees- Our responsibility

  


Refugees. Houston, Texas.  Dec.24, 2023. 

 

As residents of a state whose “ruler” on this Christmas Eve is closer in spirit to King Herod than Jesus’ Good Samaritan, it’s disconcerting to reflect on how the Christmas story is about refugees in distress. It’s a story of two people and their soon-to-be infant child forced to leave their homeland for fear the child will be murdered. (“Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt ...”) 

During the week before Christmas, Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill that will make it a violation of state law for people to cross the border into Texas between ports of entry. It’s already a federal offense to cross that way. Beginning March 1, local law enforcement will be empowered to arrest, and judges to order removed, anyone determined by a standard of “probable cause” to have entered Texas unlawfully. If the law is allowed to stand, racial profiling and harassment throughout Texas are sure to follow. Already, Hispanic Texans are preparing for the inevitable — having documents at the ready in their vehicles to show a Department of Public Safety trooper who may stop them, counseling their driving-age children about what to say and what not to say if they are stopped, making sure they have emergency phone numbers to call. 

Contributing to our growing reputation as arguably the most heartless state in America, Abbott’s new law is the latest iteration of his border-security crusade. Instead of working with the federal government and other border states to solve a vexing problem, he’s adopted a Lone Ranger approach that includes using people as pawns for political gain by busing — and now flying — them to distant cities, lining the Rio Grande with razor wire and dangerous floating buoys and constructing a made-in-Texas border wall. He’s also wasted billions of dollars of our money on an occupying army of National Guard and DPS personnel who have been dispatched to border counties. None of these ill-conceived measures have stemmed the flow of vulnerable people seeking to enter this country through 

 

Even more disturbing on this Christmas Eve is to ponder the possibility — the very real possibility — that the most corrupt, ill-equipped and dangerous president in our nation’s history, a man whose brutish border inclinations our governor has endorsed, will once again occupy the White House. This is the man whose “zero tolerance” immigration policy in 2017-18 resulted in several thousand children being wrenched from their parents’ arms when the parents, many of them asylum seekers, were detained at the border for possible illegal entry. Hundreds of children, to this day, have not been reunited with their families. At least Texas DPS has ordered troopers to avoid separating families.

Donald Trump has implied he would seek to implement the same cruel tactic if elected president again. He also wants to dispatch law enforcement to round up the millions of undocumented immigrants already in this country and impound them in vast detention camps, probably in Texas, while they await deportation.

This is the man whose sneering, anti-immigrant deprecations parrot none other than Adolf Hitler. “They’re poisoning the blood of our country, that’s what they’ve done ...,” he told cheering supporters at a rally in Durham, N.H., last week. “They’re coming into our country from Africa, from Asia, all over the world, they’re pouring into our country, nobody’s even looking at them. They just come in. The crime is going to be tremendous.” 

It’s hard to understand how some of Trump’s most ardent supporters profess to be among the most vocal followers of the Prince of Peace.

“I don’t know how you can take someone like that and say that they’re fit to be president of the United States,” former New Jersey governor and Trump challenger Chris Christie told CBS’ “Face the Nation” last week. Neither do we. 

 

Like Joseph and Mary and their child, more than 100 million people around the world are estimated to have been displaced this year, many of them on the move this very night. Refugees and migrants, they are fleeing persecution, grinding poverty, war and unspeakable violence. With children in tow, they are crossing dangerous Central American jungles, riding atop swaying trains across Mexico, trudging across deserts. They are clinging to crowded, leaky rafts on the Mediterranean, hoping to reach safety in Europe. They are fleeing starvation and disease in North Africa and the Middle East. Within a few miles of Bethlehem, Jesus’s birthplace, they are frantically pushing up against the war-ravaged border separating Gaza from Egypt. Migrant distress is a global phenomenon.

It is not America’s alone to face but we would like to believe, still, even in this polarized state, that America is one of the nations most equipped, most obligated and most resolved to meet the challenge.  

Trump, by the way, has said he’s never read “Mein Kampf,” the Hitler manifesto, and that’s probably true, but someone among his past and present advisers surely has. Our guess is one or both of “the Steves” — anti-immigrant ideologue Stephen Miller or Steve Bannon, former presidential adviser and cheerleader of insurrectionists. Miller, architect of Trump’s family-separation scheme, is a potential attorney general in a Trump Cabinet; Bannon is under indictment at the moment, accused of cheating donors who gave money in support of Trump’s proposed border wall. If convicted, he’ll expect a presidential pardon.

Neither Trump nor Abbott knows or cares, it seems, that immigration policy and border integrity are devilishly complex issues. They involve numerous moving parts, some overlapping, some contradictory. To get beyond the crude “solutions” that ideologues and political opportunists trumpet requires negotiation among interested parties who will not agree on every issue. It requires, also, an acknowledgement, a basic understanding, that we are dealing, not just with policy, but with people, often fleeing brutality, turmoil and the agony of uncertainty. Finding the appropriate balance is a dilemma challenging nations around the world, including, most recently, the European Union, where anti-immigrant politicians are in the ascendancy.

Thursday, December 28, 2023

The Crisis at the U.S. Border



 The U.S. is experiencing a migration crisis at the southern border. This is the beginning of the larger long term crisis of world migration. ( it is not caused by Columbia nor Mexico). This migration, like the migration out of Africa and Asia, is the product global warming, neoliberal capitalism, and regional wars among other things.  The DSA convention proposed taking two steps toward responding to this crisis.


Here is the resolution as passed by the convention.

 

WHEREAS   one of the first principles of democratic socialism is the importance of collective action;
WHEREAS   our political work should be informed by a strategic analysis of the political economy of U.S. capitalism and the cutting edge issues of the day, with an eye to identifying the critical points of system leverage where we can collectively intervene to maximum political effect; and


Whereas      DSA individuals, chapters, and the Immigrants’ Rights Working Group have been actively engaged for over six  years, and continue to engage in the defense of immigrants and refugees from racists attacks, and promoting 
and the promotion of comprehensive immigration reform that would secure their place in the U.S., putting an end to corporate induced competition between native born and immigrant workers, and between U.S. workers and workers abroad. ( See resolution #41 from the 2017 convention). 
 
  And, whereas,  In the last half century, there has been a major restructuring of the global economy, conducted largely on the terms of transnational corporations seeking ever greater profits. Neo-liberal ‘free trade’ agreements, such as NAFTA I and II and CAFTA, have produced a global ‘race to the bottom,’ with capital flight sending good paying union jobs away from workers in the U.S. to countries with low wage employment, many of which are ruled by authoritarian states that ban independent unions. In the Americas, this global ‘free trade’ economy has devastated entire sectors of the economies of Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, leading millions of people attempting to migrate to the U.S. in search of food, jobs, and security. Many also flee the ruthless violence of criminal groups in nations with ‘failed’ states, as well as the effects of climate catastrophes, from drought to increasingly vicious and destructive storms. 
 
And, whereas, the racist nationalism of Trump and his cohort  seeks to exploit the anger of U.S. workers by scapegoating immigrants and refugees, projecting racist fears and resentments on them. 
 
And, whereas, only a politics which breaks with the neo-liberal paradigm can successfully counter the racism of Trump and the nationalist right wing, bringing a measure of justice both to immigrants and refugees and to workers in the U.S.
  
Be it therefore resolved that:
 
In conjunction with the DSA Immigrant Rights Working Group, National staff and the NPC will develop a DSA platform for comprehensive immigration law reform, which shall be the basis for our educational, legislative, and direct action  work. The platform shall include, but not necessarily be limited to, provisions for:
·      A path to legal status (and where desired, citizenship) for DACA dreamers and TPS recipients;
·      The abolition of ICE, and its replacement with a new federal agency located in the Department of Justice  that respects the rights of immigrants and refugees ;
·       The legal recognition and enforcement of international treaties establishing the rights of migrants and refugees;
·       The quick and timely adjudication of claims of refugee status and rights of asylum, and quick and timely processing of applications for visas and ‘green card’ status;
·       An end to racial and ethnic disparities in the provision of visas and ‘green card’ status;
·       The reform of the current system of employment and family visas, including H2A and H1B visas, to end employer misuse of work visas and abuse of international workers, and to respect the right of family reunification; and
·       The securing of the labor rights of immigrant workers, and the full integration of those workers into the organized labor movement.
         A path to legal residence for all those living in the U.S. at this time.
·        A repeal of employer sanctions in all its forms. 
·      Legal status for the currently  undocumented, in a rapid and inclusive process, without excessive fees, fines, waiting periods or a preliminary temporary status.  
·      Opposition to the expansion of guest worker programs. 
 
 
 
Further, national DSA working with the Immigrants’ Rights Working Group  shall develop educational materials which provide a democratic socialist analysis of the underlying causes of the current immigration crisis, including 
·       The role of US government policy – economic, military and diplomatic – in the conditions that create refugees and economic immigrants;
·       The role of drug trafficking and the organized crime and violence associated with it, as well as the role of the U.S. as a major drug market, in the conditions that create refugees and economic immigrants;
·       The role of ‘free trade’ agreements, and the restructuring of the global economy along neo-liberal lines, in the conditions that create economic immigrants; and  the role of institutions of the global economy, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, in the conditions that create economic and immigrants. 


--------------------

Currently some National Political Committee  members  are seeking to respond to this convention resolution. They are limited by the lack of a functioning Immigrants Rights Working Group within DSA.  The prior working group was essentially by a slash, burn and destroy action of some ultra left forces within DSA.  I was a co chair in the prior IMWG. ( 2017-2022)  ( here) 



https://www.dsanorthstar.org/blog/immigrants-rights-actions-of-a-disciplined-cadre-ends-the-effective-work-of-a-dsa-working-groupimmigrants-rights-working-group-dsa

Now the NPC is seeking to respond. 




 

 

 

Wednesday, December 13, 2023

MAGA Republicans exploit Immigration Policy Mess


U.S. immigration policy is a mess. It was made worse by the Trump administration, 2016-2020.   Now, Republicans are now using immigration policy disputes to hold up needed military aid to Ukraine.  
In his campaign  in November Trump has promised the largest deportation in U.S. history. 
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/11/us/politics/trump-2025-immigration-agenda.html?

Here is what the Republicans Passed on Tues.


Here is what the House passed on Dec.12.2023
www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/2/text#toc-HB7761D89FC4C49ACBD0DF56E657FC6AE
https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/2/text#toc-HB7761D89FC4C49ACBD0DF56E657FC6AE
 

 

Facts about immigration. From the Anti Defamation League.

https://www.adl.org/resources/fact-sheet/eight-facts-about-immigrants-and-immigration-english-and-espanol

 

In an age of disinformation and bigotry, misconceptions about immigrants and anti-immigrant hate have spread throughout American politics and society. As a result, this country has seen a concerning uptick in rhetoric, policies, and social movements that threaten to or directly harm immigrants and refugees. This resource contains information and sources that set the record straight and will hopefully help mitigate the damage caused by disinformation about immigrants. 

The following are basic well-documented facts about immigrants, each discussed in more detail below:

  • Immigrants do not endanger public health.
  • Immigrants cannot vote until they become citizens.
  • Immigrants create jobs and improve the United States economy.
  • Most immigrants in the United States hold lawful status.
  • Throughout U.S. history, the percentage of immigrants has remained steady.
  • Immigrants are less likely than U.S.-born citizens to commit crimes or become incarcerated.
  • Immigrants are usually ineligible for social service benefits.
  • Terrorists have rarely entered the country illegally via the U.S.-Mexico border.

Fact: Immigrants do not endanger public health.

People who vilify immigrants and blame them for the United States' problems claim that they bring diseases  into the U.S. from beyond our borders. There is no evidence that immigrants have been the source of any modern disease outbreaks in the U.S.

When the COVID-19 pandemic broke out in 2020, policies attempting to bar immigrants and refugees from entering into the United States were based on unfounded grounds of public health concerns and fear of spreading COVID-19. As the pandemic took hold, health experts stressed that continuing immigration and asylum processing would not further spread the coronavirus, but rather that closing the border would actually negatively affect public health by contributing to overcrowding on both sides of the border. Moreover, prior to entry into the U.S., immigrants are required to undergo a medical examination to screen for certain communicable diseases.

Fact: Immigrants cannot vote until they become citizens.

Politicians and others who want to restrict immigration claim that undocumented immigrants are able to vote. Immigrants – including undocumented immigrants – cannot register to vote until they gain citizenship, regardless of whether a state issues them a driver’s license. Sixteen states and the District of Columbia permit undocumented immigrants to obtain state identification cards in the form of driver’s licenses, and all states issue identification documents to immigrants who hold temporary and permanent visas. These licenses provide a valid identification and promote public safety but do not entitle immigrants to vote in elections.

To vote, all states but one  require that a person first register to vote. and in order to do that, an applicant must attain and affirm their U.S. citizenship. There are many serious safeguards in place to ensure that only citizens can vote; that anyone who attempts to subvert this rule is subject to severe punishment; and that any such attempts never result in the counting of unauthorized votes.

Fact: Immigrants create jobs and improve the United States economy.

Some people  seek to exploit misunderstandings of the U.S. labor market and tax system by stoking concerns that more immigrants means fewer jobs and less access to social programs for citizens. In fact, immigrants help create new jobs. In addition to buying U.S. and local products, which helps create jobs, immigrants often start their own businesses. States with large numbers of immigrants report lower unemployment rates for everyone.

In 2019, immigrants collectively paid more than $492 billion in taxes, including more than $30 billion in taxes paid by undocumented immigrants.  Everyone pays sales taxes on goods they purchase and property taxes on the homes they buy, and more than half of all undocumented immigrant households file income tax returns using Individual Tax Identification Numbers.

Fact: Most immigrants in the U.S. hold lawful status.

Some individuals and anti-immigrant activists claim that most immigrants in the U.S. did not go through a legal process to live here. In fact, the large majority of immigrants (77%) have lawful status.

In 2017, 45% of immigrants were naturalized citizens and 27% were lawful permanent residents (sometimes referred to as Green Card holders). The remaining 28% of immigrants are refugees and asylum seekers, people who are in the U.S. on temporary visas (including student and work visas), and undocumented immigrants.

As of 2019, there were an estimated 10.5 million to 12 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S., or less than 4% percent of the nation's population.

Fact: Throughout U.S. history, the percentage of immigrants has remained steady. 

Those aiming to  sow fear about the rising number of immigrants in the U.S. often cite  misleading, out-of-context statistics. While there are more immigrants living in the U.S. than ever before, there are also more people living in the U.S. than ever beforeThe percentage of immigrants in the overall population is not much different than many other times throughout our history.

In fact, the percentage of immigrants in the U.S. is about the same now as it was over a hundred years ago. Today, immigrants make up approximately 13.7% of the total U.S. population. From 1900 to 1930, immigrants made up between 12% and 15% of the population, and similar spikes occurred in the 1850s and 1880s. During those periods, immigrants successfully became part of U.S. society, helping to build the thriving and diverse country we have now, and this process has always been true regardless of the country of origin, race, or religion of the immigrants. There is no reason to believe today’s immigrants are any different.

Fact: Immigrants are less likely than U.S.-born citizens to commit crimes or become incarcerated.

Some claim that immigrants do not abide by the law. They cite anecdotal evidence or individual cases where immigrants have done something unlawful and use these cases to cast all immigrants as criminals. Study after study has shown that immigrants — regardless of where they are from, what immigration status they hold, and how much education they have completed — are less likely than native-born citizens to commit crimes or become incarcerated.

According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, while the overall percentage of immigrants and the number of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. both increased between 1990 and 2016, the violent crime rate in the U.S. during that time plummeted 48 percent and the property crime rate dropped by 41 percent. More recent population and crime data from the Pew Research Center reveals the continuation of this trend.  Studies have consistently found that immigrants are less likely to be incarcerated than native-born Americans and that there is a negative correlation between levels of immigration and crime ratesOther studies have found that crime rates are lowest in states with the highest immigration growth rates, and that states with larger shares of undocumented immigrants tend to have lower crime rates than states with smaller shares.

Fact: Immigrants are usually ineligible for social service benefits.

Some suggest that immigrants use too many public benefits or take advantage of the social safety net provided to citizens. In fact, most immigrants who come to the U.S. work hard to take care of their families and themselves. Moreover, many studies have shown that, on average, immigrants pay more in taxes than they receive in benefits.

With very few exceptions (such as access to medical care for victims of human trafficking), undocumented immigrants, temporary residents, and even newly-arrived permanent residents are not eligible for federal public benefits such as Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, and food stamps. Green card holders generally are not entitled to these benefits until they have been in the country in permanent resident status for five years or longer. This means that many immigrants have contributions to these programs deducted from their paychecks but cannot access the benefits. According to a 2018 study by the CATO Institute, eligible immigrants use 27% fewer benefits relative to people of similar incomes and ages born with U.S. citizenship.

The $2 trillion 2020 CARES Act, which gave financial relief in light of COVID-19 to most taxpayers, excluded millions of immigrants without a Social Security Number from receiving stimulus checks – though many immigrants pay taxes and continue to work in essential jobs including healthcare.

Fact: Terrorists have rarely entered the country illegally through the U.S.-Mexico border.

Those looking to blame immigrants for national security issues exaggerate the risk of political extremists entering the U.S. from Mexico. There is little credible evidence that terrorists are routinely entering the U.S. through the border with Mexico. To date there have been zero deaths or injuries on U.S. soil as a result of acts committed by terrorists illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, while the domestic threat has been steadily growing for years. Between 2002 and 2018, 90% of Islamist extremist plots and attacks in the United States were carried out by U.S. citizens or individuals living in the country with lawful permanent or temporary status. In 2019, of the nine individuals arrested for plotting attacks linked to Islamist extremism, seven (78%) were U.S. citizens. Furthermore, domestic extremism, which poses the greater threat to people living in the United States, is primarily driven by right-wing extremists and particularly white supremacists, many of whom hold specifically anti-immigrant beliefs.

According to a report released by the U.S Department of State, Bureau of Counterterrorism in 2019, “Counterterrorism cooperation between Mexico and the United States remained strong in 2019. There was no credible evidence indicating international terrorist groups established bases in Mexico, worked directly with Mexican drug cartels, or sent operatives via Mexico into the United States.”

One recent exception wasthe arrest of two individuals on the terror watchlist attempting to cross the border in early 2021. Notably, both of these individuals were caught and stopped from crossing the border.

Sources

Fact: Immigrants do not endanger public health  

https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/public_health_experts_letter_05.18.2020.pdf  

https://www.cdc.gov/immigrantrefugeehealth/exams/medical-examination-faqs.html#3

Fact: Immigrants cannot vote until they become citizens. 

https://www.ncsl.org/research/immigration/states-offering-driver-s-licenses-to-immigrants.aspx

https://www.uscis.gov/forms/explore-my-options/proof-of-citizenship-for-us-citizens#:~:text=You%20are%20a%20U.S.%20citizen,%2D550%2C%20Certificate%20of%20Naturalization%3B&text=Form%20FS%2D240%2C%20Report%20of,of%20United%20States%20Citizen%3B%20or  

Fact: Immigrants create jobs and improve the United States economy.

https://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/immigrants-to-the-u-s-create-more-jobs-than-they-take

https://www.newamericaneconomy.org/locations/national/

 


 
For background, readers should look at Operation Wetback under President Dwight D. Eisenhower and the so-called Mexican Repatriation project of the 1930’s. 
The implementation of Operation Wetback was a result of Attorney General Herbert Brownell's tour of Southern California in August 1953. It was there that he made note of the "shocking and unsettling" issue that was illegal immigration.
[2] The short-lived operation used military-style tactics to remove Mexican immigrants—some of them American citizens—from the United States. Though millions of Mexicans had legally entered the country through joint immigration programs in the first half of the 20th century and some were naturalized citizens who were once native, Operation Wetback was designed to send them to Mexico.[3]
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Wetback
 
Operation Wetback was a follow-up to the prior Mexican Repatriation when as many as 2 million were deported, many of them children.  Up to 40% of those deported were U.S. citizens of Mexican descent. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Repatriation
 
Currently there is a competition among Republicans to be the toughest on immigration policy by focusing on fentanyl, which commonly begins production in China.
 
The current Mexican government   of Andrés Manuel López Obradorhas made major strides toward advancing democracy  and the rule of law in Mexico since 2018.  This effort is not at all complete.   Illegal, well-armed, cartels control some areas of Mexico.  There are at least four major cartels, and dozens of affiliated cartels.  For example, the Sinaloa cartel is the largest. Based in Culiacán, the cartel also controls Juarez and much of the border area.  Others cartels operate freely in other regions of the country.  
This week Ron DeSantis, Nickie Haley, and Vivek Rasmaswamy each have proposed some version of sending in U.S. military or a few missiles to take out the cartels. 
 
U.S. police intervention in Mexico was tried and advanced during prior Mexican governments.  1990-2018.  It failed.  Little progress was made, in significant part due to corruption of the government offices.
 
If the U.S. were now to act upon Republican statements and   fire a couple of missiles into Mexico the result would be to advance the control of one of the cartels over a different cartel.    We know this from prior efforts. For example, the joint Mexican/ US effort from 2006-2014, weakened some cartels, and strengthened  the Sinaloa cartel. In reality, the U.S. intervention helped the Sinaloa cartel.
 
Suppose, as candidate  Vivek proposed this week, we send in a few missiles to take out a cartel. 
Well, first, that would strengthen other cartels who would be pleased to move into their territory.  And then, suppose the Sinaloa cartel responded by sending a few missiles into Dallas or Ft. Worth? What would be our next steps? 
 
What the Mexican government has been asking for as policy, particularly in the last 20 years, is that the U.S. should  assist by controlling the shipment of guns and arms from the U.S. to the cartels.  Mexico manufactures almost no weapons.  It is illegal there.  The guns, bombs, and other weapons are coming from the U.S. market. The Mexican Government is often out-gunned in efforts to oppose cartel violence.  The cartels get their massive weapons from the U.S.
 
Why do you suppose the proposal to limit gun sales and transfers  is not discussed in the U.S. in Republican circles?
And, why is it so little discussed in U.S. media ?
 
President Lopez-Obrador’s  alternative proposals are to build a more democratic state. To create jobs for young people so they will have careers rather than join the cartels.   And, he is working to  rebuild a police force that is not corrupt.  He urgently needs control of gun traffic from the U.S.
 
What could the U.S. do? 
Well, first, we should get control of gun manufacturing, sales, and theft in the U.S.  We are not doing this because the U.S. gun lobby controls one of the two political parties and half of the second party. 
 
In place of building a wall that does not work and building massive new detention centers as proposed by candidate Trump, the U.S. could spend the money to provide adequate electronic searches of vehicles crossing the border.  Most Fentanyl comes in in large trucks. Not in back packs.  This has been a part of the Biden Administration’s  proposal for immigration reform. The Republican Congress refuses to fund such a policy.  
 

Duane Campbell 

Thursday, December 07, 2023

Farm workers forced out of Migrant Housing - California


Many migrant farmworkers living in California-run housing would settle full time in their communities if they could find affordable housing. Their children struggle to keep up in school as a result of frequent moves.

This is what The Sacramento Bee learned during a year-long investigation into California’s 24 migrant farmworker housing centers, which provide subsidized units for seasonal workers.

Reporters visited seven centers in Northern California, the San Joaquin Valley and on the Central Coast. They surveyed 150 families about living in housing and moving every year. Here are their findings.

Thousands of children living in the centers must bear the brunt of the annual moves. Most bounce from one school to another every few months and receive instruction in two different languages. Read more about these students here.

California farmworkers struggle to find housing — yet the state lets thousands of affordable units sit empty for three to six months every year. Read more about their housing here.

Support from readers like you helps us create quality, local journalism. Subscribe today to The Sacramento Bee: https://sacbee.com/subscribe

Wednesday, December 06, 2023

H2A Farm Workers Hung Out to dry

 wrapper

Pro-union H2A workers will be hung out to dry
if the DOL doesn’t immediately step in

Four years ago, in New York, workers won a law to help them organize. In the last year, workers organized and won union representation at five farms and have just filed at another farm. However, now due to a grower lawsuit, the NY Attorney General effectively froze the enforcement mechanism of farm worker law and left vulnerable H-2A workers who've spoken out unprotected and victimized. The US Department of Labor (DOL) can step in and change this, as they have jurisdiction over the guest worker visa program. 

Sign the petition today and ask the DOL, how they are going to protect these workers?

Background: Basically, NY growers decided they didn't like bargaining fairly for a union contract. After they lost their arguments to the state agency, they judge-shopped and took the same arguments to a federal district court where they filed a lawsuit asking to overturn the law. The New York Attorney General's office then made a decision to put everything on hold until the lawsuit is heard, without even asking the UFW how that would affect the workers.

The repercussions are being felt. Worker leaders had thought they were protected when they spoke out for the union. Now the growers know who they are and are retaliating. At one of the companies, Cahoon Farms, as employees boarded the bus for the trip back to Jamaica, around half of the H-2A workers were told they wouldn't be recalled in 2024 -- including a large number of union supporters. Unsurprisingly, this included four out of the five union committee members.

The reason was they supposedly didn't reach the production quota. However, according to more than a dozen workers, it was impossible to reach the quota, as there were not enough apples of the correct size to pick. "Jack" shared, "For most of the 2023 harvest season, our crew was assigned to spot pick in fields that did not have sufficiently sized apples to meet the minimum productivity requirement … We were sent to these fields numerous times, which I believe was intentional so that we would be set up to fail."

Sign the petition today. Ask the DOL to immediately step in and remedy this situation. Growers are retaliating against workers for protected union activity. Without the DOL's intervention, these H-2A workers will be hung out to dry. 

PS: After you take action you can also share this campaign on Facebook & Twitter

Duane Thank you for receiving our emails -- we appreciate everything you do!

Want to support our work? Start a monthly donation or chip in a one-time donation.

Visit our self-service portal to change your address or other information.

 To unsubscribe: unsubscribe

United Farm Workers (UFW)
PO Box62
Keene, CA 93531
United States •http://www.ufw.org • Privacy Policy