Sign-On Letter for Immigrant Victims of Hurricane

Thank you to Saket Sonet for this:

Please Sign On No Later Then 5 P.M. (Pacific)
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Dear friends and allies,
Many of you read Sunday’s New York Times editorial, “No Shelter From The Storm,” which talks about the challenges that immigrant workers and their families had to bear as Hurricane Gustav approached the Gulf Coast last week.  The Times highlights the vulnerability of immigrants in the Gulf Coast three years after Katrina, and strongly advocates for immigrant access to humanitarian relief “during all phases of a disaster.”  The editorial also details the fight that the New Orleans Workers’ Center entered to ensure that immigrant communities would not be forced to hide in the shadows from the very institutions charged with guaranteeing their safety at a time of disaster.      
As Hurricane Gustav gathered strength last week, thousands of immigrants in our region were forced to choose between the possibility of death and deportation.  The prospect of immigration checkpoints along the evacuation route and Katrina-style immigration raids frightened most of our members even more than a category-4 hurricane. 
Their fears were based on their experiences during and after Hurricane Katrina, when the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) conducted terrifying operations on immigrants during every phase of the disaster.  But this time, just as mandatory evacuations began, we gained a key assurance from DHS: that there would be no immigration checkpoints along the evacuation route. 
So immigrants decided to evacuate.  But where would they go?  They were not willing to trust the shelters.  They had not received a clear statement from the Red Cross that shelters would be safe from immigration enforcement.  So, as the Times says, they were forced to “improvise their own evacuations.”  Piling into crowded cars, immigrant workers became among the most vulnerable evacuees.
As immigrants return from evacuation, they are fighting for the same assurance of safety from the DHS during their journey back home.  And as Hurricane Ike approaches the Gulf Coast, we must fight for a clear federal policy that guarantees immigrant workers and their families safety and equal access to humanitarian care during every phase of disaster. 
We must also fight for a Just Reconstruction in the aftermath of disaster.  In the last three years, immigrants rebuilding the Gulf Coast have been terrorized by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.  Workers have reported astounding levels of wage theft and brutal labor exploitation. But the federal government has not dispatched batteries of Department of Labor inspectors to the region.  Instead it has sent hundreds of ICE agents.  Employers get the message:  these are disposable workers.  When workers ask for paychecks on the corner or demand their basic dignity and rights in labor camps, employers call immigration to conduct payday deportations and retaliatory raids. 
Immigration raids after Katrina have helped employers hold workers hostage to the terror of deportation.   And immigration raids have held hostage the rebuilding of the entire region.  When workers’ lives are interrupted – by employers who steal wages, driving workers into homelessness, or by a Federal government that detains and deports workers – the Reconstruction is interrupted.  Visit New Orleans and you’ll see the extent of the interruption: vast areas remain to be rebuilt, in part because the federal government prioritized immigration raids over labor and health inspections. 
We must pressure the Federal government to get its priorities right during and after a disaster.  As the New York Times suggests, there must be an “ironclad policy” guaranteeing access to humanitarian relief through every phase of the disaster.  And there must be a moratorium on raids in disaster-affected regions, so that workers and their families can safely return to rebuild their communities.
Join the fight to advance an agenda for immigrant access to humanitarian relief and a just reconstruction.  Sign on to this letter asking the DHS to ensure that immigrant workers and their families never have to make the impossible choice between death and deportation when disaster strikes.
In solidarity,

Saket Soni
Director
New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice

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