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IMMIGRATION REFORM RALLY SAT., APRIL 6, 2013, at 12:00 noon

This coming Saturday, April 6, 2013, CoFiA will join with thousands of other people at Liberty State Park to show our support for common sense immigration reform.  We will be demanding reform that includes a path to citizenship, ensures family unity and provides protections for all workers.

Buses will leave from in front of the police station in Palisades Park.  For more information or to sign up call CoFiA Co-Chair Rony Coloma at 201-832-4617.

The event is sponsored by La Fuente, a Tri-State Worker and Community Fund, and other groups.  The bus is free.

Wage Theft video being planned

wage theft cmt 3.20.13001The wage theft committee of the Community of Friends in Action is beginning to plan a video documenting the experience of our friends in the jornalero community, of wage theft.  “Wage theft” is exactly what it sounds like–the stealing of wages from employees.  All over the United States unscrupulous employers are exploiting day workers–and many other workers–by hiring them for jobs and then paying them only a part of what was promised.  In our community these documented thefts have amounted to as little as $400 and as much as $20,000. The committee is hoping to create a film that will demonstrate how such theft  affects all of us.  Stay tuned!

 

Here, a committee member ponders the issue during a recent meeting.

Former Guatemalan dictator facing trial

 

According to the New York TIMES and other media, ex-military dictator General Efraín Ríos Montt is being tried for his role in attacks against indigeneous people that took more than 200,000 lives over three decades. It is justice that many people thought would never happen. Although a United Nations Truth Commission documented at least 7000 of these deaths, the report of the Commission resulted in no action. Ríos Montt was protected from prosecution because he was a legislator, and when he became president he stacked the judiciary in his favor.

 

In 2010 the Guatemalan Judiciary changed its policies and brought charges against various members of the high military command, and some were convicted. Now it is the turn of Ríos Montt. The Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation has meticulously identified thousands of victims of what is now considered a genocide.

 

Some of these atrocities are documented in the video produced by the Community of Friends in Action, “Why I Am Here/Porque Estoy Aquí.”

 

Congratulations to Maria E. Andreu!

maria andreu
maria andreuCoFiA member and former co-chair Maria Andreu has sold her young adult novel The Secret Side of Empty to Running Press publishers.  The publication date is Spring 2014.  The novel is based on her own experiences growing up undocumented in the United States.
Join us in congratulating Maria on this amazing achievement.  “Like” her page on Facebook here, and send her a note through the book’s website here.

OSHA training offered at CoFiA Monday lunch program

A new program is being offered following the CoFiA Monday lunch programs at Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church in Palisades Park–an introductory OSHA training.  OSHA trainers Stuart Sydenstricker and Diana Mejia invite workers who come for the hot lunch to participate in an informal OSHA session after lunch.  Several workers have testified about how they have been injured on the job, and how important it is to know how to work safely and what to do if an employer does not provide adequate safety information or equipment.

Workers who complete the full five-week program will receive a certificate.  People who are unable to attend regularly will benefit from the information provided and may be able to sign up for a full course at another time.OSHA TRAINING 2.25.13005 OSHA TRAINING 2.25.13004 OSHA TRAINING 2.25.13003

 

Pictures, from left to right:  Stewart addresses the group. A worker enjoying the session. CoFiA member Effie Giraldo assisting.

Business and Labor Groups agree on need for new visas

A recent article in the Bergen RECORD said that the US Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO reached consensus on an agreement on the need for a way to let businesses more easily hire foreign workers when Americans aren’t available to fill jobs.  This describes most of our friends in the day laborer community so we are happy to see this.

The article says the groups are calling for a new kind of woker visa program that does not keep all workers in a permanent temporary status and responds as the U.S. economy grows and shrinks.

As CoFiA members talk with the migrant workers in our communities we recognize that one of the major dysfunctional aspects of our broken immigration system is that it permits–even encourages–exploitation of the workers.  Because they come here desperate for work, they are forced to take almost anything that is offered to them.  There are many employers, large and small, who exploit that need, hiring people only on short-term bases and paying them far below the minimum wage–or not paying them at all.  Although all workers are covered by U.S. Labor laws, the deficits in the current immigration system actually encourage these practices, to the benefit of no one, neither migrant nor citizen.

A statement from the Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO said, “We have found common ground in several important areas and have committed to continue to work together and with members of Congress to enact legislation that will solve our current problems in a lasting manner.  We are now in the middle–not the end–of this process.”

This is a signficant step in moving forward on immigration policy reform–especially important since some politicians (such as Florida’s Jeb Bush) are choosing to appeal to anti-immigrant groups to achieve short-term political goals.

 

 

46,486 parents of U.S.-citizen children deported in 2011

An article in “Yearning to Breathe Free,” the newsletter of the First Friends of NJ & NY Corp. “IRATE & First Friends”, points out that in the first six months of 2011, 46,486 parents of U.S.-citizens children were deported.  It also quotes the Applied Research Center (ARC) as estimating that about 5,100 children with detained or deported parents were in the public child welfare system in 2011.  Over the next five years, ARC estimates that an additional 15,000 children in the child welfare system could be at risk of permanent separation from a detained or deported parent.

These horrific statistics arise for several reasons.  The changes in U.S. immigration law in 1996 made it impossible for immigration judges to consider the harm that might be caused to a U.S.-citizen child by the removal of his or her parent or parents.  The parents are often removed suddenly, and may not be able to make any arrangements for their children while they are being held behind bars.  Further, a judge or caseworker could determine that a child who ends up in the child welfare system should be placed for adoption, rather than reunited with a deported parent or a responsible relative.

Congress must reinstate judicial discretion and eliminate “mandatory detention” laws as they relate to parents.  We must remember that the ICE practices that scoop up parents indiscriminately are heavily influenced by the motivation of private correctional corporations to keep their profitable institutions filled.

We are all complicit in these abuses of children if we do not speak out against them, and insist that our lawmakers listen–and act.

New York TIMES “Immigration Reform and Workers’ Rights” gets it right

A recent New York TIMES editorial (February 23, 2013), says that “any worthwhile overhaul has to attack systemic abuses of immigrant labor.”

We are delighted to see prominent coverage of this important issue that our friends live with every day.  The editorial points out that the need for  protection against wage theft has received only passing mention.  “Such protections, essential to any reform plan, would help rid the system of bottom-feeding employers who hire and underpay and otherwise exploit cheap immigrant labor, dragging down wages and workplace standards for everyone.”

The CoFiA Wage Theft Committee hears about these bottom-feeding employers all the time.  They are not strangers.  They live and work among us.  These bottom-feeders we have dealt with include not just construction contractors and landscapers, but Realtors, doctors, restaurateurs, and others.  As the editorial states, the abuses begin overseas, where workers pay steep fees to ‘coyotes’ and begin their lives here in deep debt.  Thus they take almost any work offered, and suffer in silence when they are exploited. Most of the people who come to us have stories of threats of deportation if they venture to complain.  The article is right when it says, “They have little opportunity to complain about unsafe working conditions, to sue for stolen wages or to assert their rights to overtime and time off.”

Changing these patterns must be part of the immigration discussion.  The editorial tells us that the A.F.L.-C.I.O. and Service Employees International Union have joined forces with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in the push for reform.  This is encouraging news for us all.

 

 

What Immigration Reform Means to NJ

immigration reform

immigration reformIn January, 2013, President Obama made the announcement that many of us interested in immigration reform have been waiting to hear: that this administration is going to do something to fix our broken immigration system.  Under the Obama immigration proposal, the millions of people who are in the United States without documentation would be given a path to citizenship.  We say hooray and it’s about time.

Often when people think of immigration reform, they think of it in abstract terms.  But the truth is that the current system has a deep impact right here in New Jersey.  We see it as close as with the workers we serve in Palisades Park, many of whom are undocumented and who are victimized by below-minimum wage pay, unsafe work environments and wage theft.  That’s right, all too often these men work hard for a contractor and at the end of a week (or a month or longer sometimes) they are told no pay is coming.  If they protest, they are threatened with exposure to the immigration authorities.  This is not the New Jersey (nor the America) we want to live in.

An analysis of 2010 U.S. Census data reveals that about 6% of New Jersey’s population is undocumented.  They represent about 8.6% of our work force, ranking us only behind California and Texas in percentage of undocumented workers.   That’s approximately 550,000 people in New Jersey alone, making a significant contribution to the construction, landscaping, farming and hospitality industries, to name only a few.  They are not “those illegal immigrants.”  They are our neighbors, who make our lives more pleasant and affordable and who pay taxes.  (Yes, they pay taxes, from sales taxes to income taxes).  Their labor is essential, but their current situations are unfair and untenable.

Current immigration laws create all kinds of unfair situations for the undocumented.  Here are a few:

  • Very often they pay payroll taxes, but they are ineligible for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and more.  We’re exploiting them.
  • Many are long-term residents of New Jersey, but can’t take advantage of residency benefits, such as in-state college tuition.
  • If they are stopped by police, they run the risk of being put into the rampantly unfair immigration detention system, where they have no right to a lawyer, no right to a speedy trial and can often be cut off from the world for months, even if they’re found not guilty of the offense for which they were originally picked up.
  • They suffer terrible family separation issues.  When one member of a family is undocumented but others (such as children) are citizens, parents get deported, children get put into foster care and families get torn asunder.
  • They are disproportionately victims of crime, and their fear of the police (brought on by the very real fear that their immigration status may make them vulnerable to deportation) makes them much less likely to report crimes such as domestic abuse, theft and rape.

Bringing everyone into the light and giving them a path to citizenship makes a stronger New Jersey and a better America.  If we continue to hold the ideals on which this country was founded – life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness – it is time to give our undocumented neighbors a chance to live fully realized lives as contributing, thriving members of society.  It is time for comprehensive immigration reform.

 

By Maria E. Andreu