|
Undocumented workers and families
in the areas devastated by one of the worst storms in US history –
including Central American survivors of Hurricane Mitch – face perhaps the
steepest route to recovery.
Sep 28 - Many Hondurans came to the New Orleans area
after Hurricane Mitch tore through their homeland in 1998, devastating the
already poverty-stricken country. Few funds were available for aid and
rebuilding, and corrupt officials siphoned off much of the foreign
financial help. Many parts of the capitol Tegucigalpa still stand in ruins seven
years later.
Hurricane Katrina was an all-too-familiar experience for
those who were already refugees. About 150,000 Hondurans were among an
estimated 300,000 immigrants living in the areas hit by the storm. And in a
country far wealthier than their homeland, many found their access to aid
and support was not much different. Those from Honduras and other countries
who are undocumented and living illegally in the US, usually working
low-wage jobs, have had an even harder time than other impoverished
residents in surviving and relocating after the hurricane, since they are
afraid to ask for aid.
And for good reason. After initial governmental reassurances
that immigrants should seek aid, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
declined to promise that immigrants would not be placed in deportation
proceedings if federal authorities find them through relief efforts. At
least five evacuees have been placed in deportation proceedings, three in El Paso and two in West Virginia.
"While that seems like a small number, it sends a
message to the community," said Jennifer Ng'anbu,
health policy analyst for the National Council of La Raza,
an organization that advocates on behalf of Hispanics in the US.
"It doesn't take much for them to become fearful. Immigrants are isolated;
they feel there are real consequences of disclosing themselves."
In his national address on September 15, President Bush
noted that undocumented immigrants cannot get temporary homes, subsidies,
Social Security checks or mail delivery promised to legal residents
displaced by Katrina. Some groups like Catholic Charities and Catholic
Community Services of Baton Rouge are helping undocumented immigrants with
shelter and cash, but the intense climate of fear and language barriers
make even these services hard to access.
Days after the hurricane struck, Mexican president Vicente
Fox delivered televised addresses urging the 40,000 Mexican nationals in
the area to seek aid and announcing an agreement with the US not to deport undocumented Mexicans,
though the US
government has not confirmed this promise.
"We've had no formal or informal promises" to
suspend immigration enforcement, noted Ng'Anbu.
This is a departure from US policy after the September
11 attacks and the string of hurricanes that struck the Southeast last
year, when the federal government explicitly suspended enforcement of
immigration laws.
The National Council of La Raza
was joined by the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the
National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) and
the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) in calling
on Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff to
suspend deportation proceedings against all immigrants seeking help in the
wake of Katrina.
"Whether folks are undocumented or not, the message
that FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security is sending is really
mixed, first telling them to report for relief services and then reporting
them [to authorities]," said Ng'anbu.
"They're frightened, they're not seeking the
help they need to get back on their feet."
Hondurans and other Central American immigrants made up the
bulk of the service sector working in casinos and restaurants in the New Orleans area,
while Mexicans and other Latin American immigrants also constituted a large
agricultural workforce in the surrounding region. The immigrant population
in areas affected by Katrina included the 150,000 Hondurans and 40,000
Mexicans along with about 9,600 Salvadorans, 10,000 Brazilians, and
immigrants from Peru, Venezuela, Chile,
Panama, Trinidad and Tobago, and Costa Rica,
according to numbers provided to the press by consulates.
Natalia Fernandez, a
Honduran immigrant in the Bronx whose
niece and her three children were displaced by Katrina, was close to tears
as she described what her family has been through.
"There's so much sadness, so many problems," she
said in Spanish, describing how her niece and young children were living on
the fifth floor of a hotel with no amenities and no elevator and had to
walk miles through the heat. They eventually made it to New York to stay with family.
"She's so tired, it was so hot, no social workers
visited them, no therapy, the kids have been out of school, they had
nowhere to go," said Fernandez. "It's a trauma, not only for them
but for the whole family. The relatives suffer, too. This is what happens
to them for being undocumented."
She blamed President Bush for her family's misery.
"He's bad; he's a criminal," she said.
"People are getting sick emotionally and physically, and he doesn't
have a heart. We never had a good government [in Honduras] and we thought it
would be different here, but it's the same."
Mirtha Colon, with the
group Hondurans Against AIDS in New York,
noted that since most immigrants from Latin America
send money back to their families in home countries, the hurricane will
have ripple economic effects across the hemisphere.
The fear of detection makes it difficult for consulates and
family members to find out what has happened to immigrants. Many do not know
if their relatives are safe and where they are. Consulates have generally
reported locating only a few hundred of the thousands of their nationals in
the region, according to numerous media reports.
LULAC has organized the distribution of long-distance phone
cards to immigrants in refugee shelters as part of relief efforts that also
include sending out roving medical teams and collecting funds for families
who have taken in displaced immigrants.
LULAC director of policy and legislation Gabriela Lemus noted that several thousand migrant farm workers
in particular have been ignored leading up to and throughout the disaster.
"They didn't find out about it until it was too late to
evacuate, so they didn't have a chance to get out," she said.
"They had to batten down the hatches and wait. The farm owners were
more concerned about their crops than [about] the workers."
Groups including the National Alliance of Latin American and
Caribbean Communities and Familias Unidas have urged lawmakers to hasten passing liberal
immigration reform bills like the McCain-Kennedy Secure America and Orderly
Immigration Act to help undocumented immigrants caught in Katrina avoid
deportation and start new lives in the US.
Ironically, even as they risk being put into deportation
proceedings if they access aid, immigrants are apparently being courted as
a major part of government-driven rebuilding New Orleans. In a September 8 Executive
Order, President Bush suspended the Davis-Bacon Act requiring construction
workers on federal contracts be paid the average wage in a region, and the
Department of Homeland Security promised employers it will suspend checking
documentation of workers.
As advocates see it, this is a microcosm of how immigrant
laborers have been treated in the US in general – welcomed and
used for their labor, but largely denied job stability, permanent residence
and social services.
|
