Many migrants flocking to Gulf Coast are exploited, advocates say

[highplainsdem]

http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/nation/12918262.htm


Posted on Sun, Oct. 16, 2005

Many migrants flocking to Gulf Coast are exploited, advocates say

BY WILLIAM E. GIBSON AND IHOSVANI RODRIGUEZ
South Florida Sun-Sentinel


GULFPORT, Miss. - (KRT) - There's gold along the storm-wracked Gulf Coast, where jobs are plentiful, pay is good and billions of dollars of reconstruction aid are practically dripping from the trees.

At least that's what some labor contractors are telling migrant and foreign workers, who are trickling into devastated fields and construction sites from as far away as Florida and Mexico.

<snip>

While Olvera and the others were promised large apartments and plenty of food, instead they were living on a Frisbee golf course, in small tents or out in the open without electricity or running water.

After two weeks of fixing roofs, carrying Sheetrock and doing everything else that comes with helping restore a storm-torn region, Rafael Jarra, the man who brought them from Fort Pierce in a blue van, paid them $300 each - one fifth of what they were expecting.

<snip>

[DaveColorado]

1. This is what the Republicans want

They will never support closed borders like the fundies want them to because their real "base" is the corporations who vie for cheap labor.

[bluestateguy]

2. That's what they hope to get out of this "guest worker" program

Nice compliant cheap laborers, people who won't agitate for higher wages or benefits or start unions. And if they get a little too uppity, then the boss can always make a phone call to INS.

[pitohui]

3. my feeling

people who support illegal immigration into this country are supporting slavery

yes, they're here, living in miserable tents, some tents to me look to be made of just tarp

legal workers are getting $15-20 an hour

so i guess there is quite a motive for some folks to promote this new form of slavery where you don't even have to give the slave a halfway decent shack to live in