On Tuesday, October 18, Rev. Jim VanderWeele and I joined a group of activists and religious leaders for a "Tour of Truth" led by the organizers and members of the local Congreso de Jornaleros (Congress of Day Laborers). The plan was to visit several sites in and around New Orleans where agents of Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) had arrested and abused the Latino day laborers who were brought to New Orleans in 2005 to work on post-Katrina reconstruction and rebuilding.
The first stop was, ironically, the corner of Martin Luther King Street and South Claiborne Avenue, at a gas station which is a well-known local corner where workers gather for hire as casual labor (and where once, a Latino worker assisted me in getting the stuck gas cap off my van so I could fill it up). The workers who had been there told us, through a translator, of the daily hassles and threats they had endured, and of workers suddenly "disappearing" after being picked up by ICE. We sang a hymn and continued to the next stop.
Across the street from the Lowe's Home Supply Store on Elysian Fields Avenue, we heard the story of six workers picked up on a Friday by a contractor, who asked if they would be available to work over the weekend. All six eagerly agreed. One young man related, through the interpreter, how excited he had been to get a weekend job; he anticipated being able to buy groceries for his family and pay his rent on the following Monday. But the "contractor" proved to be an ICE agent in disguise. When the workers tried to run away, they were beaten. (Running away is apparently considered by ICE to be "resistance" and thus use of physical force is justified.) Again, an African-American neighborhood activist led us in singing a traditional hymn, one often used in the civil rights movement, and we left for the next location.
On a quiet street in Mid-City, we stood in front of the house that had been home to Delmy, her husband, and their newborn son. Holding the baby, now a squirmy toddler, and wiping away tears, Delmy shared the story of the night that she and her husband had an argument and when he left the house to cool off, she locked him out. When he found he couldn't get back in, and not knowing what else to do, he called the police. When the police arrived, they broke down the door, and dragged Delmy out of bed. They handcuffed her in her nightclothes, separated her from her by-now screaming baby, and arrested her for "domestic violence." Because of the Orleans Parish Sheriff's habit of allowing ICE into the jail to look over prisoners, Delmy ended up in an ICE hold, and was kept incarcerated for *three months*, away from her baby (an American citizen), and her husband, who kept calling the jail saying he wanted all charges dropped. All of us hearing the story were close to tears.
While our little group listened, several neighbor women came out of their houses, and moved closer to see who we were and what we were doing there. When they recognized Delmy with her baby son, they greeted her warmly. They knew Delmy from her time there in their neighborhood; one of them said, "We knew her when she was pregnant, and once that baby was born, she was with him all the time." One of the women had witnessed the arrest and had tried to intervene, asking over and over, "What did she do?" and informing the officers that there was a new baby in the house. The woman was threatened by officers with arrest if she kept asking questions. The two women kept saying to Delmy, "We're so glad to see you, and back with your baby!" When they were informed that Delmy was under a deportation order that would separate her from little Josué, they were outraged. "It's so wrong!" they said, "It's a shame they can do you like that." Once more, we joined hands in a circle and sang a hymn, some of us with tears streaming.
Our final stop was in front of set of cheap apartments in Kenner. A group of workers repeated the same story: after having worked for a local house-leveling firm for two weeks, a group of nearly 40 workers were notified by telephone that they were to be paid at 7:30 am the next morning, and given a location to come to. When the workers arrived, they were immediately surrounded by ICE agents wielding clubs and handcuffs. Anyone who attempted to get away was beaten; one worker ended up in a local hospital for stitches -- and ironically, due to being at the emergency room, was the only worker not held in custody by ICE that day. None of the workers was paid for work they had done -- close to one hundred thousand dollars in total. I thought to myself, That's a good way for a business to save money! We did not feel much like singing, and the tour ended.
On the following Thursday, October 20, a similar group met outside an office building on Poydras Street near the New Orleans Superdome where ICE has its local offices. We had posters representing four members of Congreso who had been abruptly deported the night before, even though they could show legal documents proving that they were subpoenaed witnesses in court cases over wage theft. We laid the posters on the public sidewalk -- after the group was roughly moved away from the front of the building by a security guard -- and laid both symbolic toy handcuffs and bouquets of roses on the posters. We chanted, "We are human beings!" in Spanish. The building's guard called the police and an officer stood by, watching. He made no move to shove the group along, stop the protest, or arrest anyone. A little Latina girl brought him one of the roses bouquet, and, unsure what to do, he laid it gently on top one of the posters on the sidewalk depicting a deported worker. (He told me later, "I love my country and I love the constitution, and people have a right to peacefully protest. I'll always defend that." I thanked him.)
Doesn't seem equally suspicious that not only workers who need to be paid are deported, but also those standing up for their civil rights? I love my country too, and in general I respect its laws. But when my country acts unjustly and unreasonably, I am moved to witness and to protest. It is wrong to deny the right to remain to the Latino workers who have given so much to New Orleans' post-Katrina recovery. It is wrong to separate families, mothers and fathers from little children, intimate partners from each other. It is wrong to pretend to hire honest workers, only to cheat them of the wages they've earned, and then, worse, to deport them away from their families.
People of faith are called to stand up and be counted when wrongs are being done, and Rev. JIm and I were glad to stand with the Congreso.
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