Immigrant workers hurt by layoffs, racial profiling
By Preston Wood
Los Angeles
The financial pages across the country warn of a looming
recession, and the fog thickens over Wall Street.
But for thousands of immigrant workers in New York, Los
Angeles and across the country, it's already a full-blown
recession.
Hotel and restaurant services workers, in such high demand
before the Sept. 11 attacks that Congress was under pressure to
classify them as "essential workers" for immigration reform,
are now facing hunger and homelessness with no source of
income.
Now any talk in Congress of immigration reform is lost under
a wave of racism and anti-immigrant backlash.
The sharp decline in tourism has caused tens of thousands to
be thrown out of work.
While thousands of laid-off hotel and restaurant workers are
eligible for unemployment insurance, government rules prevent
those with temporary work permits or who are undocumented from
receiving any government compensation, including unemployment
benefits.
According to the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees
union, at least 100,000 unionized hotel and restaurant workers
nationwide are now jobless. Many more non-union workers have
also been thrown out of work with no source of income,
according to the union. (Los Angeles Times, Oct. 21)
Of the 43 restaurant workers killed at the top of the World
Trade Center on Sept. 11, 12 had been working without Social
Security numbers.
Paul Harrington, a population expert at Northeastern
University in Boston, estimates that the population of
undocumented workers in the United States is now more than 12
million. "State jobless benefit claims don't reflect such
workers," Harrington said. , it's gong to play out in the
social services."
To make matters even more difficult, workers with temporary
work permits are usually afraid to apply for any social
services. To do so could make them so-called "public charges"
under Immigration and Naturalization Service guidelines, which
would ruin any chances they might have of gaining permanent
residency.
Stephen Rediker, who operates Face to Face--an immigrant aid
center in Westchester County north of New York City--says, "We
are working with quite a few families that were affected
directly, that lost people. They were doing menial tasks in the
World Trade Center and were killed. And the families are afraid
to come forward. They're even afraid to go to the Red
Cross."
This fear comes from a long history of racism and harassment
that has characterized U.S. government policy regarding
immigrant workers in this country.
"I know that in places like Los Angeles, many people are a
paycheck away from being homeless," says Representative Hilda
Solis, who is proposing legislation to help immigrant
workers.
Judy Golub, a spokesperson for the American Immigration
Lawyers Association, says immigration lawyers are reporting
that INS interviewers are taking a tougher stance and denying
more applications for residency. "It's not official policy,"
she said, "but they appear to be stricter, trying to find a
basis for denial."
While the Pentagon's war against the people of Afghanistan
rages on, another war against the workers here in this country
is escalating. It is the oppressed workers, including millions
of immigrants, who are the first to be hurt.
Reprinted from the Nov. 1, 2001, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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