El Semanario - IWJ condemns targeting of immigrant workers in BP disaster

Interfaith Worker Justice, the nation’s largest religious advocacy network for the rights of low-wage workers, expressed utter incomprehension over the checkpoints and harassment to which workers cleaning up BP’s Gulf Coast oil disaster are being subjected.
“As we scramble to contain the biggest environmental catastrophe in U.S. history, and send workers into harm’s way to do the dirty work (10 were recently hospitalized after reporting dizziness, nausea and difficulty breathing), why do the very people whose labors are so urgently needed and whose safety hangs in the balance find themselves under investigation over their immigration status?” said Danny Postel, Communications Coordinator for IWJ.
“In biblical times, the righteous and the poor were anointed with oil,” said Keron Blair, Director of New Orleans Interfaith Worker Justice Center. “Oil was for cleansing and healing. It was a blessing. But today, BP has cursed our waters with crude oil. And now ICE is aiding sheriffs in cracking down on allegedly criminal immigrant ‘enterprises’. We need to cleanse our minds of such evil distortions and distractions,” Blair continued. “The government must see to the stoppage of the flowing oil and ensure that the Gulf waters are cleaned. We need to protect the rights of workers who are carrying out the clean-up, make sure that their health and safety are protected and their full wages are paid, and not stir up false prejudices. They are doing God’s work here on earth.”
“If St. Bernard’s government officials would actually spend time on public policy that was in line with real people’s priorities, then they would be cleaning up the oil … in the Gulf of Mexico instead of scapegoating immigrants in their own community,” Saket Soni, Executive Director of the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice told the magazine Color Lines.
“Maybe we could give the clean up crews respirators and [protective] gear rather threaten them with deportation?” as one observer remarked. Instead, workers who have brought their own safety equipment not provided by BP have been threatened with termination, according to Louisiana Environmental Action Network.
IWJ strongly condemns these upside-down priorities in this time of national crisis.
“The fear of crime in the Gulf Coast is perfectly legitimate,” said Ted Smukler, IWJ’s Director of Public Policy. “But the perpetrators are not the workers – they’re the employers who prey on them by stealing their wages and failing to provide them with safety ...

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