Archive for the ‘Iowa’ Category
Posted by Christopher Coen on March 30, 2012
All charges have been dropped against three Eritrean refugees who were accused of putting two mundane items — a cell phone taped to container of a paste-like food similar to tahini (reported elsewhere as halva) — through security at Phoenix’s airport last August. The items were apparently a gift from one refugee to another. In a case of apparent racial and ethnic profiling paired with trumped-up assumptions, sketchy logic, and a language barrier, authorities accused the three of deliberately transporting the food and cell phone to make it appear as an explosive device — albeit, strangely, without any wires, detonation-like device or any other suspicious component. An Assistant U.S. Attorney said that further prosecution would not be “in the interest of justice” — apparently a nice way of saying they put these people through hell based on false charges. And no, no compensation will be offered. The AP has the story:
All charges have been dropped against three African refugees who were accused of putting a fake bomb through security at Phoenix’s airport in a possible “dry run” for a terror attack.
U.S. District Judge Neil Wake dropped the charges against Luwiza Daman, Asa Shani and Shullu Gorado on March 13 at the request of a federal prosecutor who cited new information in the case, according to court documents obtained Thursday.
“Based on the new information, further prosecution is not in the interest of justice,” wrote Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Koehler in his motion to dismiss the charges…
…Daman’s attorney, Philip Seplow, told the AP that he thinks the government simply realized the refugees were not guilty and the whole thing was a big misunderstanding, partially because of a significant language barrier.
Daman, Shani and Gorado are from war-torn Eritrea on the Red Sea in the Horn of Africa and spent years in refugee camps before getting asylum in the U.S. Gorado speaks some English, while Daman and Shani speak only their native language, a dialect known as Kunama.
“I had a pretty sympathetic and for most part factually innocent client,” Seplow said…
…Daman, Shani and Gorado had been charged with a felony count of causing what appeared to be an explosive device to go through a security checkpoint at Phoenix’s Sky Harbor International Airport on Aug. 5.
Authorities had said that Daman had a suspicious item in her bag as she went through airport security intending to board a plane to Des Moines, Iowa. They said Shani had taped the items together and gave the package to Gorado, who gave it to Daman to take on the flight.
The package turned out to be a container of a paste-like food similar to tahini, with a cell phone taped to it. But authorities say it looked just like an improvised explosive device when it went through an X-ray machine, and pointed out that cell phones can be used to trigger bombs… Read more here
Posted in Des Moines, Eritrean, Phoenix, security/terrorism | Tagged: airport security, berbere, cell phone, Eritrean, Phoenix, refugees, resettlement, U.S. District Court | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on November 6, 2011
As secondary migrant refugees continue arriving in Waterloo – in search of jobs or to join their families – the federal refugee agencies remain incognito. In this vacuum the county public health agency has become the default lead agency involved with case coordinating all aspects of issues that refugees face. Hundreds of refugees need green cards – to apply for permanent residency status after 1 year in the US – an issue the health agency has no experience with. Other refugees have fallen victim to assaults and robberies with the lack of guidance and orientation to the community and culture. An article in the Waterloo/Cedar Falls Courier has more:
…The number of Burmese here has grown as members of the Burmese community refer friends and family, said Kaitlin Emrich, disease surveillance program manager. Before, the majority were recruited by Tyson Fresh Meats. The plant employs about 300 Burmese, including an interpreter to transport and interpret at appointments.
Now, some are seeking jobs elsewhere, while others are stay-at-home mothers, or have health problems and come to stay with family.
“They’re kind of coming in under the radar,” said Bruce Meisinger, director of public health for the county. “Before we were aware there were X number coming on a certain date.”
According to Emrich, Tyson continues to hire Burmese refugees, and the population is expected to continue growing quickly until winter. Several large families — with eight to 10 members each — will reportedly arrive soon, while many continue to wait for family to join them from Burma or other states.
“We are anticipating the first multigenerational family to arrive by the end of (October),” Emrich said…
…”Basically, we are still the lead agency involved with case coordinating all aspects of the issues the community is confronted with in terms of the Burmese resettling here,” Meisinger said. “There is no indication that the numbers are going to slow down in the foreseeable future.”
Emrich said close to two full-time-equivalent employees are now devoted to Burmese issues. The department is looking for a partner to handle non-health-related issues, and she has been in communication with a Des Moines agency about establishing a resettlement agency to serve the Cedar Valley.
She previously sought assistance from Catholic Charities, which declined because staffers have full loads and doesn’t have the means to hire additional workers.
“They’re used to working about 32 cases a year,” Emrich said. “We’re seeing about 32 cases every two or three weeks.”
Tyson has worked with the U.S. State Department to bring refugees to Waterloo from refugee camps in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Texas. Their resettlement here is considered secondary migration. Financial help is attached to primary refugees, Emrich said...
…According to Emrich, the Burmese live in rental housing with one primary landlord “who understands their unique needs as newcomers to our country.” However, some have fallen victim to assaults and robberies, especially in neighborhoods with high crime rates, she said… Read more here
Posted in Burma/Myanmar, Catholic Charities Diocese of Des Moines, community/cultural orientation, dangerous neighborhoods, economic self-sufficiency, immigration services, meatpacking industry, safety, secondary migration, refugee, Waterloo | Tagged: Burmese, catholic charities, Office of Refugee Resettlement, ORR, refugees, resettlement, secondary migration, State Department, Tyson Fresh Meats, Waterloo | 1 Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on June 11, 2011
Iowa has become a secondary migration site for about 1000 refugees from Burma, according to John Wilken, who heads the Iowa Bureau of Refugee Services, in a quote to the WCF Courier in Waterloo, Iowa. Secondary migrants are arriving largely in Waterloo, Columbus Junction and Storm Lake, and some may also be coming to Marshalltown and Perry. For the most part they are migrating to Iowa for meatpacking jobs.
…Since the 1990s, thousands of ethnic minorities and political dissidents have fled Myanmar, as Burma is called by its ruling military government.
[There are] about 150 Burmese refugees employed at the Waterloo Tyson plant. The first 40 Burmese employees arrived from…Rockford, Ill., in May last year. Tyson officials said another 100 likely will be hired by the end of the year.
“We knew the refugees were there and needed jobs, and we had these jobs to fill,” said Teri Wray, community liaison for the Tyson’s Waterloo plant.
The plant had added jobs faster than the local pool of applicants was providing candidates, said Worth Sparkman, public relations manager of Tyson Foods.
“More than anything, it seemed to be a good fit,” Sparkman said.
Tyson has worked with the U.S. State Department to bring refugees to Waterloo from…Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Texas. Their resettlement here is called secondary migration.
“Based on the anecdotal information I’ve heard, I’d say there are 1,000 secondary migrants” from Burma in Iowa, said John Wilken, who heads the Iowa Bureau of Refugee Services. Along with Waterloo, secondary migrants are arriving largely in Columbus Junction and Storm Lake. He said some may also be coming to Marshalltown and Perry. Generally, they are being drawn to Iowa by jobs at meat packing plants.
Burmese refugees have been directly resettled into the Des Moines metro area since 2007, with 128 refugees arriving the first year.
“In that year, there were a total of 435 refugees that were settled into Iowa,” Wilken said.
“They were the largest single group coming into Iowa.”
Since then, “they have been the largest planned resettlement coming into Iowa.” A total of 825 Burmese refugees have been resettled in the state, although some have since moved. The numbers are down recently because in January 2010, Lutheran Services of Iowa stopped resettling refugees, Wilken said.
In the Des Moines area, Catholic Charities plans to resettle 120 Burmese per year, with a focus on relatives of those already here. The U.S. Committee on Immigrants and Refugees is targeting 350 Burmese resettlements in the Des Moines area next year. The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Dubuque’s Cedar Rapids office plans to resettle a small number of Burmese next year.
Wilken’s agency resettled refugees until a year ago, but the State Department determined the bureau did not meet the criteria of a national office, so it had to stop. The bureau now focuses on job placement for the refugees, mostly in the Des Moines area.
“Right now, there’s no agency that has stated they’re going to open up a resettlement office in Waterloo,” Wilken noted.
Since there is no resettlement agency in Waterloo, many of the Burmese Tyson workers here are still waiting for green cards and for their families to join them… Read more here
Now I know that new Americans desperately need jobs, but I still councel them to stay away from meatpacking due to the deplorable safety record in the industry. There is chronic underreporting of injuries, according to an article in The Nation. An article in Mother Jones also reported that Bureau of Labor Statistics show that meatpacking is the nation’s most dangerous occupation.
Posted in Burma/Myanmar, Catholic Charities Diocese of Des Moines, Columbus Junction, Des Moines USCRI (field office), employment abuses, health, Iowa, meatpacking industry, secondary migration, refugee, Storm Lake, USCRI, Waterloo | Tagged: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Burma, Burma/Myanmar, Columbus Junction, Des Moines, human rights, Iowa Bureau of Refugee Services, John Wilken, meat packing, meatpacking, Myanmar, refugee, refugee resettlement, refugee resettlement agencies, refugee resettlement program, resettlement, Secondary migrantion, secondary migrants, State Department, Storm Lake, Tyson, U.S. Committee on Immigrants and Refugees, USCRI, Waterloo | 2 Comments »
Posted by Christopher Coen on March 18, 2011
A Zimbabwean refugee woman’s children are the first refugees to be resettled by the new USCRI field office in Des Moines, IA, according to an article in the Des Moines Register. The office will start with resettling 100 refugees this year.
…NEW OFFICE OPENS: Also this year, a national refugee resettlement organization, the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, opened a field office in Des Moines. Rumbi Chinhamhora’s children are two of the first refugees the office has resettled. The group expects to resettle no more than 100 refugees by the end of fiscal year 2011, but next year projects 350… Read more here
The State Department’s [Refugee] Office of Admissions should never have allowed the USCRI to fill the vacuum in Iowa left when the Iowa Bureau of Refugee Services and Lutheran Services in Iowa shuttered their refugee resettlement programs last year. The USCRI has a deplorable track record in the care of their refugee clients.
We’ll have to closely monitor this new office to see if it brings USCRI’s typical care of refugees to Iowa.
Posted in Des Moines, Des Moines USCRI (field office), Iowa, neglect, Office of Admissions, State Department, USCRI, Zimbabwean | Tagged: Des Moines, human rights, Iowa Bureau of Refugee Services, Lutheran Services in Iowa, Office of Admissions, refugee resettlement, refugee resettlement agencies, refugee resettlement program, refugees, resettlement, State Department, U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, USCRI | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on December 2, 2010
The U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI), formerly known as IRSA, or Immigration and Refugee Services of America, has announced plans to open a resettlement office in Des Moines later this month. The two agencies that were bringing the bulk of international refugees to Iowa, Iowa Bureau of Refugee Services (part of the state government) and the nonprofit Lutheran Services in Iowa, closed this year. Radio Iowa has more details.
A Virginia-based non-profit group plans to start resettling refugees in Iowa next year….Earlier this year, three agencies that sponsored refugees either suspended operations or cut back. Now, the State Department has authorized a new organization to fill the gap with a Des Moines office.
Peter Limon is with the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants. “Our whole purpose is to give refugees as good a start as we can, get them resettled, get them acclimated, get them culturalized and then get them work,” Limon says. “If we find out that an Iowa city turns out to be a great place, we could open another office there and then we’d have two offices in Iowa.”…
…The first arrivals are expected in Iowa around February. With more than 30 offices around the country, Limon says the agency will open its Des Moines office later this month…
…Limon says they plan to start with resettling about 100 refugees a year and increase the arrivals to nearly 400 a year. Read more here
Firstly, note that Peter Limon shares a sir name with his organization’s director, Lavinia Limon. Are they relatives? Is this a family operation (a.k.a. nepotism)? Why on earth does the State Department allow its contractors to run themselves like family operations? The last time I saw that in action was at the Tampa office of World Relief. The agency lost its contract to resettle refugees in 2006 after the State Department found some serious irregularities. A husband and wife ran an absolutely horrendous and unethical operation there. Word was that the husband hired his wife to work there even though she appeared to have a bipolar disorder (maybe she couldn’t get a job anywhere else). So the refugees were subjected to emotional outbursts that no other clients anywhere would tolerate. They did not feel comfortable complaining to the director about his wife.
Secondly, why is the State Department letting the USCRI open an office in Iowa? I think I would rate the USCRI as the single worst VOLAG in the nation. Over the past several years I have noted serious problems, deficiencies, and irregularities (and that’s being nice) at so many USCRI affiliates that I have lost count. Off the top of my head I’m remembering cases in Akron, Boston, Bowling Green, Chicago, Connecticut, Erie, Houston, Kansas City, New Hampshire, and Raleigh, and those are just the USCRI affiliates that got caught. You can well guess that’s the least of it since the State Department has a “partner” philosophy when it comes to their relationship with their contractors. Problems are swept under the rug whenever possible and withheld from public purview.
Posted in Des Moines, Des Moines USCRI (field office), Iowa, USCRI | Tagged: Des Moines, Iowa, Iowa Bureau of Refugee Services, lavinia limon, Lutheran Services in Iowa, Peter Limon, refugee resettlement, refugee resettlement agencies, refugee resettlement program, State Department, U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, USCRI | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on June 22, 2010
An Iowa federal judge has announced a prison sentence of 27 years on financial fraud charges for Sholom Rubashkin, the 51-year-old Orthodox Jew and former manager of a kosher meatpacking plant, Agriprocessors, where ICE agents arrested hundreds of illegal immigrant workers in a 2008 raid that brought national scrutiny.
Rubashkin was earlier found guilty of 86 counts of financial fraud. Check out previous coverage here and here. (Ten other members of Agriprocessors management or office staff were also convicted on federal charges in the wake of the immigration raid. Two others, Hosam Amara and Zeev Levi, are believed to have fled the country to avoid prosecution and are considered fugitives.)
The judge noted that Mr. Rubashkin had misled the bank repeatedly about the finances of Agriprocessors, moving cash secretly in a shell game among different accounts, including some supposedly set aside for religious purposes, and ordered employees to create fake invoices. The sneaky actions caused a loss to the bank of $26 million, the judge said. The judge also ordered Mr. Rubashkin to pay almost $27 million in restitution to the financial institutions and businesses he defrauded.
On June 8 Mr. Rubashkin was acquitted of charges that he allowed minors to work at his plant. Mr. Rubashkin’s lawyers denied the charges, saying that his firing of minors was proof that he didn’t want to employ kids. They said minors who did work for the company only did so by tricking the company with false identification documents. As well, the minors who testified acknowledged that they had used false documents and lied about their ages to get a job.
But beef production manager Brent Beebe told the court that Mr. Rubashkin gave him $4,500 to buy false documents for the workers, and required the employees to pay the back these “loans”. Yet, according to jury foreman and Waterloo City Council member Quentin Hart, there never was any “clear line of communication” between Sholom about him knowing that the 26 were underage (What does that mean? No proof in writing?)
The almost impossible task before prosecutors in the child labor laws violations case was to prove that Mr. Rubashkin “willfully” violated child labor laws. Of coarse common sense would tell anyone that a CEO and co-vice president of a plant would know what was going on for months and years at his facility, but prosecutors had to produce specific proof of his culpability, a threshold they were unfortunately not able to reach.
In the meantime, legislators unanimously voted to add more teeth to Iowa’s child labor statutes, and now the standard is negligence. Employers will now be responsibile for making a common-sense degree of inquiry into the age of their employees. All of that, however, is too late to help Mr. Rubashkin’s and his fellow miscreant’s Mexican and Guatemalan teenage victims.
It should also be noted that millions of dollars were raised and spent to defend Sholom Rubashkin. There was even a gold drive for Rubashkin, calling people to donate their gold for his defense fund. In the meantime the hundreds of exploited immigrant workers were left on their own to cover their legal fees.
The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), supposedly a group whose mission is to defend immigrants, instead threw their concern behind Rubashkin while saying almost nothing about the dozens of teenage immigrants who reported extreme abuse at Rubashkin’s Agriprocessors slaughterhouse — having to work 80-90 hour weeks, working with dangerous substances such as dry ice and chemicals, having to use dangerous power-driven saws and scissors, being struck by managers, and sexually assaulted.
In HIAS’ President and CEO Gideon Aronoff’s May 22, 2008 essay, ‘Postville a clarion call’, he wrote, “we cannot ignore that American workers are unwilling to meet businesses’ labor needs at prevailing wages.” Prevailing wages? Wages effected by an influx of millions of undocumented workers willing to work for just a few dollars? This case brought to light that, in fact, many of the immigrant workers were earning below minimum wage at Agriprocessors. Who is Mr. Aronoff defending?
HIAS, in protecting their own — demanding that Rubashkin be treated “fairly” — while saying almost nothing about the abuses inflicted on the underage immigrants I think has lost all credibility as an agency that the U.S. public can feel comfortable entrusting vulnerable refugees to.
Posted in abuse, Guatemalan, HIAS, Iowa, Jewish, meatpacking industry | Tagged: Agriprocessors, bank, charges, child abuse, child labor, court, fraud, Guatemalan, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Sociey, HIAS, IA, Iowa, judge, meatpacking, Mexican, Orthodox Jew, Postville, religion, religious, Sholom Rubashkin, slaughterhouse, underage workers | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on May 17, 2010
A Globe-Gazette editorial attempts to link the recent shut down of two refugee resettlement agencies with the deplorable case of immigrant child abuse at the now defunct Agriprocessors slaughterhouse (here).
Child after immigrant child took the witness stand in Waterloo last week to describe abusive working conditions at the former Agriprocessors Inc. plant in Postville.
.
Fourteen- and 15-year-olds testified about back-breaking, low-paying work for Sholom Rubashkin, the former Agriprocessors CEO charged with 83 misdemeanor state child labor law violations. He already has been convicted of massive financial fraud.
He has yet to be tried for immigration law violations federal authorities filed after the biggest immigration raid in Iowa history May 12, 2008. Federal agents removed 390 undocumented workers from the plant, shutting it down…
This is the context for the regrettable closing of Iowa’s Bureau of Refugee Services, the state’s No. 1 manager of legal immigration. Since 1975, this bureau brought 28,000 legal immigrants to Iowa and supported another 10,000 who moved to the state after legally entering the country.
…The U.S. State Department ended its $134,000 annual appropriation for the state office and is choosing to support only national, non-profit resettlement programs.
Also, the state’s No. 2 agency for refugee resettlement is shutting down. Lutheran Social Services of Iowa is ending its resettlement partnership with Catholic Charities that welcomed 483 refugees last year.
That leaves only Catholic Charities, which generously decided Wednesday to continue this ministry alone.
Of course, the national refugee resettlement volag Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), far from condemning the abuses of young immigrants at Agriprocessors, has gone out of its way to call for “fairness” (here) in the sentencing of the diabolical former owner of Agriprocessors, Sholom Rubashkin, whose second trial, this time on child labor violation, was delayed after he was apparently bitten by someone in jail (here).
In the meantime the Globe-Gazette editorial attempts to sell us on the concept that meatpacking plants in Iowa would not be able to run were it not for immigrant labor.
…[the immigration raid on Agriprocessors proved] once again that Iowa’s agriculture economy cannot function without immigrant labor.The work force at every meatpacking plant in the state affirms it. So do the past three Iowa governors, who agree legal immigration is essential for the state’s economic growth, not simply “important” or “a key factor.” While in office, Govs. Terry Branstad, Tom Vilsack and Chet Culver all said Iowa simply cannot grow without legal immigration.
…If history is an indicator, thousands of illegal immigrants will continue to be drawn into the traps set by those like Rubashkin, who federal and state authorities say built a business around exploited illegal immigrants.
Refugee resettlement is an honorable part of Iowa government and faith mission history. It also is a vital part of the state’s economic development.
Isn’t that dangerous when state elites decide that refugee resettlement is not a matter of human rights, rather, is an opportunity to exploit labor for the “economic development” of the state? Are these the same people who look the other way when refugee resettlement agencies, landlords, and employers neglect and abuse refugees?
I guess the editorial board also never considered that the ruthless consolidation in the meatpacking business, and the resulting plunge in wages paid, not to mention the speeding up of the slaughtering process and resultant extreme abuse of livestock, was never a real necessity but was the result of our government’s decision to let private industry do whatever it wanted to do (witness how that same philosophy and process has worked in our financial industry, oil industry, etc.).
By the way, we also just came across photographs of housing conditions for immigrants of the former Agriprocessors (here). As you can see conditions somewhat approximate some of the horrendous and deplorable housing that refugee resettlement agencies have placed refugees in around the country.
Pictures of Agriprocessors’ “campus-style” housing are posted immediately below. Each worker paid $100 per week for a mattress on the floor. Some of these homes had 10 to 12 workers sleeping in them. Many were unfurnished:
This last picture is a mattress and box spring (no bed frame) in a laundry closet. The open pipe on the right is a dryer vent. On the left are the hookups for the washer and dryer.
Workers complained of being assigned a mattress on the floor of moldy basements and of having 3 and sometimes 4 workers per room, 10 to 12 per house.
Each worker paid $100 per week, usually deducted from their paychecks.
Posted in HIAS, housing, substandard, ICE, Iowa, Jewish, Lutheran Services in Iowa, meatpacking industry, State Department | Tagged: Agriprocessors, Bureau of Refugee Services, catholic charities, child labor law, Des Moines, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, HIAS, IA, immigrants, immigration raid, Iowa, Lutheran Social Services of Iowa, meatpacking, Postville, refugee, refugees, resettlement, Sholom Rubashkin, State Department | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on May 13, 2010
Catholic Charities Diocese of Des Moines has decided to continue resettling refugees in Iowa (here and here). This decision comes on the heels of Lutheran Services in Iowa deciding to stop refugee resettlement and the State Department pulling funding from the Iowa Bureau of Refugee Services (an Iowa state agency that was long given an acceptation to the requirement that refugee agencies be non-profits and add private funding to resettlement efforts).
According to the Des Moines Register:
Catholic Charities decided Wednesday it will push on alone in resettling refugees, extending Iowa’s history as a sanctuary for refugees from war-torn, poverty-stricken nations.
The group’s decision comes months after the only other organizations that had been resettling refugees in Iowa – Lutheran Services in Iowa and the Iowa Bureau of Refugee Services – pulled out of resettlement. That put Iowa’s future as a refugee haven in limbo.
Catholic Charities will resettle between 100 and 130 people annually.
That’s far fewer than the more than 900 refugees resettled in Iowa during the last fiscal year, when Catholic Charities and Lutheran Services jointly resettled refugees through Refugee Cooperative Services.
Lutheran Services said it could not afford to continue its program.
Catholic Charities said that it is facing a “financial burden” due to refugees not being able to find jobs in the current economy, and the group having to pay their rent for a longer time. This, even though the State Department doubled per capita (per refugee) funding as of January 1, 2010. (The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services via their Office of Refugee Resettlement also provides refugees with up to 8 months of cash assistance to help pay rent, as well as a large array of other refugee funding).
If Catholic Charities had stopped resettlement – and that was a possibility, given the financial burden – it would have ended a prolific era of refugee resettlement in Iowa. Thirty thousand refugees have made Iowa home since 1975
….Refugee resettlement makes up about 17 percent of the work of Des Moines’ Catholic Charities, or $450,000 of a $2.7 million budget.
The refugee expenses include administrative costs as well as direct assistance such as help paying rent. Catholic Charities will hire three employees for refugee resettlement, which entails assisting refugees with housing, transportation, learning American culture and finding jobs.
Catholic Charities will focus on receiving refugees with Iowa ties instead of so-called “free cases” – refugees with no familial ties in the United States.
“We’re taking a risk, but we’ve been really careful to set this up so it will be successful,” said Nancy Galeazzi, executive director of Catholic Charities. “We have had to be smart about what we can handle. But it’s the right thing to do.”
The organization will benefit from a decision this year by the Department of State to increase the money it directs to resettling agencies. Instead of getting $900 per refugee, resettling agencies now get $1,800.
One continuing concern is refugees’ difficulty in finding jobs in the sour economy. In that case, Catholic Charities continues to pay their rent. But that’s built into the plan, Galeazzi said.
Sol Varisco-Santini, who heads refugee resettlement for Catholic Charities, recently sat in on the weekly resettlement meeting in Washington, D.C., and watched agencies who resettle refugees in the United States allocate the week’s 2,100 arrivals. She wanted Iowa to still be part of that equation. To do that, Catholic Charities decided to focus on fewer refugees.
“One hundred thirty is much more manageable for Iowa than 900,” Varisco-Santini said. “Even though the percentage of people we’re helping is very small, we think it is worth it.”
The meeting she sat in on is the weekly meeting at the Refugee Processing Center (RPC) in Arlington, Virginia. The RPC is a State Department agency at which the private refugee resettlement agencies are allowed to decide where incoming refugees are placed in the U.S. and who will take which refugee “free cases” (refugees with no family or sponsors in the U.S.). Resettlement agencies often fail to mention this process via the RPC, and instead tell refugees, community members and the media that they have no control over how many or which refugees they resettle locally.
The article also refers to the chance that refugees will continue to arrive in Iowa via “secondary migration” (after first being resettled to other states, and then migrating on their own to Iowa).
John Wilken, director of the Iowa Bureau of Refugee Services, applauded Catholic Charities’ decision to continue resettling refugees. But he predicted a rise in secondary migration – refugees who resettle outside Iowa, then move here to be close to family. Wilken estimates some 1,000 additional refugees came to Iowa through secondary migration in 2009.
“When you take a state with a long history of resettlement and reduce its capacity by 80 percent, what do you do with all the cases who wanted to come here but can’t?” Wilken said. “The fact our numbers are down here does not stop the individuals being processed from getting resettled. They’ll just be assigned somewhere else.”
Posted in Catholic Charities, Catholic Charities Diocese of Des Moines, faith-based, funding, Iowa, LIRS, Lutheran Services in Iowa, RPC (Refugee Processing Center), State Department, Sudanese, USCCB, Vietnamese | Tagged: $1800, 8 months, Bureau of Refugee Services, cash assistance, catholic charities, Des Moines, Diocese of Des Moines, free case, Health and Human Services, IA, Iowa, Office of Refugee Resettlement, ORR, per capita, refugee, Refugee Processing Center, refugees, resettlement, RPC (Refugee Processing Center), State Department | 5 Comments »
Posted by Christopher Coen on April 20, 2010
In regard to the Postville, Iowa Agriprocessors scandal, involving a series of the most egregious violations of child labor laws, abuse of underage immigrants, and repeated accusations of brutalization of cattle, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) President and CEO Gideon Aronoff’s new focus on the case is that the former CEO of Agriprocessors, Sholom Rubashkin, be treated fairly (here). Never mind about the crimes. Said Mr. Aronoff:
“It is crucially important that the trial be conducted fairly, not benefiting him or treating him worse because of his Jewish faith. The same goes for the kosher meat industry.”
Gideon Aronoff
Rubashkin faces a possible life sentence on April 28 following his conviction last November on 86 counts of money laundering and mail, wire and bank fraud charges. Rubashkin, a Lubavitch Hasidic Jew, and several former Agriprocessors managers still face state charges involving 9,311 counts (yes, you read that right) of violating Iowa’s child labor laws.
Sholom Rubashkin
Aronoff’s previous focus was that any unfairness in this case came, not frfom the horrendous crimes on teenage workers, but from the government ICE raid on this despicable slaughterhouse business. Mr. Aronoff said the raid was unfair to the company, the workers, and the local community, and that Jews remembered similar raids on their community in WW2-era Europe. Again, never mind that the raid uncovered the extent of the crimes, and ended them.
Mr. Aronoff also tried to claim that companies have to hire immigrants because immigrants are the only ones who will accept low wages here (Agriprocessors’ starting wage was $6.15 for 12-16 hour shifts six days a week!).
We cannot condone the hiring of undocumented workers. But at the same time, we cannot ignore that American workers are unwilling to meet businesses’ labor needs at prevailing wages and there is no legal avenue for businesses to petition for the unskilled migrant workers they so desperately need.
Oh really? Is that the problem? Or is paying workers next-to-nothing associated with abusive and oppressive conditions?
Rarely during this scandal, and then only as a side-note, has Mr. Aronoff mentioned the real issues in Postville — the nightmarish working conditions for teenage immigrants and the extreme exploitation and inhumane (therefore nonkosher) slaughter of animals (confirmed in videotapes by undercover Orthodox Jewish members of PETA). These issues apparently are of little interest to the HIAS. Bear in mind that refugees all over the country are toiling away in meat-packing plants under similar or related conditions.
The May 2008 ICE raid found 57 under-age workers at Agriprocessors, some as young as 13. Investigators found multiple child labor law violations for each under-age worker at the plant, including employing minors in prohibited occupations, exposing them to hazardous chemicals, and making them work with prohibited tools like knives and saws to cut meat and poultry with little or no safety training. The young immigrants told investigators that they worked shifts of 12-17 hours, sometimes six nights a week (here and here).
One, a Guatemalan named Elmer L. who said he was 16 when he started working on the plant’s killing floors, said he worked 17-hour shifts, six days a week. In an affidavit, he said he was constantly tired and did not have time to do anything but work and sleep. “I was very sad,” he said, “and I felt like I was a slave.”
The immigrant saw “a rabbi who was calling employees derogatory names and throwing meat at employees.” …In another episode, the informant said a floor supervisor had blindfolded an immigrant with duct tape. “The floor supervisor then took one of the meat hooks and hit the Guatemalan with it,”
Elmer L. said he had told floor supervisors that he was under 18.
…“They asked me how old I was,” Elmer L. said. “They could see that sometimes I could not keep up with the work.” …Elmer L. said that he …was paid $7.25 an hour. He said he was not paid overtime consistently. “My work was very hard, because they didn’t give me my breaks, and I wasn’t getting very much sleep,” he said. “They told us they were going to call immigration if we complained.”
Elmer L. said that he was clearing cow innards from the slaughter floor last Aug. 26 when a supervisor he described as a rabbi began yelling at him, then kicked him from behind. The blow caused a freshly-sharpened knife to fly up and cut his elbow.
He was sent to a hospital where doctors closed the laceration with eight stitches. But he said that when he returned, his elbow still stinging, to ask for some time off, his supervisor ordered him back to work.
The next day, as he was lifting a cow’s tongue, the stitches ruptured, Elmer L. said, and the wound bled again. He said he was given a bandage at the plant and sent back to work. The incident is confirmed in a worker’s injury report filed on Aug. 31, 2007, by Agriprocessors with the Iowa labor department.
The company also distributed fake green cards to workers. Their PR hacks impersonated a leading critic, Rabbi Morris Allen, on a blog. A son-in-law verbally threatened members of a socially conscious Ultra-Orthodox group during a meeting about conditions at the slaughterhouse, and another son-in-law entered into a plea bargain in a case in which he reportedly embezzled funds from an Orthodox Jewish Girl’s Day School (here).
Aside from HIAS’ obvious ethical blindness of the most important issues brought to light by this case of mass abuse of underage immigrants is the current outrageous focus of many in the fervently religious Jewish community (ultra-orthodox) on what type of prison accommodations Sholom Rubashkin, the former CEO of Agriprocessors, will get (here), while ignoring the crimes that brought about the possible long prison sentence.
Now that the 51-year-old father of 10 faces a possible life sentence…such a harsh penalty would make Rubashkin ineligible for a correctional facility that can accommodate Hasidic Jews.
Out of about 250,000 federal inmates….only a few dozen are ultra-Orthodox adherents,…Most go …where the facilities can handle their special diets, group prayers and other religious needs. Those facilities, however, do not accept prisoners with long sentences.
….Federal prisons tend to be more accommodating of religiously observant inmates than state and county facilities, and should be able to at least provide kosher food and allow him to maintain his traditional appearance, he said.
This case shows the ethical myopia that results when people focus on their own pet immigration and refugee issues while ignoring the most basic mistreatment of those people by others in their own organization, group or extended communities.
Corruption and ethical abuses close to home are often the hardest type to face.
Posted in government, Guatemalan, HIAS, ICE, Iowa, Jewish, meatpacking industry, religion | Tagged: Agriprocessors, child labor, fervently religious, Gideon Aronoff, Guatemalan, Hasidic, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, HIAS, hispanic, IA, ICE, immigrants, immigration, Iowa, Jewish, jews, koshur, latino, Lubavitch, meat industry, meatpacking, migrant, migrants, Orthodox, PETA, Postville, prison, rabbi, refugee, refugees, resettlement, Sholom Rubashkin, slaughterhouse, Ultra-Orthodox, undocumented workers, violations, volag | 1 Comment »
Christopher Coen
Melissa Sogard
nancylee1
