Hurricane Dolly, earlier this year, raised fears of just how far the Department of Homeland Security would go in terms of it’s mistreatment of immigrants.

Hurricane Gustav is raising those same fears as it heads into the Gulf Region and a mandatory evacuation order is in place.

According to the New Orleans Worker Center for Racial Justice:

We have won an important assurance from DHS. Immigrants evacuating the path of Gustav will not be targeted by immigration checkpoints.

It’s the first real assurance of safety that Gulf Coast workers and their families have received since Katrina. But now we all have the job of holding DHS accountable. We also need to fight for clear promises that immigration agents will not enter shelters or come anywhere near them. Most immigrant workers have evacuated nearby and want to return. They must feel secure that on their way back to New Orleans and other cities they will have the same promise of safety.

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AUGUST 31, 2008
***For Immediate Release***

New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice
Contact Saket Soni at 504-881-6610 or 773-550-9339

IMMIGRANT WORKERS GAIN KEY ASSURANCE FROM HOMELAND SECURITY; NO CHECKPOINTS ALONG EVACUATION ROUTES FROM GUSTAV

Immigrant workers demanding a safe evacuation from the path of Hurricane Gustav received key assurances from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that no immigration enforcement actions or checkpoints would occur in the evacuation process or along evacuation routes. The New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice gained the assurances for safe passage of immigrant workers just as mandatory evacuations began across the Gulf Coast. The exact agreement is attached.

As Gustav approached, immigrant workers and their families feared evacuation due to anticipation over Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Border Patrol checkpoints. Of the over 200 surveys of day laborers which the Workers’ Center conducted as Hurricane Gustav approached, the fear of detention and deportation by DHS was identified as the single greatest obstacle to accessing humanitarian relief. “We want to take our families to safety. We should not have to face deportation as we escape from the storm” said Dennis Soriano, an organizer with the Congress of Day Laborers.

Hundreds of thousands of immigrant workers arrived in the Gulf Coast in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to assist in the reconstruction of New Orleans and other cities. However, even as they were contributing to the rebuilding efforts, they faced extraordinary abuse, including high levels of wage theft, police brutality and massive immigration raids.

“This agreement would be the first clear assurance of safety from the federal government to immigrant workers who came to the Gulf Coast in the aftermath of Katrina” said Saket Soni, Director of the Workers’ Center. “It’s a small victory on the path to a humane and just relief effort.”

Despite these assurances, immigrant workers and their advocates expressed concern about the treatment immigrants would receive in the relief effort. “Once we have evacuated safely, will DHS come to the shelters?” asked Soriano; “When we are returning home to rebuild the city, will we face DHS checkpoints on our way back?”

returning home to rebuild the city, will we face DHS checkpoints on our way back?”
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OFFICE FOR CIVIL RIGHTS AND CIVIL LIBERTIES

Gustav

· All residents of the Gulf Coast region need to evacuate.

· There are no immigration enforcement operations, and there are no immigration enforcement checkpoints associated with the evacuations.

· The Department of Homeland Security’s top priorities in any emergency are life-saving and life-sustaining activities, preventing the loss of property to the extent possible, and assisting with a speedy recovery of the affected region.

Are we trusting Homeland Security to keep it’s promises? This is the same Homeland Security that allowed NOLA to drown and that on the first day of the Democratic Convention conducted a large raid in Mississippi ?