Luis Alfredo Galindo, a music professor and mariachi from Bogota, Colombia, began looking for ways to immigrate legally to the U.S. in 2019 and find a safe place for his wife and two kids away from the violence of his home country. 

He talked to attorneys and scoured the internet, but he couldn’t find any viable options. He’d almost given up when one of his bandmates told him about a recruiter specializing in employment-based visas for unskilled shortage workers, also known as EB3 other visas.

Badger Bus Lines Inc., of Madison, Wisconsin, was looking to sponsor foreign workers and the recruiter linked the company with Galindo. It cost more than $22,000 and took more than two years for Galindo and his family to go through the process.

“It was not easy but I’m glad we waited,” said Galindo, 51. “It was practically the same money as coming here illegally, but you arrive with all the legal documents to start a life the right way in this country.”

U.S. companies sponsored a record number of unskilled foreign workers like Galindo this past year, but experts and industry leaders say outdated caps, high costs and long wait times push most migrants looking to fill underpaid, physically demanding jobs to immigrate to the U.S. illegally. Despite the increase, many companies in desperate need of workers are still hesitant or unable to participate in these types of visa programs. 

Brian Turmail, spokesman for the Associated General Contractors of America, says visa applications for construction workers are often denied even after companies show the Department of Labor that they advertised a position in a local newspaper for at least 90 days without success.

“We are not allowing enough people to enter the country legally to fill these jobs,” Turmail said.  “So what happens, we get a lot of workers who are undocumented.”

And this puts undocumented workers in an easier position to be exploited and creates an unfair competitive situation that hurts companies with a legal workforce, he said.

The employment-based visa program — created by Congress under the Immigration Act of 1990 — has three main categories, each with a 40,000-worker yearly limit.

The first two are for people with extraordinary qualifications or skills, generally workers with advanced degrees such as software engineers, physicians and veterinarians. The third category is for people in high-demand occupations with at least a bachelor’s degree such as teachers. The U.S. grants about 10,000 “EB3 other” visas that don’t have an educational requirement.

There were nearly 8,900 EB3 other visas issued in fiscal year 2022. That’s more than double the number issued the previous year and more than any prior year since at least 2016, U.S. State Department data show. The agency attributed some of the increase in EB3 and all other visas to pandemic-related office closures that delayed processing on applications put in before 2022, a spokesperson wrote in an email.

Department of Labor data show meatpackers, landscapers and housekeepers had the most unskilled permanent visas issued in 2022. These jobs have always been at the top of the foreign worker visa program. But some of the recent growth is also driven by nurses, home health aides and restaurant workers, occupations that were not as prominent in previous years.

William Kandel, an immigration policy analyst for the Congressional Research Service, a bipartisan public policy research institute that works for the U.S. Congress, said he attributes the increased demand for foreign workers to the pandemic. 

“COVID has had a big impact on the willingness of U.S. workers to accept lower-skilled, low-paid jobs,” Kandel said. “And with jobs already having long-standing labor shortages, like nursing and healthcare, it just worsened things.”

Kandel said the demand for EB3 visas surpassed the supply for nearly two decades. But the number of EB3 visas issued has not reached the 10,000 cap because there is an additional annual cap of 7% per country. 

In China, for example, foreign workers looking to fill unskilled entry-level jobs in the U.S. must wait more than 10 years to receive an EB3 visa. In comparison, the current wait time for a worker like Galindo, the mariachi from Colombia, is about two years.     

These limits have not changed since 1990, when Congress created employment-based visas, which increased legal limits on immigration and created a diversity lottery.

“What we're seeing are the strains of dealing with immigration limitations on an economy that has since doubled in size,” Kandel said. “When people can't use legal means, they use illegal means.” 

Manuel Lievano, co-founder of MCC USA, a foreign worker recruiting company based in Miami, Florida, said one of the biggest problems with finding foreign workers to fill low-paid, so-called unskilled entry-level jobs in the U.S. is that these jobs actually require a high level of skill and training.

An entry-level worker at a factory or in construction requires months of training before being productive, Lievano said. For many employers, this rules out temporary visas such as the H2A and H2B: By the time a sponsored worker gains the skills necessary to do the job, they have to return to their home country.  

The EB3 visa is one of the only choices for employers looking to fill these “unskilled” jobs that require lots of training with permanent workers, Lievano said. But the biggest problem is the cost. 

Foreign workers pay an average of $16,000 in attorney fees, paperwork, travel and consulting for one of these visas. American companies looking to hire meat packers, poultry and construction workers offer yearly salaries ranging from $20,000 to $30,000. 

“Financially, it’s not doable,” Lievano said. “Especially for the type of workers that are willing to take these types of jobs, who are usually poor, uneducated people.”

He said thousands of people from all over the world call his company every month looking to fill the jobs they advertise on their website, but the vast majority never follow through. Those who do are usually professionals who apply for these permanent visas just to obtain permanent residence but would rather work less physically demanding jobs that pay more.

Lievano recruited Galindo, the mariachi singer, in 2019. But he didn’t receive a EB3 visa until 2021, along with a Social Security number and a work permit. Today, Galindo is a school bus driver in Madison, Wisconsin, and is currently attending school to obtain a real estate license. His wife teaches at a local school district. Their son recently got his GED certificate.

Galindo had some English language skills and a college education before arriving in the U.S., but he said the process to obtain an EB3 visa was too cumbersome and costly.

“In the U.S., $20,000 is a lot of money, but in Latin America, this is someone’s life savings,” Galindo said. “Whether it’s legal or not, immigrants put everything on the line when they come to the U.S. It’s not an easy decision to leave it all behind and start again from nothing.”

The post How outdated visa policies drive illegal immigration appeared first on Center for Public Integrity.

Maryuri embarked on her three-month journey from Venezuela to the U.S. in July 2022, crossing nine borders on crutches with a broken foot.

She traveled with her son, now 9 years old. Their path included traversing the often deadly Darién Gap between Colombia and Panama. 

She fled an economic crisis that left her unable to afford basic necessities like food and antibiotics, under the shadow of the Venezuelan government’s human rights abuses. Public Integrity is not publishing Maryuri’s full name to protect the safety of her and her family. 

Soon after arriving in Texas in October, Maryuri and her son boarded a bus bound for D.C. where she hoped “to prosper, not just survive.” 

Instead, Maryuri said she has struggled to access quality food, stable and clean housing, work opportunities and affordable health care because of her migrant status.

Maryuri and her son are among at least 9,400 Latin American migrants who have been voluntarily bused to D.C. from Texas and Arizona in the past year. The approximately 12% who stay in the city face similar challenges as Maryuri, according to advocacy groups, which are pushing for more long-term solutions.

“We are being penalized for being poor and this goes against the definition of sanctuary that this city supposedly claims to be,” Maryuri told the D.C. Council on Feb. 23.

Temporary solutions, long-term needs

The Migrant Services and Supports Act passed late last year authorized D.C.’s mayor to establish programs for the arriving migrants, including the Office of Migrant Services. The new division supports bus reception, immediate care of new arrivals, temporary housing and, if desired, transportation to other destinations.

The city should “absolutely” have an office and accompanying legislation that provides services to migrants, said Eli Johnson, executive director of Congregation Action Network, which has been working with the migrants since the first buses arrived. However, the current system “is very focused on short-term emergency services and not long-term resettlement services,” Johnson said. 

The act bars those eligible for aid through the Office of Migrant Services from resources provided to unhoused people in the district under homeless services law. This includes long-term housing and childcare vouchers.

“There should be no immigration-based restrictions on any services in the city,” Johnson said. 

An emergency amendment to the migrant services law was enacted in late April to clarify who is eligible for aid, require written denials and set shelter safety standards. But these policies are set to expire later this summer. A proposed extension is awaiting congressional review.

“We are still evaluating what a permanent support system for migrants coming to D.C. should look like,” said Councilmember Robert White, who introduced the legislation. 

“Dirty and dangerous” housing

After arriving last fall, Maryuri and her son moved into one of the three shelters the city set up for migrants with children. These facilities reached capacity on April 26, with about 1,250 people across 370 families, according to city officials. 

The city is keeping the shelters closed despite having open rooms, said Madhvi Venkatraman, a core organizer with Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid Network, which was formed in response to the buses. MSMAN reported the facilities now house 359 families.

Venkatraman estimated that there are about 20 migrant families in Washington currently without housing. 

“There are definitely a bunch of families sleeping in cars or some that are out in the streets that we don’t know of because not everybody knows [about MSMAN],” she said.

Those who are staying in the family shelters have experienced “dirty and dangerous” conditions like bed bugs and mold, Maryuri said. 

The food is sometimes raw or rotten, she said. Maryuri and her son have experienced stomach aches, diarrhea and hair loss. 

“I live without appetite and without energy due to the malnutrition that we are experiencing in the [shelter] due to the poor quality of the food we receive,” Maryuri told the council in February.

But council members, including White, who visited the shelters in March saw a different picture. He said the rooms he was shown were clean and OMS staff “made it sound like they had responded to issues with food” and other necessities. 

“But the fact that what I saw on my visit contrasts so strongly with what I’ve heard directly from migrants and advocates makes me believe the emergency legislation is even more important to ensure our agencies are clear on the services and resources they are required to provide,” White said. 

Shelter residents told Johnson that the visiting council members were taken to a room that had been cleaned in anticipation of the visit. It was made to look “much better than what the migrants are actually living in,” Johnson said.

Migrants without families rely on short stays at homeless shelters and volunteers’ houses, Venkatraman said. For long-term options, advocacy groups try to find cheap apartments. Venkatraman said MSMAN sometimes pays the first month’s rent, furnishes apartments and even co-signs leases. But that’s not sustainable in a city with housing costs 50% higher than the national average. 

“We can’t put up people indefinitely in housing, we don’t have the resources,” Venkatraman said.

Employment barriers

Finding a job that will cover D.C.’s high cost of living has been a struggle for many migrants, Johnson said. Most lack the permits required to work in the U.S. 

Those who work without authorization are vulnerable to unhealthy conditions and wage theft, which MSMAN has seen “rampant amounts of,” Venkatraman said. 

While the district offers a limited purpose ID for residents who do not have a social security number, Venkatraman said many recent migrants do not have the required documentation. That means they can’t work, open bank accounts, sign leases, apply for health insurance or get married — which can be important for asylum applications. 

“It is truly an uphill battle,” Venkatraman said. 

“There’s upfront issues of conditions and the services [the district is] not providing, but the scarier, bigger issue is there’s no long-term plan for these folks,” she said.

No line item in the D.C. budget accounts for the Office of Migrant Services, Venkatraman said, so the services are being funded on contingency. This offers less transparency and is unreliable — shelters and services could abruptly end, Venkatraman said. The mayor’s proposed budget for the next fiscal year does not include funding for OMS.

In response to requests for comment, a spokesperson from the D.C. Department of Human Services said all statements regarding OMS are currently on hold.

Refugees’ “only option”

While buses continue to arrive in Washington, it is not the only city struggling to accommodate migrants. New York City Mayor Eric Adams recently implemented plans to transport willing migrants to locations outside of the city. On May 23, he announced a court filing seeking to suspend the long-standing “right to shelter” mandate that requires the city to provide temporary accommodations to anyone seeking it. Chicago officials have resorted to using police stations and community centers to temporarily house hundreds of people. 

Despite the recent expiration of Title 42 — a COVID-19 era policy that allowed the U.S. to expel asylum seekers without due process — many migrants will still not qualify for asylum in the U.S. because a new regulation requires anyone who passes through another country to seek refuge there first.

“It’s extra important that local jurisdictions provide services to people even if they’re not here with authorization,” Johnson said. “Because we’re turning away refugees en masse at the border, so this is people’s only option.”

The post As migrant busing continues, advocates push for long-term solutions appeared first on Center for Public Integrity.

Recent stories of migrant children working long hours and under dangerous conditions in the United States have shed light on how pervasive migrant child labor has become in this country. 

In December, Reuters published the third part of a year-long investigation about migrant children as young as 12 working in Alabama chicken plants and in Hyundai-Kia supply chain factories in the South.

Two months later, the U.S. Department of Labor announced that Packers Sanitation Services Inc., one of the nation’s largest food sanitation companies, had agreed to pay $1.5 million in civil penalties after federal investigators discovered violations of child labor laws. They found the company had illegally employed more than 100 children, ages 13 to 17, all working in hazardous jobs at 13 meat processing facilities in eight states. The case was one of the largest in the department’s history.

And most recently, The New York Times published an investigation showing migrant youths working dangerous jobs in violation of child labor laws in factories making well-known products including Cheetos, Cheerios and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. According to the report, these child migrants are part of a “new economy of exploitation.” Days after publication, the U.S. Department of Labor and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced new efforts to combat exploitative child labor. 

“This is not a 19th century problem,” Department of Labor Secretary Marty Walsh said in an accompanying statement. “This is a today problem.” 

Public Integrity spoke about the issue with Ivón Padilla-Rodríguez, a professor at the University of Illinois who has studied the history of U.S. policy on childhood migration. Padilla-Rodríguez uses media accounts, court documents and the records of various government and law enforcement agencies to help piece together this often-missing part of the nation’s history.

*This conversation have been edited for length and clarity. 

Q. How difficult has it been to uncover this part of U.S. history?

Most of what professional historians know about the history of migration from Mexico and Central America largely concerns adults. There’s this presumption in the historical literature that children didn’t migrate in the past, and that after the U.S. banned child labor in 1938, that they didn’t work.

These presumptions aren’t just harbored by professional historians, but they’re harbored by the professionals who control the research collections that historians go into to even be able to uncover these kinds of histories and make these claims.

I’ve encountered a lot of pushback in the research stage of this project. It’s been extraordinarily difficult to uncover the stories of these kids, certainly not only because of the pushback, but also because the groups of people that I study — poor, migrant, Mexican and Central American youth. They almost never left behind their own sources. And of course, they also had to cross the border clandestinely and avoid detection for their own survival.

So unless they encountered a person in a position of authority, say like a border patrol agent, or some other kind of law enforcement authority, their voices are pretty scattered in the historical record.

Q. Is exploitative migrant child labor a problem in the U.S. and how long has this been happening?

Yes, exploitative migrant child labor is a problem in the United States. It’s been happening for a long time.

I’m going to take us all the way back to the late 19th century when the U.S. experienced large-scale migration from places like Europe and Mexico and even Asia, in spite of exclusionary legislation that was meant to bar their entry. Among these immigrants who participated in this large-scale migration were children, and also, of course, eventually the children of immigrants. And they ended up working in places as diverse as railroads, mines, factories, domestic service and agriculture.

When the 1938 child labor ban was passed, it included really strict prohibitions for certain sites of work, mainly manufacturing and mining, but they also included an exemption for agriculture that still exists to this day. It’s been amended, of course. So the exemption has been narrowed since 1938, but it still exists.

Throughout the 20th century, one of the biggest culprits of migrant child labor exploitation were commercial farms and they were mostly employing, particularly in the post-World War II period, migrant Mexican youth. So, kids have been working for more than a century in this country.

And migrant labor use inhibits particular precarities that make their labor that much more invisible to historians, to lay people, etc., so this country has a really really long history of migrant child labor.

Q. The Department of Labor has seen a 69% increase in children being employed illegally by companies since 2018. What do you think is driving this increase?

I think there are two main drivers of this recent increase in migrant child labor violations. The first is families’ extreme poverty. The second is restrictive immigration policy, which is a major reason that has to be attended to when thinking about why migrant children are ending up in these situations of violent or coerced labor.

So in terms of poverty, when there are no opportunities for social and economic mobility at home, let alone safety from violence, families and young people have to make these really difficult decisions to flee in order to survive, in order to not starve to death.

The COVID pandemic only exacerbated families’ food insecurity problems in countries of origin. There are also, of course, environmental crises that are contributing to these food insecurity, problems and families precarity. And because there are no opportunities for safe, efficient and lawful entry into the United States, young people often have to make these decisions to purchase the services of smugglers in order to get them across the United States.

It’s also restrictive immigration policy, not only the lack of lawful avenues for migration available to them, but also the militarization of the border that is making them vulnerable to exploitation to unscrupulous actors, and to something that’s called debt bondage, where young people in debt themselves for smuggling services, and they have to pay back their smuggling debts once they get inside the United States.

That’s how [young migrants] get coerced into these forced labor schemes. And that, in and of itself, also has a long history. It’s not something that is new either. In my own research, I study the origins of undocumented youth labor trafficking, which I saw in really significant numbers, particularly after the U.S. started militarizing the border in the 70s.

Q. Amid this increase in child labor violations, lawmakers in at least eight states have introduced bills so far this year to weaken child labor protections. How do state and federal policies contribute to the exploitation of child migrants? And is there a solution?

From my view, there’s an entire constellation of policies that are at play here. And that needs to be scrutinized if the U.S. hopes to meaningfully address this humanitarian problem and find a solution.

To start with the labor laws, there’s of course the issue of lax enforcement of stringent prohibitions that already exist that are supposed to prohibit the presence of minors in hazardous occupations. But there’s also the issue of the loopholes and the gaps in federal child labor law that make it possible for children in agriculture, for example, to work long hours in exploitative conditions at young ages and that’s totally lawful.

While we should vigorously oppose the loosening of state child labor laws, we also have to pay attention to the areas of child labor law where there aren’t sufficient protections for young people.

One thing that I also think really needs to be attended to in addition to labor law is education law and court precedents. Court precedents that guarantee even undocumented children’s right to education. This labor exploitation, as the New York Times exposé notes, is depriving children of their education.

We’re not only violating labor laws by allowing a child workforce to flourish, we are also violating compulsory school attendance laws and the 1982 decision in Plyler v. Doe, where the Supreme Court said that undocumented children have a constitutional right to public education K through 12, because of the Equal Protection Clause.

There are Republican lawmakers who have in the past said that their eye is on that court precedent to get it overturned. So, I think if states are trying to loosen state child labor laws, they’re also trying to diminish children’s legally protected right to education. I mean, we’re headed into really dangerous territory.

Q. What is one point you’d like to get across about your research and what you know about how U.S. policy affects exploitative migrant child labor?

What I mostly want to get across is simply that the U.S. has enabled migrant child labor exploitation for a very, very long time. And I think there comes a point where we must ask ourselves how this is also a history of, quite frankly, racism and white supremacy that has enabled a lot of this policymaking and these choices.

Most of the children that we’re seeing who are being deprived of their education, who are being exploited for their labor, who are not being afforded the protections of childhood, are non-white children, Indigenous children from countries that have been ravaged by U.S. intervention.

I hope people ask themselves: Whose childhoods in this country matter? Whose children matter? Because I’m increasingly of the opinion that childhood is becoming this racially exclusive concept and that’s unacceptable.

The post How U.S. policy drives child migrants into dangerous jobs appeared first on Center for Public Integrity.

SAN ANTONIO — Marcelino Ramos said he joined the U.S. Marines Corps at 17 because he felt a duty to serve and because a recruiter in a pressed-blue uniform promised him citizenship. Ramos, now 54, had no idea that the country he swore to protect would deport him. 

Ramos went on to serve in the Gulf War and after he completed four years of service, he returned to his family and home in Texas.

Ramos, who has PTSD, was arrested for a felony conviction that stemmed from a domestic violence incident in 2009. He said he tried to fight the charges but his public defender advised him to take a two-year plea deal. 

But Ramos didn’t realize his conviction would put him on the radar of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which eventually found him and deported him because he was never granted citizenship.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of foreign-born U.S. military veterans convicted of crimes have been deported. Despite President Joe Biden’s promise to bring them back, only about 50 veterans, including Ramos, have returned under a 2021 executive order.

Advocates and immigration attorneys say Biden’s policy is a temporary fix that fails to find deported veterans and protect those still living in the U.S. from being forced out and possibly killed or recruited by criminal organizations looking to profit from their skill sets.

“Being deported is a death sentence to any U.S. veteran,” Ramos said. “This is my home, my family and everyone I love is here. I can’t go back.”

A Failed System

President Biden signed an executive order in February 2021 to immediately conduct a review of policies and practices to ensure that all eligible current and former noncitizen service members and their immediate families can remain in or return to the U.S. under a humanitarian parole.

The order created the Immigrant Military Members and Veterans Initiative, which aims to consolidate all federal resources available to support noncitizen veterans, active service members and their families. 

As of June 21, 2022, the IMMVI team had received 143 inquiries from veterans living outside the U.S. due to removal, or other issues that restrict their return, according to Congressional testimony from Debra Rogers, director of the initiative.

Many of the veterans who received humanitarian parole, such as Ramos, have been threatened by gangs and cartels that want them to help train their members, according to Danitza James, chief of policy and legislation at Repatriate Our Patriots, a non-profit that provides free services to deported veterans on both sides of the U.S.-México border. 

About a dozen of the 50 or so deported veterans that have received humanitarian parole have been able to gain citizenship and stay in the U.S., according to James. The rest, like Ramos, remain in limbo.

Humanitarian parole is a discretionary visa granted to individuals who are inadmissible to enter the U.S. and remain for a temporary period.

After being deported in 2011, Ramos crossed back illegally to the U.S. and started a new life in San Antonio where he met his wife Frances Riojas. He was deported again in 2016 after landing in a hospital with a stab wound he suffered during a fight.

In November, after six years in México, Ramos was allowed to return home to his wife in San Antonio for one year. His attorney filed for his citizenship but it could be months before he knows if he’s been approved.

“I’m trying my best to stay busy and I’m getting the medical help I need with my PTSD but it’s a heavy burden to know that I might have to go back,” Ramos said. “Every day I’m grateful that I get to be home with my wife and that I get to spend some time with my dad and my daughter.”

An Immeasurable Problem

Danitza James is the chief of policy and legislation at Repatriate Our Patriots, a non-profit that provides free services to deported veterans on both sides of the U.S.-México border. 

Repatriate our Patriots has helped hundreds of deported veterans in México find a safe place to live, including Ramos. But even after Biden’s order, organizations like this one are the only one’s looking for deported veterans, according to James.

“It should be the U.S. government’s responsibility to know how many veterans they’ve deported,” said James, an army combat veteran. “But I think it’s not in their interest because then [U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service] officials will need to explain, ‘Why were you not following the policies set in place? Why did you deport these veterans?”

U.S. Customs and Border Protection, USCIS and ICE are the three government agencies responsible for veterans being deported, but ICE is the only one that had a policy in place to identify veterans before 2022. 

But from 2013-2018 ICE did not consistently follow its own policies, failing to maintain complete electronic records on these veterans. As a result, ICE does not know how many veterans have been placed in removal proceedings or removed, according to a 2019 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress.  

In February 2022, all three agencies issued supplemental policy guidance to help train officers to identify former military members and expedite requests for parole so they can return.

Jennie Pasquarella, director of immigrant rights for the ACLU of Southern California said she’s not sure how well immigration officials are adhering to the new policy but she’s seen fewer veterans placed in removal proceedings since it was put in place. 

In 2016, the ACLU released the first comprehensive report  explaining why veterans were being deported. The report, “Discharged then Discarded: How U.S. veterans are banished by the country they swore to protect,” looked at 59 cases of veterans who had been deported or were in removal proceedings.

Many were decorated combat veterans who sustained physical wounds and emotional trauma in conflicts going back to the war in Vietnam. Some were kicked out of the country for minor offenses that resulted in little if any incarceration, according to the report.

The report traces many of the deportations they studied to the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act of 1996, which expanded the spectrum of deportable offenses to include misdemeanors. Many believed they became citizens by nature of their service and oath — some were told as much by their recruiters — and were never informed otherwise, according to the report.  

Pasquarella said veterans were being deported long before the act was passed but she thinks it exacerbated the problem. And there’s no evidence to back this because no one knows how many veterans have been deported.

“There’s no way to recreate those numbers so it’s all anecdotal,”  Pasquarella said. “It could be 1,000 or it could be 20,000.”

Deportations Continue

Margaret Stock, retired lieutenant colonel with the U.S. Army Reserve and managing attorney at the Cascadia Cross Border Law Group in Anchorage, Alaska, has represented dozens of veterans facing deportation, including some as early as last year. 

Stock said deportations of veterans continue to happen because the process for service members to become naturalized is more difficult than it is for those outside the military. 

As part of their citizenship application, service members are required to obtain a certified letter from a high ranking official who they often don’t have access to as new recruits. Those that successfully apply, often end up waiting indefinitely when their documents are lost in the mail or their notices of eligibility for citizenship never reach them through their deployments and transfers, according to immigration attorneys.

Service members, like all applicants, must be permanent U.S. residents and able to pass an in-person naturalization interview. 

USCIS cut the number of its international offices from 23 in 20 countries to just four offices during the Trump administration, making it harder for deployed service members to apply and complete the interview, according to the testimony of U.S. Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) during a 2019 House Judiciary subcommittee hearing on deported veterans.

In 2018, USCIS also terminated the Naturalization at Basic Training Initiative, which provided onsite immigration resources and staff to support recruits beginning the naturalization process and allowed non-citizen enlistees the chance to naturalize when they graduated from basic training.

USCIS did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

“This is a problem that could be fixed by the executive branch of the government but they don’t have the willpower,” Stock said. “The president made statements and said: ‘I’m going to do this and do that’ but then he didn’t follow it up with actually putting people in place and empowering them to fix the problem.”   

The post White House initiative leaves deported veterans in limbo appeared first on Center for Public Integrity.

Undocumented immigrants enduring abuses from employers such as wage theft, safety infractions and gender discrimination can now obtain deportation relief when they report workplace violations to a government agency, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security recently announced. The new policy grants temporary legal status to workers who cooperate with investigators.

Workers’ rights groups have been urging the federal government to expand existing protections for foreign workers after Public Integrity described the increased risk of wage theft and unsafe working conditions immigrants faced during the pandemic. Undocumented workers often avoid reporting labor violations because employers can punish them by revealing their legal status to immigration authorities.

The new rules expand what is known as “Deferred Action” — a discretionary and temporary form of immigration relief. The program is most often used to obtain deportation protection for crime victims or witnesses who cooperate with law enforcement. 

The process will now be simplified and expedited, with only one U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office handling all applications. The agency will also speed up the process for workers to receive temporary work permits.

Sur Legal, a non-profit legal aid group based in Atlanta, is one of the organizations that pushed for the changes. 

“This is an important step towards empowering immigrant workers to hold abusive employers accountable and improving working conditions for all workers,” the group tweeted in response to the announcement.

Last year, as part of a series called “Cheated at Work,” Public Integrity investigated immigrant workers’ vulnerability to wage theft and retaliation. The story reported that in August 2021, labor officials obtained a court order to stop a New York business owner from allegedly threatening to call immigration officials if employees cooperated with a wage-violation investigation.

Another “Cheated at Work” story focused on low-wage foreign workers with seasonal work visas that tie them to one employer. If they walk off a job, workers lose their visas. 

A seasonal crawfish worker in Louisiana attempted to persuade the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration in 2020 that she left her job, temporarily, to seek medical care because she was ill with COVID-19. She said she feared receiving inadequate medical care if confined to quarantine housing. 

In the end, OSHA said it found “insufficient evidence” that she was unfairly fired. Labor wage investigators, however, subsequently found that the guest workers and 99 others at the company had been shortchanged on overtime pay in 2020.

“Unscrupulous employers who prey on the vulnerability of noncitizen workers harm all workers and disadvantage businesses who play by the rules,” said Alejandro Mayorkas, the secretary of homeland security, in his announcement. “We will hold these predatory actors accountable by encouraging all workers to assert their rights, report violations they have suffered or observed, and cooperate in labor standards investigations.”  

The move reflects a broader, worker-friendly approach to immigration enforcement from President Joe Biden’s administration. In October 2021, Mayorkas ordered DHS to stop large worksite raids and instead investigate companies that exploit undocumented workers.

The post New DHS policy protects undocumented whistleblowers appeared first on Center for Public Integrity.

As Mayra Raymundo drives to work each evening, she obsessively checks her rearview mirror. She’s terrified a cop will pull her over and find out she doesn’t have a driver’s license or car insurance. She would have to admit she is undocumented, risking deportation to Guatemala.

Raymundo, 31, works nights cleaning a private school outside Providence, Rhode Island. She earns $11.50 an hour. Without a car, Raymundo said she can’t earn a living to support her two young daughters.

“Basically, if you have a car, you can find work. If not, then no,” said Raymundo, adding that she could land a job that pays $15 an hour if she had a driver’s license. “Without a license, I live in constant fear.”

Raymundo and two of her co-workers, also undocumented, said they prayed for state lawmakers to approve a bill that would allow them to obtain a license. Rhode Island legislators have tried to pass this bill for more than 10 years.

Sixteen states, plus Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C., allow undocumented immigrants to receive driver’s licenses or similar IDs known as driving privilege cards, eliminating the chance of arrest for driving without a license, a common fast-track to deportation. More places are considering it as research shows earlier adopters reduced the likelihood of hit-and-run accidents, lowered insurance costs for drivers, increased the number of insured motorists on roads and improved poverty rates.

But immigration authorities are using driver’s license data to find the very people who are supposed to benefit from the new laws.

At least seven states have shared personal information from drivers with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement since January 2020, according to a Center for Public Integrity investigation. Sometimes, immigration agents will ask motor-vehicle agency staff to run a facial recognition search to match a provided photo. Other times, they seek addresses and driving records for specific people.

Agents often say these immigrants are suspects in crimes, but sometimes they are searching for people they believe committed only a civil immigration infraction, such as overstaying a visa.

Some immigrant rights groups now question whether it’s too risky for undocumented immigrants to get licenses.

“There’s still a lot of work to do to ensure information is protected,” said Mayra Cedano, executive director of Comunidades Unidas, a Utah nonprofit that works closely with undocumented families. “A lot of folks in our communities said, ‘I won’t risk it. I won’t renew to risk being deported just to drive.’”

Some states verify ICE’s requests. Many do not.

Public Integrity asked every jurisdiction that allows undocumented individuals to drive how they handle requests from ICE. Their laws or internal policies varied widely, and some refused to explain them.

Most don’t require proof that ICE investigations relate to criminal activity rather than civil immigration infractions. When requests come their way citing child exploitation, drug trafficking or other such investigations, these states grant them, taking them at face value.

Only four states – New Jersey, New Mexico, Virginia and Washington – require agents to produce a court order or arrest warrant signed by a judge before handing over personal data. At least two other states, California and Hawaii, passed laws explicitly prohibiting motor vehicle departments from sharing information solely related to immigration enforcement with ICE.

Some of the other jurisdictions – like Washington, D.C. – did not share privacy policies but said they are committed to protecting drivers’ personal information. And ICE said it does not use license information to target people to deport.

But Public Integrity found that ICE has requested information solely for immigration enforcement in some cases over the last year and a half. And advocates say they doubt jurisdictions can be sure the agency won’t use driver’s license data to track down undocumented immigrants who have committed no crimes.

“You have to trust that ICE has internal safeguards in place, that they won’t use the information for immigration,” said Diane Burkley Alejandro, lead advocate for ACLU People Power Fairfax. “But does it happen? … Who knows.”

In California, for instance, a DMV spokesperson said ICE “must agree” not to use personal information for immigration enforcement. The DMV counts on ICE to follow these rules and granted all 141 requests from the agency in the last year and a half.

In Utah, which has a similar policy, Comunidades Unidas’ Cedano said increased fear about what the government will do with the information has kept some undocumented immigrants from applying for driving privilege cards. The 31,000 people with driving cards last year, according to data from the Utah Department of Public Safety, represent a drop of about 7,000 in the past decade.

Delaware and Vermont, meanwhile, allow their motor vehicle departments to give information to ICE solely for immigration enforcement.

And in Oregon and Maryland, ICE can directly access statewide law enforcement databases, including driving records. No request required.

A spokesperson for the Oregon State Police, which manages the statewide law enforcement database, did not answer repeated questions about whether the state prohibits ICE from accessing data for investigations that do not involve criminal activity. Maryland’s Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services referred that question to ICE’s parent, the Department of Homeland Security. ICE did not respond to a request for comment about that.

ICE accessed Maryland’s law enforcement database – which contains drivers' personal information – over 4,800 times in the past year and a half. ICE also conducted 37 facial recognition searches through the state's Image Repository System. Maryland did not clarify how many of these incidents involved drivers’ license data, again referring the question to Homeland Security.

"It shouldn't be a risk to get a driver’s license. ...It makes me mad that people will have to think about data, that their information can be given to ICE," said Juan Manuel Guzman, state advocacy director of the youth-led immigrant rights group United We Dream. He said he got his license in Maryland in 2014, when the state allowed undocumented immigrants to do so.

"Whenever you give agencies – it could be ICE, it could be the CIA – free rein and unchecked power, they can go through so much data and use it dangerously,” he said. “I think it's extremely concerning."

ICE pursues drivers’ information

As more states permitted undocumented immigrants to drive, federal immigration authorities began contacting state motor vehicle departments to help identify someone in a photo or to see if a person was living under an alias.

A 2019 Washington Post investigation found that ICE and the FBI submitted thousands of facial recognition requests to state motor vehicle departments between 2015 and 2019. In Utah alone, dozens of searches were marked as having returned a “possible match.” It’s unclear how many of those requests involved criminal activity.

In May 2020, ICE published a report claiming it has a policy against agents requesting facial recognition searches unless they involve people suspected of criminal activity. The report says ICE supervisors regularly review these requests.

A spokesperson for ICE declined to say whether this is a new policy and, if so, when it went into effect. He said the agency does not make these requests simply to target individuals for deportation.

“Like other law enforcement agencies, ICE may use DMV data in support of ongoing criminal investigations, or to confirm information regarding individuals who are considered a priority for the agency,” Mike Alvarez, the spokesperson, said in an email.

But Public Integrity found that ICE requested information from at least three states’ motor vehicle departments for immigration enforcement — all after the date of the agency’s 2020 report.

ICE requested an individual’s address history, criminal history, traffic violation history and a photograph in September 2020 from the Connecticut Intelligence Center, which stores personal data from the state’s department of motor vehicles. The person was suspected of entering the country illegally, which is a civil infraction. The center denied the request.

In December 2020, ICE requested information from Washington state’s licensing department without stating the crime the individual allegedly committed. The department denied the request.

Colorado’s DMV received nine ICE requests related only to immigration enforcement in 2020, denying all of them.

For a handful of other states, including Maryland and Oregon, there’s no way to know.

Sen. Curt Bramble, a Utah Republican who sponsored the bill to grant driving privilege cards in that state in 2005, said it doesn’t bother him if ICE uses driver’s license data to track down undocumented immigrants. He said the driving cards benefit both undocumented community members, who can legally drive, and law enforcement, who can identify those breaking the law.

“There's a reason why in the federal code that the legal term is ‘illegal alien,’” Bramble said. “The individuals have chosen to violate our immigration laws.”

He said advocates have never contacted him to express concern over this information sharing with ICE.

Utah’s Department of Public Safety’s public information officer, Lt. Nick Street, first told Public Integrity that ICE agents requested information solely for immigration enforcement at least twice in 2021, and DPS granted their requests. Street said the department believed the requests were related to “U visa inquiries,” in which undocumented immigrants are victims of crimes and help law enforcement investigate the activity.

Street later said these requests had to do with criminal activities aside from immigration enforcement. They were among almost 230 information requests from ICE that the public safety department granted in the past year and a half.

Better lives, more money

Allowing undocumented individuals to get driver’s licenses has economic benefits: Licensed drivers are more likely to purchase vehicles and other bigger-ticket items, including homes. More cars are registered and insured. With increased ability to commute to better jobs, undocumented people can contribute more to the economy.

Poverty declines at a faster rate in states with these policies, according to a 2016 report from Roger Williams University’s School of Law and Latino Policy Institute.

Karla Reyes, 34, is a mother of four and a chef at a Little Caesars in Virginia. Her husband, Rosendo Martinez, is a landscaper who recently received his driving privilege card.

“He was paid $180 a day but got a $20 raise after he got his license. Now he makes $200 a day,” Reyes said through an interpreter.

Ovidia Castillo works as a housekeeper in Virginia. It takes an hour to get to the first house of the day: She doesn’t have a driving privilege card yet and must rely on her employer to get her there with up to five other women.

Castillo, 41, is a single mother to a 16-year-old son. She can’t wait to pass her driving safety course and start her own housekeeping business, gaining control of her schedule and more free time to spend with her son.

“My time does not belong to me,” Castillo said through an interpreter. “It feels like I don’t have feet.”

Once she can drive, Castillo will no longer need $14 taxi rides to and from evening English classes four days a week. She will be able to take her son, who has Asperger's syndrome, to local educational programs too inconvenient by public transportation, where he can socialize with other children his age.

“When I have the independence to drive myself and my son where we need to go, it’ll feel like winning the lottery,” she said.

Getting licenses in order to learn English is a common theme among undocumented communities.

Guzman, the undocumented advocate who got his license in Maryland, said he was able to drive to community college and learn English in the evenings. His family got better job opportunities.

“My family works in construction and cleans houses, and for us to be able to liberate ourselves from sometimes very abusive employers has been wonderful,” Guzman said. “They know you don’t have any other option, and it’s really awful when you don't have another option.”

In Virginia, undocumented immigrants tried for years to persuade state lawmakers to allow them to drive. The bill finally passed in April 2020, after Democrats gained control of the Legislature, and went into effect in January.

The bill was first introduced years ago by a Republican who represents a conservative, rural area in southern Virginia. Marketed as an economic and safety incentive, the bill was proposed to ensure undocumented farmworkers could produce food for the state, said Monica Sarmiento, executive director of the Virginia Coalition for Immigrant Rights.

Advocates celebrated when the law was passed. But they saw it as a first step because it didn’t place restrictions on sharing personal data. At the time, General Assembly leadership wasn’t in favor of such restrictions, said Alejandro, with ACLU People Power Fairfax.

“It was then a strategic choice to listen to community members, who were telling us that they understood the risks and wanted licenses anyway,” Alejandro said. “It was better to have licenses without complete protection than to not have licenses at all.”

Legislators passed a data protection bill separately in March that went into effect July 1.

The legislation in Rhode Island would have included some of the country’s strongest data-sharing restrictions. The law would have prohibited state agencies from handing over information to immigration authorities unless ICE could provide an arrest warrant or a court order.

Rhode Island’s Senate voted 28-10 in favor of allowing undocumented immigrants to drive, but House leadership decided not to take up the bill before the session ended in June.

That’s as far as the measure has ever gotten, and proponents plan to try yet again.

But Raymundo has to get to work now. Night after night, she’s still looking over her shoulder as she drives.

Clarification: July 14, 5:15 p.m.: An earlier version of this story included a table that did not define “driver data” or “DMV records.” Both refer to drivers’ names, addresses and photographs.

The post Undocumented immigrants can get licenses. ICE can get their data. appeared first on Center for Public Integrity.

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Cuando Mayra Raymundo conduce al trabajo todas las tardes, mira obsesivamente su espejo retrovisor. Le da muchísimo miedo que un policía la detenga y descubra que no tiene licencia de conducir ni seguro de coche. Tendría que admitir que es indocumentada y correría el riesgo de ser deportada a Guatemala.

Raymundo, de 31 años, trabaja por las noches limpiando una escuela privada en las afueras de Providence, Rhode Island. Gana $11.50 la hora. Sin coche, Raymundo dice que no gana lo suficiente para mantener a sus dos hijas pequeñas.

“Básicamente, si tienes un coche, puedes encontrar trabajo. Si no, entonces no”, dijo Raymundo, añadiendo que podría conseguir un trabajo que le pague $15 la hora si tuviera una licencia de conducir. “Sin una licencia, vivo con miedo constante”.

Raymundo y dos de sus compañeras de trabajo, también indocumentadas, dijeron que rezaban para que los legisladores estatales aprobaran un proyecto de ley que les permitiría obtener una licencia. Los legisladores de Rhode Island llevan más de 10 años intentando aprobar este proyecto de ley.

Dieciséis estados, más Puerto Rico y Washington, DC, les permiten a los inmigrantes indocumentados recibir licencias de conducir o identificaciones similares conocidas como tarjetas de privilegio para conducir, eliminando así la posibilidad de arresto por conducir sin licencia, una vía rápida común para la deportación. Otros también están considerando estas medidas, pues las investigaciones muestran que los primeros en adoptarlas redujeron la probabilidad de atropello y fuga, redujeron los costos de los seguros para los conductores, aumentaron el número de automovilistas asegurados en las carreteras y mejoraron los índices de pobreza.

Pero las autoridades de inmigración están utilizando los datos de los permisos de conducir para encontrar a las mismas personas que se supone que se benefician de las nuevas leyes.

Al menos siete estados han compartido información personal de los conductores con el Servicio de Inmigración y Aduanas de Estados Unidos desde enero de 2020, según una investigación del Center for Public Integrity. A veces, los agentes de inmigración le piden al personal del departamento de vehículos motorizados (DMV, por sus siglas en inglés) que realice una búsqueda de reconocimiento facial para saber si hay coincidencias con una foto proporcionada. Otras veces, buscan direcciones e historiales de conducción de personas concretas.

Los agentes suelen decir que estos inmigrantes son sospechosos de delitos, pero a veces buscan a personas que creen que sólo han cometido una infracción civil de inmigración, como quedarse más tiempo del permitido por una visa.

Algunos grupos de defensa de los derechos de los inmigrantes se preguntan ahora si es demasiado arriesgado que los indocumentados obtengan licencias.

“Todavía queda mucho trabajo por hacer para garantizar la protección de la información”, dijo Mayra Cedano, directora ejecutiva de Comunidades Unidas, una organización sin fines de lucro de Utah que trabaja estrechamente con familias indocumentadas. “Mucha gente en nuestras comunidades dijo: ‘No me voy a arriesgar. No voy a renovar y arriesgarme a que me deporten solo por conducir'”.

Algunos estados verifican las solicitudes de ICE. Muchos no lo hacen.

El Center for Public Integrity les preguntó a todas las jurisdicciones que les permiten conducir a los indocumentados cómo gestionan las solicitudes de ICE. Sus leyes o políticas internas varían enormemente, y algunas se negaron a dar explicaciones.

La mayoría no exige pruebas de que las investigaciones de ICE estén relacionadas con actividades delictivas y no con infracciones civiles de inmigración. Cuando les llegan solicitudes que citan explotación infantil, tráfico de drogas u otras investigaciones de este tipo, estos estados las conceden, tomándolas al pie de la letra.

Solo cuatro estados — Nueva Jersey, Nuevo México, Virginia y Washington — exigen que los agentes presenten una orden judicial o de detención firmada por un juez antes de entregar los datos personales. Al menos otros dos estados, California y Hawái, aprobaron leyes que les prohíben explícitamente a los departamentos de vehículos motorizados compartir con ICE información relacionada únicamente con la aplicación de la ley de inmigración.

Algunas de las otras jurisdicciones — como Washington, DC — no compartieron las políticas de privacidad, pero dijeron que están comprometidas con la protección de la información personal de los conductores. Y ICE dijo que no utiliza la información de la licencia para seleccionar a las personas a deportar.

Pero el Center for Public Integrity descubrió que ICE ha solicitado información exclusivamente para la aplicación de la ley de inmigración en algunos casos durante el último año y medio. Y los defensores dicen que dudan de que las jurisdicciones puedan estar seguras de que la agencia no utilizará los datos de los permisos de conducir para localizar a inmigrantes indocumentados que no han cometido ningún delito.

"Hay que confiar en que ICE cuente con protecciones internas, que no utilizará la información para la inmigración", dijo Diane Burkley Alejandro, defensora principal de ACLU People Power Fairfax. "Pero, ¿ocurre así? ... Quién sabe".

En California, por ejemplo, un portavoz del DMV dijo que ICE "debe acceder a" no utilizar la información personal para la aplicación de la ley de inmigración. El DMV cuenta con que ICE cumpla estas normas y ha concedido las 141 solicitudes de la agencia en el último año y medio.

En Utah, que tiene una política similar, Cedano de Comunidades Unidas dijo que el aumento del miedo sobre lo que el gobierno hará con la información les ha impedido a algunos inmigrantes indocumentados solicitar las tarjetas de privilegio para conducir. Las 31,000 personas con tarjetas de conducir el año pasado, según datos del Departamento de Seguridad Pública de Utah, representan un descenso de unas 7,000 en la última década.

Delaware y Vermont, por su parte, les permiten a sus departamentos de vehículos motorizados darle información a ICE para la aplicación de la ley de inmigración.

Y en Oregón y Maryland, ICE puede acceder directamente a las bases de datos policiales de todo el estado, incluidos los historiales de conducción. No se requiere solicitud.

Un portavoz de la Policía Estatal de Oregón, que administra la base de datos de las fuerzas del orden público de todo el estado, no respondió a las repetidas preguntas sobre si el estado le prohíbe a ICE acceder a los datos de las investigaciones que no implican actividades delictivas. El Departamento de Seguridad Pública y Servicios Penitenciarios de Maryland remitió esa pregunta a la matriz de ICE, el Departamento de Seguridad Nacional. ICE no respondió a una solicitud de comentarios al respecto.

ICE accedió a la base de datos de las fuerzas de seguridad de Maryland — que contiene información personal de los conductores — más de 4,800 veces en el último año y medio. ICE también realizó 37 búsquedas de reconocimiento facial a través del Sistema de Archivo de Imágenes del estado. Maryland no aclaró cuántos de estos incidentes involucraron datos de los permisos de conducir, remitiendo nuevamente la pregunta al Departamento de Seguridad Nacional.

"No debería ser un riesgo obtener una licencia de conducir. ... Me enoja que la gente tenga que pensar en los datos, que su información se le pueda entregar a ICE", dijo Juan Manuel Guzmán, director de defensa estatal del grupo de derechos de los inmigrantes liderado por jóvenes United We Dream (Juntos Soñamos). Dijo que obtuvo su licencia en Maryland en 2014, cuando el estado les permitió a los inmigrantes indocumentados hacerlo.

"Siempre que les das a las agencias — ya sea ICE, o podría ser la CIA — rienda suelta y poder sin límites, pueden revisar muchos datos y utilizarlos peligrosamente", dijo. "Creo que es extremadamente preocupante".

ICE busca información de los conductores

A medida que más estados les permitían conducir a los inmigrantes indocumentados, las autoridades federales de inmigración comenzaron a ponerse en contacto con los departamentos estatales de vehículos motorizados para ayudar a identificar a alguien en una foto o para ver si una persona vivía bajo un nombre falso.

Una investigación del Washington Post de 2019 reveló que ICE y el FBI les presentaron miles de solicitudes de reconocimiento facial a los departamentos estatales de vehículos motorizados entre 2015 y 2019. Tan solo en Utah, se marcaron docenas de búsquedas como que habían arrojado una "posible coincidencia". No está claro cuántas de esas solicitudes estaban relacionadas con actividades delictivas.

En mayo de 2020, ICE publicó un informe en el que afirmó que tiene una política que les impide a los agentes solicitar búsquedas de reconocimiento facial, a menos que se trate de personas sospechosas de actividades delictivas. El informe dice que los supervisores de ICE revisan periódicamente estas solicitudes.

Un portavoz de ICE se negó a decir si se trata de una nueva política y, de ser así, cuándo entró en vigor. Dijo que la agencia no hace estas solicitudes simplemente para seleccionar individuos para la deportación.

"Al igual que otras agencias de aplicación de la ley, ICE puede utilizar los datos del DMV en apoyo a investigaciones criminales en curso, o para confirmar la información relativa a las personas que se consideran una prioridad para la agencia", dijo Mike Álvarez, el portavoz, en un correo electrónico.

Sin embargo, el Center for Public Integrity descubrió que ICE les solicitó información a los departamentos de vehículos motorizados de al menos tres estados para la aplicación de la ley de inmigración — todo esto después de la fecha del informe de 2020 de la agencia.

El ICE le solicitó en septiembre de 2020 el historial de direcciones, antecedentes penales, el historial de infracciones de tránsito y una fotografía de una persona al Centro de Inteligencia de Connecticut, que almacena los datos personales del departamento de vehículos motorizados del estado. La persona era sospechosa de ingresar ilegalmente al país, lo que constituye una infracción civil. El centro denegó la solicitud.

En diciembre de 2020, ICE le solicitó información al departamento de licencias del estado de Washington sin indicar el delito que supuestamente había cometido el individuo. El departamento denegó la solicitud.

El DMV de Colorado recibió nueve solicitudes de ICE relacionadas únicamente con la aplicación de la ley de inmigración en 2020, denegando todas ellas.

En el caso de un puñado de otros estados, entre ellos Maryland y Oregón, no hay forma de saberlo.

El senador Curt Bramble, republicano de Utah que patrocinó el proyecto de ley para otorgar tarjetas de privilegio para conducir en ese estado en 2005, dijo que no le molesta si ICE utiliza los datos de la licencia de conducir para rastrear inmigrantes indocumentados. Dijo que las tarjetas de conducir benefician tanto a los miembros de la comunidad indocumentada, quienes pueden conducir legalmente, como a las fuerzas del orden, que pueden identificar a quienes infringen la ley.

"Hay una razón por la cual en el código federal el término legal es 'extranjero ilegal'", dijo Bramble. "Los individuos han decidido violar nuestras leyes de inmigración".

Dijo que los defensores nunca se han puesto en contacto con él para expresar preocupaciones por este intercambio de información con ICE.

El oficial de información pública del Departamento de Seguridad Pública de Utah (DPS, por sus siglas en inglés), el teniente Nick Street, le dijo por primera vez al Center for Public Integrity que los agentes de ICE solicitaron información únicamente para la aplicación de la ley de inmigración al menos dos veces en 2021, y el DPS concedió sus solicitudes. Street dijo que el departamento creía que las solicitudes estaban relacionadas con "consultas de visas U", en las que los inmigrantes indocumentados son víctimas de delitos y ayudan a las fuerzas del orden a investigar la actividad.

Street dijo posteriormente que estas solicitudes tenían que ver con actividades delictivas al margen de la aplicación de la ley de inmigración. Se encontraban entre las casi 230 solicitudes de información de ICE que el departamento de seguridad pública concedió en el último año y medio.

Mejores vidas, más dinero

Permitirles a las personas indocumentadas obtener licencias de conducir tiene beneficios económicos: los conductores con licencia tienen más probabilidades de comprar vehículos y otros artículos de mayor valor, incluyendo casas. Se matriculan y aseguran más coches. Con una mayor capacidad para desplazarse a mejores trabajos, los indocumentados pueden contribuir más a la economía.

La pobreza disminuye a un ritmo más rápido en los estados con estas políticas, según un informe de 2016 de la Facultad de Derecho y el Instituto de Política Latina de la Universidad Roger Williams.

Karla Reyes, de 34 años, es madre de cuatro hijos y cocinera en un Little Caesars de Virginia. Su esposo, Rosendo Martínez, es un paisajista que recientemente recibió su tarjeta de privilegio para conducir.

"Le pagaban $180 al día, pero le aumentaron $20 después de obtener la licencia. Ahora gana $200 al día", dijo Reyes mediante un intérprete.

Ovidia Castillo trabaja como ama de llaves en Virginia. Le toma una hora llegar a la primera casa del día: Todavía no tiene una tarjeta de privilegio para conducir y depende de su empleador para que la lleve hasta allí con otras cinco mujeres.

Castillo, de 41 años, es madre soltera de un hijo de 16 años. Desea aprobar el curso de manejo y montar su propio negocio de limpieza, con lo que conseguirá controlar su agenda y tener más tiempo libre para estar con su hijo.

"Mi tiempo no me pertenece", dijo Castillo mediante un intérprete. "Parece como si no tuviera pies".

En cuanto pueda conducir, Castillo ya no necesitará viajes en taxi de $14 para ir y volver de las clases nocturnas de inglés cuatro días a la semana. Podrá llevar a su hijo, que tiene síndrome de Asperger, a programas educativos locales a los que le resulta demasiado incómodo asistir en transporte público, y en ellos podrá socializar con otros niños de su edad.

"Cuando tenga la independencia necesaria para llevarnos a mí y a mi hijo a donde tengamos que ir, me parecerá que me he ganado la lotería", dijo.

La obtención de licencias para aprender inglés es un tema común entre las comunidades de indocumentados.

Guzmán, el defensor de los indocumentados que obtuvo su licencia en Maryland, dijo que podía ir en coche al colegio comunitario y aprender inglés por las tardes. Su familia consiguió mejores oportunidades laborales.

"Mi familia trabaja en la construcción y limpia casas, y poder librarnos de empleadores a veces muy abusivos ha sido maravilloso", dijo Guzmán. "Saben que no tienes otra opción, y es realmente horrible cuando no tienes otra opción".

En Virginia, los inmigrantes indocumentados intentaron durante años convencer a los legisladores estatales que les permitieran conducir. El proyecto de ley se aprobó finalmente en abril de 2020, después de que los demócratas obtuvieran el control de la Legislatura, y entró en vigor en enero.

El proyecto de ley lo presentó por primera vez hace años un republicano que representa una zona rural conservadora del sur de Virginia. Dicho proyecto de ley, promovido como un incentivo económico y de seguridad, se propuso para garantizar que los trabajadores agrícolas indocumentados pudieran producir alimentos para el estado, dijo Mónica Sarmiento, directora ejecutiva de la Coalición de Virginia por los Derechos de los Inmigrantes.

Los defensores celebraron cuando se aprobó la ley. Pero la consideraron un primer paso porque no imponía restricciones para compartir datos personales. En ese momento, la dirección de la Asamblea General no estaba a favor de dichas restricciones, dijo Alejandro, de ACLU People Power Fairfax.

"En ese momento fue una decisión estratégica escuchar a los miembros de la comunidad, que nos decían que entendían los riesgos y querían licencias de todos modos", dijo Alejandro. "Era mejor tener licencias sin una protección completa que no tener licencia alguna".

Los legisladores aprobaron en marzo un proyecto de ley de protección de datos por separado que entró en vigor el 1 de julio.

La legislación de Rhode Island habría incluido algunas de las restricciones de intercambio de datos más estrictas del país. La ley les habría prohibido a las agencias estatales entregarles información a las autoridades de inmigración a menos que ICE pudiera proporcionar una orden de detención o una orden judicial.

El Senado de Rhode Island votó 28 a 10 a favor de permitirles conducir a los inmigrantes indocumentados, pero la dirección de la Cámara de Representantes decidió no retomar el proyecto de ley antes de que terminara la sesión en junio.

Hasta ahí ha llegado la medida, y los proponentes planean intentarlo nuevamente.

Pero Raymundo tiene que ponerse a trabajar ahora. Noche tras noche, sigue mirando por encima del hombro mientras conduce.

Univision tradujo la versión en español de este articulo.

Clarificación: Una versión previa de este reportaje contenía una tabla en la que no se definía "datos del conductor" o "registros del departamento de vehículos motorizados". Ambos se refieren a los nombres, direcciones y fotografías de los conductores.

The post Los inmigrantes indocumentados pueden obtener licencias. ICE puede obtener sus datos. appeared first on Center for Public Integrity.

This story is published in partnership with Mother Jones. 

Two fathers and their sons traveled from Mexico this spring to grow and harvest North Carolina’s sweet potatoes, tobacco, Christmas trees and other crops. All four men held temporary H-2A nonimmigrant visas — permits U.S. employers use to sponsor foreign guest workers to fill seasonal labor shortages on farms. 

In August, one of the fathers died of COVID-19. The other died weeks later. After both were buried in Mexico, their sons dutifully returned to North Carolina to keep working under their visas because they needed the income. The twin tragedies, details of which were confirmed by the Center for Public Integrity through state records and interviews, lay bare the contradictions of the 34-year-old H-2A program. 

On one hand, the program provides essential labor for growers and jobs for foreign workers desperate for money. On the other, the program can put workers in arduous, sometimes-deadly, situations: Toiling in excessive heat, living in unsafe housing and, now, exposing themselves to a highly contagious virus. 

In just five years, the number of H-2A jobs in America has jumped by 155% to more than 275,400 this year. Foreign workers, mostly from Mexico, benefit from the ability to work legally, albeit temporarily. But advocates have long warned that the workers can be cheated out of wages and treated as expendable because they fear complaining will cost them their visas. Coronavirus outbreaks this year infected many H-2A workers in multiple states. 

After investigating the COVID-19 deaths of two H-2A workers, Washington state labor officials fined a large agribusiness company more than $2 million on Dec. 21, accusing it of failing to provide safe conditions. Public Integrity has found three H-2A worker deaths in North Carolina alone that haven’t been publicly disclosed but are under investigation. 

Next year, H-2A workers will face a new challenge: a wage freeze, put in place by President Donald Trump’s Department of Labor. Advocates want President-elect Joe Biden to undo the freeze, but the process could take months. They’re also pushing for H-2A and other farmworkers to receive priority access to COVID-19 vaccines, given their status as frontline workers, and are urging farms to adopt federal mandates to reduce crowded housing and buses, breeding grounds for virus outbreaks.

“Farmworkers are not beasts of burden. They’re not machines,” said Bruce Goldstein, president of Farmworker Justice in Washington, D.C. and a longtime critic of the guest worker program. 

An H-2A worker who survived COVID-19 in North Carolina told Public Integrity that as of mid-December, he still hadn’t been paid for the three weeks he was too sick to work. “It’s been a frightening season for me,” he said. He requested anonymity because he feared jeopardizing his visa.

Essential but overpaid?

The coronavirus was racing through U.S. farms this year even as the State Department was issuing visas to fill a record 275,400 H-2A jobs. A complex web of rules requires employers seeking to hire H-2A workers to prove to their state labor officials that they first advertised for workers who live in the United States. Guest workers can fill more than one H-2A job, but do not have the freedom to quit and choose another employer once they are in the U.S. Many H-2A employers are labor contractors — middlemen who supply workers to farms. 

Since there’s no national cap on H-2A worker visas, in theory the program can keep expanding. Visa holders can work for U.S. employers for months at a time, but are required to leave the country when their contracts end. The H-2A program gives them no opportunity to apply to settle in the United States as legal, permanent immigrants. 

Earlier this year, Trump exempted H-2A workers as he began shutting down borders because of the pandemic. He said jobs and healthcare should be reserved for Americans. But he allowed in H-2A workers because, he said, they provide “services essential to the United States food supply chain.” 

H-2A workers have been estimated at 10% of the U.S. farm labor force. The recent surge has likely boosted that proportion. H-2A workers are now 25% of North Carolina’s seasonal farm labor force and growing, according to Lee Wicker, deputy director of the North Carolina Growers Association. The group supplies H-2A workers to employers and manages a bargaining agreement with the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, a labor union. 

Farmers are struggling, Wicker said, because H-2A wages have been rising too fast. If Biden or a pending court challenge block Trump’s wage freeze, Wicker said, growers will push the White House to find another way to slow pay increases.

Federal law requires that labor officials protect both H-2A and U.S.-based workers from practices that push down wages unfairly. But some growers complain that the formula used to calculate pay rates has increased H-2A wages nationally by 21% since 2015 — compared to almost 14% increases for U.S. workers overall. Next year, regulators announced, the H-2A minimum wage in North Carolina will be $12.67 an hour. “We’re saying, let’s do a freeze, take a deep breath and let agriculture stabilize,” Wicker said.

Wicker also said that if COVID-19 mandates require more spending on worker housing and buses to reduce crowding, farms could cut H-2A jobs. “Which is worse for [the worker]?” Wicker asked. “Being up here and being potentially exposed and getting COVID? Or being in Mexico poor, broke, and can’t take care of his family?”

In a lawsuit seeking to block the wage freeze, the United Farm Workers union argues that farmworkers, H-2A or not, are among America’s lowest paid workers. The union also says workers need more bargaining power, not less. 

The union supports a long-debated bipartisan proposal that the House of Representatives approved a year ago. The proposal would open a path to legal permanent immigrant status for the estimated 50% of U.S.-based farmworkers who are undocumented. It also would reserve 20,000 H-2A visas for year-round farm work for three years, half of those for dairy workers, who are not currently eligible for H-2A visas.Biden, who has said he approves of the H-2A program generally, supports the House legislation. But the bill’s fate depends on the Senate, which has yet to consider it.

Trump bashes immigrants, likes guest workers

Trump’s interest in the H-2A program stemmed from his embrace of agribusiness as part of his base and his narrow view of who merits the opportunity to legally immigrate to and settle in America. In a January 2019 speech at an American Farm Bureau Federation convention in New Orleans, he vowed to keep “the wrong ones out” with a border wall but make it “easier for them to come in and to work the farms.”

The president has long accused foreign workers of stealing blue-collar jobs from Americans. However, Trump Vineyard Estates in Charlottesville, Virginia, has a history of employing H-2A workers. This year the vineyard requested 23 to work from March to October at $12.67 an hour, H-2A disclosure records show. 

Trump’s Labor Department tweaked other H-2A rules this year to allow employers, absent state mandates, to move H-2A workers into uninspected housing on an emergency basis to create social distancing. In August, the Department of Homeland Security issued a temporary rule reducing paperwork and wait times so H-2A workers could be transferred faster among employers to protect “the nation’s food supply.”

Fear of blacklisting

The H-2A program’s roots go back to the Bracero program, an agreement with Mexico to fill U.S. labor shortages during World War II. Western farms built a national food-supply chain using Braceros. In 1964, Congress didn’t renew the program because of an outcry over unchecked wage theft and other labor violations by employers. After that, undocumented workers increasingly began filling jobs, arriving seasonally.

Fewer workers are now able to illegally cross the more-fortified border, and deportations of undocumented workers who’ve settled here have led growers to turn more to the H-2A program. 

Labor advocates say there are ethical H-2A employers who are concerned about workers’ well-being. But fear of blacklisting and denial of visas remains pervasive. Employers must pay for visas and costs for travel to and from the United States. In addition to housing, employers are also responsible for workers’ transportation to job sites and sometimes provide meals for a price. But most H-2A workers are reluctant to complain when these obligations aren’t met. Even when advocates successfully intervene, dispute resolution can take years.

“I’ve seen people demand rights, and you know what happens? They lose that job. That’s why people just stay quiet,” the worker who survived COVID-19 in North Carolina said. 

He said he and other H-2A workers who traveled with him to the state do not believe they were infected with COVID-19 when they arrived from Mexico. They followed instructions to wear masks and gloves and cleaned their barracks daily. Nonetheless, he said, they were infected, possibly by an employee who worked at another farm that had an outbreak. “From one day to the next, I couldn’t get up. I felt like I was going to die,” the worker said. “A lady came from a health clinic and tested us and it turned out we all had the virus.”

Lariza Garzon, executive director of the Episcopal Farmworker Ministry in Dunn, North Carolina, said she has heard multiple reports of workers not getting paid when they were ill with the coronavirus or told to quarantine. Garzon’s organization is asking for cash donations to farmworker families affected by COVID-19, and has wired money to H-2A workers’ families in Mexico. Justin Flores, vice president of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, is trying to obtain workers’ compensation pay for H-2A workers who fell ill. “One of them came out of the hospital and went back to Mexico using an oxygen tank,” Flores said. 

H-2A workers are foreigners on temporary visas. But federal labor officials told Public Integrity that they’re not excluded from the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, passed in March to support workers who lost income because of COVID-19. The law requires workers receive two weeks’ pay for sick time or if healthcare providers told them to quarantine. Like other workers, H-2A workers could be excluded from the benefit if their employers have more than 500 employees.

Demands for transparency

To better track the price H-2A workers are paying as essential workers, advocates would like the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services to publicly acknowledge their deaths even if they won’t disclose the victims’ names. 

The department releases tallies of virus cases and deaths among residents in congregate housing if a facility has 10 or more residents. As tallies are updated, prior records disappear. The records omit the names of farms or congregate housing complexes where H-2A workers live. Officials say they do this for the protection of workers, who are at risk of “discrimination and harassment.” A labor advocate troubled by the lack of transparency began saving records as they were posted and showed Public Integrity two dates that matched those of rumored worker deaths. State labor officials confirmed the deaths and said in an email to Public Integrity: “The two fatalities you asked about are being investigated.” 

Flores and state labor officials said a third H-2A worker in North Carolina died in mid-December. Like the two sons whose fathers died, the worker’s family didn’t want to discuss his death. 

H-2A worker deaths have provoked outcry in other parts of the country.

In northwest Texas, Marco Antonio Galvan Gomez, 48, a Mexican worker, died after becoming ill while laboring for a potato grower and treating himself with over-the-counter medications. 

In Washington state, Jamaican H-2A worker Earl Edwards, 63, and Mexican Juan Carlos Santiago Rincon, 37, died in July following an outbreak at Gebbers Farms, one of America’s biggest apple and cherry growers. The Okanogan County business employs thousands of H-2A seasonal workers and houses them in barracks. State labor officials fined Gebbers Farms more than $2 million on Dec. 21 after an investigation found the company failed to limit the number of men sleeping in barracks and riding together on company buses. 

“He complained that there were too many men in the room,” Marcia Edwards, Earl Edwards’ widow in Jamaica, told Public Integrity. After he and other men received an initial medical exam, Marcia said, her husband wasn’t provided follow-up visits or treatment while he was in isolation in a bunkhouse for infected men. He died two hours after she last spoke to him. “Nobody cared for them,” she said. “They were chucked aside.” 

Gebbers Farms expressed sorrow about the men’s deaths, and in a written statement said it’s  reviewing options to appeal the fine. “We strongly disagree with the [state labor] agency’s assessment,” the company said. “Gebbers Farms collaborated with an infectious disease specialist early in the pandemic to develop a group-shelter program that put employees’ health, safety and well-being first.” 

In an interview, Gebbers Farms spokeswoman Amy Philpott said she couldn’t speak specifically to Marcia Edwards’ allegations. “We did have people checking in on employees who were there [in isolation] on a daily basis, providing them food, providing them water and getting them medical care,” she said. 

Attorney Corrie Yackulic, who represents Marcia Edwards, said: “The farmworker visa program is the closest thing we have to indentured servitude in this country.” 

Yackulic said Washington state approved a compensation claim for Marcia Edwards. Yackulic is also handling a pending claim on behalf of Rincon’s family.

Before the workers’ deaths, the UFW and Familias Unidas Por Justicia, another labor union, filed suit against Washington state in April arguing that proposals to protect workers — such as confining sick workers to one side of a room — were “egregiously dangerous.” The unions wanted to prohibit the use of bunk beds for farmworkers, saying the beds place workers too close together. The state instead cut the number of bunk beds allowed in a room. 

In Santa Barbara County, California, migrant worker Leo Begario Chavez-Alvarado, 51, who drove H-2A workers and bunked with them, died after he and infected co-workers were moved into a hotel to quarantine.

Santa Barbara County Public Health Director Van Do-Reynoso said she realized her department had no idea where much of the area’s H-2A housing was, which complicated contact tracing. She pushed for a public health order in September requiring daily screenings for COVID-19 symptoms in all H-2A housing. Employers can make use of Housing for the Harvest, Do-Reynoso said, a state program that provides farmworkers, including H-2A workers, with free quarantine housing and treatment. 

Warning not to retaliate

The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services has issued “interim guidance” for farm employers with 10 pages of steps to prepare for H-2A workers’ arrival. Farmworkers are a “uniquely vulnerable population,” the advisory warns, whose exposure to pesticides and fungi in crops “might place them at higher risk of severe illness due to COVID-19.”

The guidance reflects lessons learned from tragedy: Prepare written safety plans and supplies. Quarantine new arrivals for 14 days to keep them away from workers already on the ground. Stop using bunk beds and space beds at least six feet apart. Prepare “additional housing” options with separate kitchens and bathrooms for infected workers. Look into a federally supported program that can provide hotel rooms and possibly food to workers who must isolate. 

“Identify the nearest healthcare facility that provides free or low-cost care to uninsured people,” the advisory also says. And in a gentle admonishment, the notice advises employers to encourage workers to speak up and assure them “they will not face retaliation for reporting COVID-19 symptoms, seeking testing, seeking care, or bringing an unsafe living or working condition to your attention.”

Garzon, of the Episcopal Farmworker Ministry, worries how the state will fare when a new season starts. Will growers follow the guidance?

“Are we going to be ready for next year?” she said. “Workers start coming in March.”

Update: Dec. 29, 11:45 a.m.: A federal judge in Fresno, California, has issued a preliminary injunction blocking U.S. officials from freezing H-2A workers’ wages. U.S. District Court Judge Dale Drozd’s December 23 injunction will remain in place at least into February 2021. Drozd said labor officials failed to properly seek public input and study whether a new rule and a freeze on H-2A wages would depress all farmworker wages.  

The post Hidden hardship: Guest farmworkers with visas died of COVID-19 in obscurity while Trump planned wage freezes appeared first on Center for Public Integrity.

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This article was published in partnership with Mother Jones.

He was a poultry worker and a Mexican immigrant. But those details weren’t documented when Rodolfo Tinoco became one of more than 204,000 who’ve died so far from COVID-19 in the United States.

Tinoco died May 12 at 63, after a month-long struggle in Gainesville, Georgia, a rural northeastern community in Hall County that calls itself the “Poultry Capital of the World.”

Georgia health officials argue it’s hard to know how Tinoco contracted the coronavirus. Tinoco’s family in Mexico says that the Hall County doctor who cared for Rodolfo said he probably was exposed at the Pilgrim’s Pride chicken-processing plant in Gainesville, where Tinoco worked for many years.

“The doctor said other workers had the virus, too,” said Rodolfo’s brother, Gerardo, reached in Zitácuaro, Mexico. 

From public records, though, it’s hard to know that Rodolfo even worked in a poultry plant or that he died of COVID-19. His brief local obituary lists no job, place of birth or cause of death. Pilgrim’s Pride declined to confirm or deny he was an employee. And Georgia’s official  COVID-19 website estimates only total cases and virus deaths suffered by Latinos statewide. The ethnicity of individuals who’ve died in each county isn’t disclosed — only victims’ ages, if they had a pre-existing condition and whether their race was white, African-American, Asian, unknown or other. 

If a victim was Latino, as Tinoco was, it’s not noted. And that omission of ethnicity is significant. 

Immigrants, especially Latinos, are risking their health in Hall County and across the country as essential workers who grow, harvest and process food for Americans — while many of their families are blocked from the most basic COVID-19 financial support, including federal stimulus checks, other taxpayers were eligible to receive. Nationwide, research shows Latinos are among the hardest hit by COVID-19.  

A Center for Public Integrity county-by-county analysis drives home how crucial Latino immigrants are to U.S. farm and food-processing industries nationwide. The analysis was drawn from Census Bureau survey data collected by IPUMS USA at the University of Minnesota.  

Focusing on 10 industries, Public Integrity found 1.87 million workers in front-line farm and food processing jobs, 790,000 of whom are immigrants. That’s about 43%, a share that’s two-and-a-half times the percent of immigrants in the total U.S. workforce. Nearly nine in 10 of the immigrant farm and food-processing workers are Latino. In some counties, the vast majority of thousands of workers are immigrants — 70%, 80%, even more than 90%. Nationwide, one-third of the 1.87 million are noncitizens.

Hire immigrants, vote Trump

In Georgia’s Hall County, the estimated share of immigrant noncitizens is even more pronounced. Public Integrity found that 78% of nearly 6,280 front-line food-production workers are immigrants. About 72% of these workers are Latino immigrants, and about 67% are Latino non-U.S. citizens. Some noncitizens could be undocumented. Some could have green cards, which gives them legal permanent resident status. Most are employees of poultry-processing factories that help make Georgia the number one state in the country for production of chicken.

The Pew Research Center estimates that 65% of the immigrant population in the Gainesville metropolitan area is undocumented. That’s the highest proportion in any metro area in the United States.

Gainesville and Hall County’s reliance on immigrant workers stands in contrast to its political preferences. The town has a population of 43,232 and is 42% Latino. Hall County’s population of 204,441 is 29% Latino. But 73% of Hall County voters in 2016 supported President Donald Trump, who has called for the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants and the curtailing of legal immigration that the U.S. food industry relies on.

Gainesville Mayor Danny Dunagan, who owns a dry cleaning business, is among those who supported Trump. “I’m not a socialist, and that’s what Democrats are going toward,” he said. He claimed that Trump’s not against immigrants: “He just wants them to come legally.”

Arturo Adame, a 29-year-old Latino, grew up in Hall County and many of his older family members were poultry workers. 

He’s concerned about workers’ safety and has volunteered to pass out masks to employees as they come and go from plants that run round the clock. He’s disturbed at what he perceives is hypocritical support for Trump while the community profits from immigrant labor. 

“We have chicken festivals, and chicken statues in town,” Adame said. “But when it comes to immigration, they just put their heads under the covers.”

Hall County resident Maria Del Rosario Palacios, 30, believes Trump played on racism — and Americans’ unfamiliarity with the immigration system — to win support in 2016, even in communities that depend heavily on immigrant labor. 

Once undocumented herself, Palacios told Public Integrity about Tinoco’s death. She said she feels that he died in obscurity and unfairly, after laboring in an industry now operating under an  executive order Trump issued April 29 that forced it to stay open to keep the meat supply coming. 

Tinoco was her mother’s co-worker. For much of the summer, Palacios said, her mother has been sick with COVID-19. She’s been living on disability payments that are 60% of her salary. 

A virus hotspot

Tinoco was also undocumented until he received amnesty through a law President Ronald Reagan signed in 1986, his brother Gerardo said. Unlike the majority of Hall County immigrants, Rodolfo died an American, he said, because the amnesty enabled him to apply for U.S. citizenship.

Although Pilgrim’s Pride declined to confirm or deny Tinoco’s employment, the company sent a statement: “While we cannot know for certain how, where or when a team member has been infected given the widespread nature of the virus, each case is heartbreaking. Our sympathies go out to everyone who has been impacted by this common enemy we all face.” 

The Northeast Georgia Health System, in which Tinoco was treated, also sent a statement in response to what Gerardo Tinoco said about how his brother contracted the virus. “Unfortunately, our physicians cannot prove whether Mr. Tinoco was exposed to the virus during a trip to the grocery store, while pumping gas, when working or elsewhere,” wrote infections specialist Sandy Bozarth.   

Since Tinoco’s death, Hall County has steadily remained a virus hot spot in Georgia, with Latinos disproportionately affected, according to local tracking the county submits to the state.   Latinos who are mostly of Mexican origin represent 29% of county residents but have often accounted for half of COVID-19 cases. By Sept. 25, with cases still spiking, Latinos accounted for at least 34% of at least 9,147 virus cases. The ethnicity of 23% of the people known to have COVID-19 in the county is “unknown,” records at that time show.

Pressed for information on the ethnicity of Hall County residents who’ve died, county officials provided Public Integrity with internal lists of unnamed individuals. As of Sept. 25, at least 30 of 151 residents who’d died were Latino, according to the county. But the internal list omits individuals’ occupations and ages, making it impossible — just like state records — to track how many Latino victims were working-age people, and who possibly could have been workers in poultry plants. 

On May 8, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warned that workers at meatpacking plants had died and that plants are vectors for the coronavirus. The agency urged plants to take “prompt action” to reduce risk by requiring protective gear for workers and instituting distancing measures. 

Mike Giles, president of the Gainesville-based Georgia Poultry Federation, an industry group, declined an interview. But in an email he said that poultry plants have instituted CDC-recommended safety measures, including taking workers’ temperatures, disinfecting work surfaces, requiring masks and face shields, installing partitions between workers and implementing stay-at-home policies for those who are sick. He provided a link to another industry group, the National Chicken Council, for details.  

“I do not have access to each company’s policy,” Giles wrote, “but paid sick leave and relaxing of sick leave policies have been common practices in the industry during the response.”

The backbone of an industry

The essential workers identified in Public Integrity’s analysis of the food industry produce, process and transport crops and meat, dairy products and baked goods, and keep equipment working. Their work increases risk of virus exposure because they’re in close contact with one another at worksites and in transit. With some exceptions — such as farms that plowed under spring crops because restaurants shut down — many worksites remained open or reopened early in the pandemic while other businesses were shutting down to stop the spread of COVID-19.

About 37% of the 790,000 workers identified as immigrants nationwide are in California, the nation’s biggest supplier of fruits, vegetables and dairy products. Florida, Washington state and Arizona also have large shares. Latino immigrants are also the backbone of food-production businesses throughout the United States — including many counties that, like Hall County, voted heavily in 2016 for Trump. 

In the chicken-processing center of Marshall County, Alabama, for example, out of an estimated 2,060 food-production workers, the biggest concentration in Alabama, 51% are immigrants — with 75% of 614 poultry butchers who are non-U.S. citizens mostly of Latino descent.

Trump vowed not only to deport undocumented Mexican workers during his campaign, he also vowed to slash legal immigration, attacking mostly Latino and Asian newcomers as  “low-skilled” and a fiscal burden on Americans. Many legal immigrants eligible for sponsorship by relatives have historically been willing to go into these grueling farm and processing jobs or other lower-wage jobs as they begin a new life.  

The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates roughly half of farmworkers nationally are undocumented residents of U.S. communities.  

“If you’re so against undocumented immigrants, then just stop eating 50% of what’s on your plate, right now,” said Erik Nicholson, who was a national vice president of the California-based United Farm Workers union (UFW) until he resigned last month to become a consultant.   

Giles of the Georgia Poultry Federation said that in the past, the federation had supported immigration reform proposals that would have legalized longtime undocumented workers. Labor unions also support legalization. 

But for 20 years, Congress failed to reform immigration laws, and employers continued to hire undocumented workers. During the Trump presidency, the poultry federation has gone largely silent on the topic, as Trump solidified a fervent “no amnesty” GOP position. 

“We need them for the economy,” said Dunagan, Gainesville’s mayor.

But outside of a few temporary visas for seasonal specialty work only — to shell crabs, for example — the United States doesn’t grant visas to work in meatpacking, or to milk cows on dairies or perform year-round farm work, even if businesses prove domestic labor shortages. 

There’s also no line for undocumented people in Hall County or anywhere else to legalize their status unless they have a family sponsor, who, in most cases, would have to be an American spouse or sibling. And even if they do have such a sponsor, if they dare come forward to try to petition to legalize, they’re at risk of mandatory exile from the United States for a minimum of 10 years as punishment for being undocumented. 

Dunagan, like many Americans, said he was unaware of visa limits, or that Trump wants to slash family-sponsored immigration, eliminating that opportunity for parents and siblings of naturalized citizens. Dunagan said he’s not opposed to “idiots” in Washington figuring out how to legalize people whom industries need.

“But I don’t get into it that much, because there’s not much I can do about it,” he said.

Excluded from COVID-19 stimulus

Because of mostly Republican resistance in Congress, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act passed in March excluded millions of undocumented workers in all industries, including food production, from COVID-19 stimulus checks. To cut out undocumented workers, the legislation excluded workers who file taxes using an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN), as undocumented workers often do. 

If an undocumented worker files taxes jointly with U.S. citizen or legal resident spouse, whole “mixed-status” families, including U.S. citizen children, are also excluded.  

Local emergency cash programs to prevent evictions or utilities from being shut off  — which have received COVID-19 federal relief money — are almost always off-limits to the undocumented, who don’t qualify for unemployment, either. 

Advocates for immigrant workers urge extending COVID-19 cash relief to essential workers, regardless of immigration status and workers’ use of ITINs to file taxes. 

In May, Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives addressed this exclusion of undocumented workers and “mixed-status” families in the Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions (HEROES) Act. The proposal would widen eligibility to workers using ITINs to file taxes and would also shield essential workers from deportation during the pandemic. But the bill went nowhere in the Republican-controlled Senate. 

Nicholson, who served 18 years with the UFW, pointed out that Congress and Trump gave specific bailouts for agribusiness employers who suffered virus-related crop losses, but didn’t obligate them to share funds with farmworkers. “Out of $9.5 billion in bailouts, to our dismay, not a single line item was there to protect farmworkers,” Nicholson said, referring to a provision to aid crop producers in the CARES Act.

Public Integrity spoke with two undocumented poultry workers in Hall County who both have spouses and children, and who were sick with COVID-19 for weeks in late spring. At times they were so ill they sought medical treatment, even though they don’t have health insurance. Once they recovered, neither were fully reimbursed for the workdays they lost. 

Another undocumented poultry worker in Gainesville was sick in a local hospital while the worker’s spouse and children were left to rely on donations and support from others in the Latino community, the worker’s family told Public Integrity. 

Latino-led civic groups in Hall County and other communities around the country are organizing food drives so immigrant families suffering income loss at least have food.

For Palacios, the virus has exposed systemic inequality in Hall County that predates the pandemic. She was a poultry worker as a younger woman and recalled a time when immigrant workers objected to conditions at a plant where she worked, only to be rebuffed by managers.

“Y’all got cousins out there who will take your jobs,” she said a manager told them.

A Georgia state law requires businesses with 10 or more workers to screen applicants with E-Verify, a computer system designed to flag fraudulent work authorization documents. But workers and businesses find ways around the system, immigrants say. 

Farmworkers vulnerable, too

In April, when Trump ordered meat-packing companies to stay open, his executive order also authorized Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue to require crop and food producers to continue operating should the administration decide it necessary. 

Non-citizen immigrants dominate crop production even more than in meatpacking, Public Integrity’s data analysis shows. 

Monterey County, California, known as the “Salad Bowl of the World,” produces more than $4 billion worth of crops a year, including 28% of the nation’s strawberries and more than half of U.S. lettuce. Public Integrity found that 88% of nearly 26,240 Monterey County crop and food-processing workers, including some who process seafood, are immigrants, 83% of them non-U.S. citizens. 

A Monterey County immigrant farmworker — whose identity Public Integrity is not disclosing to protect her family — shares struggles similar to those of meatpackers in Hall County, Georgia. Originally from Mexico, the woman and her three children didn’t receive a stimulus check, even though she pays taxes and has been a farmworker here for 20 years. 

“I’m in a mixed-status family, so I didn’t qualify, which is unjust,” she said. 

Now 37, she obtained legal status through a visa program for crime victims who cooperate with law enforcement. But her tax-paying husband remains undocumented. 

This summer, she’s harvesting strawberries from 6:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., five days a week. Her husband lost work for some weeks when the pandemic hit, enough to force the couple to have to borrow money to pay bills. “It’s all so much that I began to feel dizzy,” the farmworker said. “A doctor told me it’s vertigo from stress.”

Compared to other regions, Monterey’s local Latino-led health services are more supportive of workers, and the county stands out for its tracking of virus infections by occupation. At times, farmworkers have accounted for almost 40% of virus cases, although they’re 18% of the county’s labor force.

Since April, Monterey has promoted safety guidelines and limits on how many farmworkers can travel together on buses to reach work sites. It’s also set up shelters so infected workers can quarantine alone and avoid exposing families. 

On June 11, the CDC and the U.S. Department of Labor published similar infection-control guidance for farm employers nationwide. Advocates warned of farmworkers’ vulnerability and appealed to administration officials to mandate safety measures. The Department of Labor rejected the appeals.   

Since spring, virus outbreaks have erupted at farm worksites in New Jersey, North Carolina and California. Workers in Yakima County, Washington, went on strike in May to demand safer conditions in sheds where they pack the nation’s biggest supply of apples and sweet cherries. David Cruz, one of the workers striking, fell ill and was intubated for 18 days before he died. The virus is still affecting Latinos in Yakima at a far higher rate than white non-Latinos.

In New York state, an undocumented dairy worker became Cayuga County’s first virus-related fatality in April. Volunteers had to raise money to send his ashes home to Guatemala. 

Nationwide, infections and deaths of farmworkers could be underreported because of language barriers and workers fear they’ll lose income if they have to quarantine, according to COVID-19 health researchers and the National Center for Farmworker Health.

In Santa Barbara County, California, health officials discovered in late July they’d been accidently undercounting COVID-19 deaths; out of 28 deaths that hadn’t been acknowledged, 10 victims were agricultural workers. 

And in Michigan in August, employers sued to block an Aug. 3 state public health order requiring employers of 20 or more farmworkers to test them for the virus. Officials had already identified 21 outbreaks at worksites. Employers argued the order targeted Latino workers and thus violated their civil rights. A federal judge on Aug. 14 declined to block the order. 

Public Integrity found that more than a quarter of front-line food-production workers in Michigan are immigrants. Among Florida’s much bigger population of food-production workers, 61% of about 67,830 workers are immigrants. 

An undocumented farmworker from Mexico, who’s labored in Florida for 14 years and asked for anonymity, cares for orange groves in Highlands County for $10 an hour. Her husband’s hours in the field were slashed this spring when the pandemic shut down Florida tourism and demand for vegetables shrank. The family depends on donations that affluent Latinos have provided to increasingly destitute immigrant workers.

“This sickness is going to last,” the farmworker said.

Overlooking deaths?

Two days after Trump issued his executive order forcing food plants to re-open, the CDC issued its first report on COVID-19 among meat and poultry workers, with data submitted by fewer than half of the states. At least 20 workers had died by the end of April, and at least 4,913 had been infected in those states. 

Four workers had perished in Delaware’s rural Sussex County, where Public Integrity found that immigrants comprise 88% of nearly 420 jobs as poultry butchers and 67% of 740 meat packagers. Delaware health officials declined to say if or how many of the dead were immigrants, arguing that disclosing that information could violate families’ privacy. The Washington Post reported on the death of one worker who was a Mexican immigrant.  

A CDC update issued July 7 painted an ever darker picture. Data from 28 states indicated at least 16,233 processing workers had COVID-19 and 86 had died by May 31. According to the July CDC report, Georgia reported 509 poultry workers had been infected at 14 plants and one had died as of May 31.  

In fact, by early April, four workers had succumbed to the virus at a Tyson’s Foods plant in Camilla, in southern Georgia. Three were Black women who were union workers. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported in May that two Latino men in their 60s had also died. The Latino men worked at a Fieldale Farms poultry plant in Habersham County, adjacent to Hall County.

Counting Rodolfo Tinoco’s unrecognized death in Hall County, at least seven poultry workers had died of the coronavirus in Georgia by the end of May.

Nancy Nydam, a Georgia Department of Health spokeswoman, said data reported to the CDC was accurate based on information the state had at the time. She also said Georgia health officials believe community spread — not workplace exposure — is the root of most virus cases.

“A death or infection in a poultry plant worker,” Nydam wrote, “is not likely attributed to an exposure in plant setting.”

A federal Occupational Health and Safety Administration spokesperson told Public Integrity that as of Sept. 2, only four Georgia poultry worker COVID-9 deaths had been reported to OSHA, none from Hall County. 

Because government officials are failing to track cases systematically, the nonprofit Food & Environment Reporting Network is mapping accounts of COVID-19 infections and deaths of food-processing laborers and farmworkers. Based on news accounts and what data it can find, as of Sept. 15 the group has found at least 252 deaths and 59,079 virus cases nationwide.

In Mexico, Rodolfo Tinoco’s family is still mourning his passing. Rodolfo had remained close to family in Mexico, his brother Gerardo said. And as he lay weak in the hospital, Rodolfo would react when family would speak to him via Zoom. “Doctors said his heartbeat would change,” Gerardo said. 

The family is now coping with more anguish. A cousin of the Tinocos — who is also a poultry worker — fell ill in Gainesville in August with COVID-19, Gerardo said. He died Sept. 10 in the same hospital where Rodolfo passed away in May.

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