If you have eaten a tomato this winter, chances are very good that it was picked by a person who lives in virtual slavery.
March 2009, Gourmet.com: Driving from Naples, Florida, the nation’s second-wealthiest metropolitan area, to Immokalee takes less than an hour on a straight road. You pass houses that sell for an average of $1.4 million, shopping malls anchored by Tiffany’s and Saks Fifth Avenue, manicured golf courses. Eventually, gated communities with names like Monaco Beach Club and Imperial Golf Estates give way to modest ranches, and the highway shrivels from six lanes to two. Through the scruffy palmettos, you glimpse flat, sandy tomato fields shimmering in the broiling sun. Rounding a long curve, you enter Immokalee. The heart of town is a nine-block grid of dusty, potholed streets lined by boarded-up bars and bodegas, peeling shacks, and sagging, mildew-streaked house trailers. Mongrel dogs snooze in the shade, scrawny chickens peck in yards. Just off the main drag, vultures squabble over roadkill. Immokalee’s population is 70 percent Latino. Per capita income is only $8,500 a year. One third of the families in this city of nearly 25,000 live below the poverty line. Over one third of the children drop out before graduating from high school.
Immokalee is the tomato capital of the United States. Between December and May, as much as 90 percent of the fresh domestic tomatoes we eat come from south Florida, and Immokalee is home to one of the area’s largest communities of farmworkers. According to Douglas Molloy, the chief assistant U.S. attorney based in Fort Myers, Immokalee has another claim to fame: It is “ground zero for modern slavery.” Read the rest of Politics of the Plate.
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Showing posts with label Immigrants. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Immigrants. Show all posts
Saturday, February 28, 2009
4th most illegal migrants in US from RP
Filipinos make up the fourth largest group of unauthorized migrants in the United States as of January 2008, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a report released Tuesday.
MANILA, Philippines -- Filipinos make up the fourth largest group of unauthorized migrants in the United States as of January 2008, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a report released Tuesday.
Of the 11.6 million unauthorized migrants believed to still be in the US, the DHS said Mexicans comprised the most, with 7.03 million.
After Mexico came El Salvador (570,000), Guatemala (430,000), the Philippines and Honduras (300,000), Korea (240,000), China (220,000), Brazil (180,000), Ecuador (170,000), and India (160,000).
“The ten leading countries of origin represented 83 percent of the unauthorized immigrant population for 2008,” the report said.
North America, including Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central America, accounted for 8.8 million of 11.6 million unauthorized migrants in the US until last year. Asia follows with 1.2 million, and South America with 850,000.
The DHS also tracked where most of these illegal migrants are, with California hosting the most, with 2.85 million.
By Veronica Uy, INQUIRER.net. Posted date: February 24, 2009. Read more at http://globalnation.inquirer.net/news/breakingnews/view/20090224-190773/4th-most-illegal-migrants-in-US-from-R
>>Read more
MANILA, Philippines -- Filipinos make up the fourth largest group of unauthorized migrants in the United States as of January 2008, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a report released Tuesday.
Of the 11.6 million unauthorized migrants believed to still be in the US, the DHS said Mexicans comprised the most, with 7.03 million.
After Mexico came El Salvador (570,000), Guatemala (430,000), the Philippines and Honduras (300,000), Korea (240,000), China (220,000), Brazil (180,000), Ecuador (170,000), and India (160,000).
“The ten leading countries of origin represented 83 percent of the unauthorized immigrant population for 2008,” the report said.
North America, including Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central America, accounted for 8.8 million of 11.6 million unauthorized migrants in the US until last year. Asia follows with 1.2 million, and South America with 850,000.
The DHS also tracked where most of these illegal migrants are, with California hosting the most, with 2.85 million.
By Veronica Uy, INQUIRER.net. Posted date: February 24, 2009. Read more at http://globalnation.inquirer.net/news/breakingnews/view/20090224-190773/4th-most-illegal-migrants-in-US-from-R
>>Read more
Access Denied
Countless women are sexually assaulted as they attempt to immigrate into the United States. What happens to their reproductive rights when they wind up in U.S. custody?
When sexual-assault counselor Elia Alvarado first met Maria in 2007, Maria was wearing a blue prison uniform, sitting in a doctor’s office at the Port Isabel Detention Center. She was in her early 30s, but looked haggard, Alvarado recalls, older than her age. Two months and more than 1,500 miles after leaving Honduras, she had been detained at the border and taken to the immigration holding facility north of Brownsville.
Maria, a single mother, had left her 8-year-old daughter at home, she told Alvarado, and paid a man to take her to the border. Her ultimate destination, she said, was the Northeast, where a friend had promised to find her work as a housekeeper. “I went to send money home for my daughter,” she told Alvarado in a subsequent counseling session. “This was how I planned to support my family.”
Maria and several other Hondurans were guided on a journey by car and train, she said. At night, they stayed in ramshackle homes, sleeping on crowded floors. One of those nights, just before she reached the border, she said that a man grabbed her near an abandoned shack where the immigrants were staying. He forced himself on her, leaving Maria defenseless, the only witness to the violent act. Afterward, Maria blamed herself. She wondered if this was what she deserved for leaving her daughter. Read on at http://www.texasobserver.org/article.php?aid=2963. By Kevin Sieff | February 20, 2009 | The Texas Observer. >>Read more
When sexual-assault counselor Elia Alvarado first met Maria in 2007, Maria was wearing a blue prison uniform, sitting in a doctor’s office at the Port Isabel Detention Center. She was in her early 30s, but looked haggard, Alvarado recalls, older than her age. Two months and more than 1,500 miles after leaving Honduras, she had been detained at the border and taken to the immigration holding facility north of Brownsville.
Maria, a single mother, had left her 8-year-old daughter at home, she told Alvarado, and paid a man to take her to the border. Her ultimate destination, she said, was the Northeast, where a friend had promised to find her work as a housekeeper. “I went to send money home for my daughter,” she told Alvarado in a subsequent counseling session. “This was how I planned to support my family.”
Maria and several other Hondurans were guided on a journey by car and train, she said. At night, they stayed in ramshackle homes, sleeping on crowded floors. One of those nights, just before she reached the border, she said that a man grabbed her near an abandoned shack where the immigrants were staying. He forced himself on her, leaving Maria defenseless, the only witness to the violent act. Afterward, Maria blamed herself. She wondered if this was what she deserved for leaving her daughter. Read on at http://www.texasobserver.org/article.php?aid=2963. By Kevin Sieff | February 20, 2009 | The Texas Observer. >>Read more
Monday, February 16, 2009
5 found guilty of forcing women into prostitution in L.A.
5 found guilty of forcing women into prostitution in L.A. The illegal immigrants were convicted of a plot to lure poor young Guatemalans to the U.S. with the promise of legitimate jobs.
Feb. 12, 2009, L.A. Times: A federal court jury on Wednesday convicted five people in connection with a plot to lure impoverished young women from Guatemala to the United States with the promise of legitimate jobs, only to then force them into prostitution to repay their supposed debts for being smuggled into the country.
All five defendants are illegal immigrants themselves, four of them women from Guatemala who also worked as prostitutes.
As the verdicts were read, the five defendants sat expressionless, as they did through much of the monthlong trial before U.S. District Judge Margaret M. Morrow. Each of the five faces a potential life sentence, according to the U.S. attorney's office.
The case presented by prosecutors relied heavily on the testimony of 10 young women who said they were forced to work as prostitutes and turn over their pay to the defendants.
Only one woman said she knew she was going to work in the sex trade before arriving in Los Angeles. The others said they were expecting to work as baby sitters, housekeepers, waitresses or in other jobs in which they hoped to earn up to $10 an hour, far more than they could in Guatemala.
Only after they arrived in the U.S., the young women testified, were they told the truth about what they would be doing.
"These defendants exploited their hopes for a better life in the United States," Assistant U.S. Atty. Cheryl Murphy told jurors shortly before they were given the case last week.
After five days of deliberations, the panel convicted all five defendants of the most serious charge they were facing: sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion. The defendants were also convicted of conspiracy and importing and harboring illegal immigrants for the purpose of prostitution.
In often tearful testimony during the trial, the victims described having sex with up to 30 men a day. Several testified that they were forced to work while ill or menstruating, or both.
The victims said they were almost always watched by the defendants and were beaten and threatened with violence, even witchcraft, to keep them from trying to escape.
A girl identified as Esperanza, who was allegedly 17 when she arrived in the U.S. in 2005, said she was told her legs would be cut off and her entire family killed if she tried to escape. Another girl, identified as Rosaura, sobbed throughout her testimony and told jurors that defendant Gladys Vasquez Valenzuela threatened to throw acid on her face if she ever tried to leave.
After Wednesday's verdict, two of the five women on the jury said they were too upset to discuss their deliberations. Another, a 52-year-old grandmother from Altadena who asked that her name not be used, said: "It was nauseating, difficult to listen to."
At trial, prosecutors argued that five of the young women were under 18 when they arrived in the U.S. One had never left her rural village before making the dangerous trek north in the company of human smugglers. Two others continued to dress in costumes for Halloween and decorate their bedroom with stuffed animals, even after they had been taught to dress like hookers and were shown how to use condoms.
But jurors said prosecutors failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the young women were underage.
"Not that they didn't look young -- they did," said Daniel Williams, a 59-year-old Exxon Mobil employee from Hawthorne. "But they didn't have proof."
The main defendant in the case was Valenzuela. According to prosecutors, Valenzuela, her sister, Mirna, and two of their nieces came to Los Angeles years ago and began working as prostitutes in the area around MacArthur Park. The women, along with Mirna's husband, Gabriel Mendez, then hatched the plot to force other young women from their rural Guatemalan village into the sex trade. They were arrested after a former employee helped some of the women escape and began cooperating with the FBI.
During the trial, defense attorneys sought to portray the young women as lying opportunists who had agreed to work as prostitutes before they left Guatemala.
They pointed to inconsistencies between their courtroom testimony and statements the women made when they were initially interviewed by FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents more than two years ago.
They also told jurors the women had motive to lie because if they were victims in the case as opposed to defendants it would help them secure legal residency in this country.
Though the women may have appeared weepy and vulnerable on the witnesses stand, they were in fact "seasoned liars" who came into court "ready, willing and able to lie," attorney Jeff Price told jurors during his closing arguments.
Dana Cephas, another defense attorney, suggested during his closing that the women may have willingly turned to prostitution to escape the poverty and despair of their lives in Guatemala.
This drew a stinging retort from Murphy, who prosecuted the case with Assistant U.S. Attys. Curtis Kin and Anthony Lewis.
"It's better to be a whore in the United States than it is to be poor in Guatemala," the prosecutor said rhetorically as she addressed the panel before they began deliberations.
"That is an insult not only to the whole nation of Guatemala," she said, "but to all of the women in this case."
From http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-sextraffic12-2009feb12,0,1663774.story
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Feb. 12, 2009, L.A. Times: A federal court jury on Wednesday convicted five people in connection with a plot to lure impoverished young women from Guatemala to the United States with the promise of legitimate jobs, only to then force them into prostitution to repay their supposed debts for being smuggled into the country.
All five defendants are illegal immigrants themselves, four of them women from Guatemala who also worked as prostitutes.
As the verdicts were read, the five defendants sat expressionless, as they did through much of the monthlong trial before U.S. District Judge Margaret M. Morrow. Each of the five faces a potential life sentence, according to the U.S. attorney's office.
The case presented by prosecutors relied heavily on the testimony of 10 young women who said they were forced to work as prostitutes and turn over their pay to the defendants.
Only one woman said she knew she was going to work in the sex trade before arriving in Los Angeles. The others said they were expecting to work as baby sitters, housekeepers, waitresses or in other jobs in which they hoped to earn up to $10 an hour, far more than they could in Guatemala.
Only after they arrived in the U.S., the young women testified, were they told the truth about what they would be doing.
"These defendants exploited their hopes for a better life in the United States," Assistant U.S. Atty. Cheryl Murphy told jurors shortly before they were given the case last week.
After five days of deliberations, the panel convicted all five defendants of the most serious charge they were facing: sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion. The defendants were also convicted of conspiracy and importing and harboring illegal immigrants for the purpose of prostitution.
In often tearful testimony during the trial, the victims described having sex with up to 30 men a day. Several testified that they were forced to work while ill or menstruating, or both.
The victims said they were almost always watched by the defendants and were beaten and threatened with violence, even witchcraft, to keep them from trying to escape.
A girl identified as Esperanza, who was allegedly 17 when she arrived in the U.S. in 2005, said she was told her legs would be cut off and her entire family killed if she tried to escape. Another girl, identified as Rosaura, sobbed throughout her testimony and told jurors that defendant Gladys Vasquez Valenzuela threatened to throw acid on her face if she ever tried to leave.
After Wednesday's verdict, two of the five women on the jury said they were too upset to discuss their deliberations. Another, a 52-year-old grandmother from Altadena who asked that her name not be used, said: "It was nauseating, difficult to listen to."
At trial, prosecutors argued that five of the young women were under 18 when they arrived in the U.S. One had never left her rural village before making the dangerous trek north in the company of human smugglers. Two others continued to dress in costumes for Halloween and decorate their bedroom with stuffed animals, even after they had been taught to dress like hookers and were shown how to use condoms.
But jurors said prosecutors failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the young women were underage.
"Not that they didn't look young -- they did," said Daniel Williams, a 59-year-old Exxon Mobil employee from Hawthorne. "But they didn't have proof."
The main defendant in the case was Valenzuela. According to prosecutors, Valenzuela, her sister, Mirna, and two of their nieces came to Los Angeles years ago and began working as prostitutes in the area around MacArthur Park. The women, along with Mirna's husband, Gabriel Mendez, then hatched the plot to force other young women from their rural Guatemalan village into the sex trade. They were arrested after a former employee helped some of the women escape and began cooperating with the FBI.
During the trial, defense attorneys sought to portray the young women as lying opportunists who had agreed to work as prostitutes before they left Guatemala.
They pointed to inconsistencies between their courtroom testimony and statements the women made when they were initially interviewed by FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents more than two years ago.
They also told jurors the women had motive to lie because if they were victims in the case as opposed to defendants it would help them secure legal residency in this country.
Though the women may have appeared weepy and vulnerable on the witnesses stand, they were in fact "seasoned liars" who came into court "ready, willing and able to lie," attorney Jeff Price told jurors during his closing arguments.
Dana Cephas, another defense attorney, suggested during his closing that the women may have willingly turned to prostitution to escape the poverty and despair of their lives in Guatemala.
This drew a stinging retort from Murphy, who prosecuted the case with Assistant U.S. Attys. Curtis Kin and Anthony Lewis.
"It's better to be a whore in the United States than it is to be poor in Guatemala," the prosecutor said rhetorically as she addressed the panel before they began deliberations.
"That is an insult not only to the whole nation of Guatemala," she said, "but to all of the women in this case."
From http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-sextraffic12-2009feb12,0,1663774.story
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