Thread: Report: Hispanics face abuse, racial profiling

By FRANK FERNANDEZ
Staff Writer

Many Hispanics are facing "widespread hostility, discrimination and exploitation" in the South, according to a report released Tuesday by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Hispanic workers in the South face "rampant abuse" by bosses in the workplace and racial profiling by police on the streets, the report states. Hispanic women suffer through sexual abuse, fearful of fighting back because they might be deported, the report said.

And, while the report -- titled "Under Siege: Life for Low-Income Latinos in the South" -- did not look specifically at Florida, the problems "probably don't stop at the state border," said Mary Bauer, director of immigrant justice for the Southern Poverty Law Center, in a phone interview.

"In some of these issues, in terms of the larger picture, people being vilified and being treated as guilty and being subject to racial profiling, those are complaints that immigrant advocates hear everywhere in the country," Bauer said.


Crisanto
One of those advocates is Marcos Crisanto, coordinator of the Farmworker Association of Florida's Pierson office. Crisanto said he hears complaints about Hispanics being targeted by police and cheated by subcontractors in construction.

"We are hard-working people; we are supporting this country's economy and I think they should stop that discrimination," Crisanto said in his Pierson office.

Crisanto said he has heard complaints from Hispanics who worked construction or in roofing and then were not paid. If Hispanic workers complain about not being paid, their bosses threaten to report them to police or immigration, he said.

"People are afraid to report anything, because they are afraid the police will arrest them, deport them," Crisanto said. "There is no confidence."

He said he has heard complaints from Hispanics stopped by deputies in West Volusia in some trailer parks off State Road 11.

Pilar Valtierra, a member of the farmworker community in Pierson, has also heard complaints from Hispanics who live in trailer parks off S.R. 11 and U.S. 17 about traffic stops.

"At the moment, the biggest problem is with police and the second is that they don't pay the workers," she said.

The traffic stops often are uncalled for, she said.

"There is no reason," Valtierra said. "They will say something about the car or the license plate or the tinting is too dark. But, in the end, the ticket is only for not having a driver's license."

Volusia County sheriff's spokesman Gary Davidson wrote in an e-mail that the office doesn't target Hispanics or any other group.

"We enforce traffic laws throughout our jurisdiction in a fair and consistent manner, without regard to the ethnicity of the drivers, and we don't target trailer parks or specific areas for enforcement based on the ethnicity of the population," Davidson wrote. "Further, deputies don't stop motorists in order to run a license check."

Davidson wrote it's not a deputy's job to enforce immigration laws: "We have no interest in stopping illegal immigrants unless they are involved in a crime."

Davidson said that, generally, if a deputy learns a crime victim or witness is undocumented, no action is taken. The exception is if immigration officials have placed a hold on the person for entering the country illegally. The hold would basically be treated as an arrest warrant, Davidson wrote.

If deputies learn someone they are arresting is undocumented, they will notify the county jail for identification purposes, Davidson wrote. The jail, which is not run by the Sheriff's Office, will then notify U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to decide what to do with the person.

Davidson also said that the agency is large enough that it can usually find an on-duty deputy who speaks Spanish when needed.

DeLand Police Sgt. John Anderson said the department does not target any specific group in the diverse city, which has Hispanics from Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba and other countries and draws a variety of people to Stetson University and Skydive DeLand. Anderson added that DeLand officers don't check immigration status.

"That's not one of the things we look for," Anderson said. "We don't ask someone if they have, if you want to call them, 'papers.' We don't do that."

He said language is not a barrier for his agency.

"I'm pretty sure that on each one of our shifts we have a Spanish-speaking officer," Anderson said. "If we don't, we usually try to contact the Sheriff's Office to see if they have a Spanish-speaking deputy that can assist us."

Valtierra, the farmworker committee member, also said Hispanic construction workers have been cheated out of their wages. Sometimes they are told to come back next week to work some more and then they will be paid for what's owed as well as for the new work and they end up getting nothing, she said. The bosses don't care, she said.

"They know that a lot of them can't fight and they just wash their hands of it," Valtierra said.

Diego Handel, a Daytona Beach lawyer and expert on immigration law, agrees that the problems faced by immigrants don't stop at the state line.

"It's only logical because particularly when we are talking about the undocumented or illegal workers, they are extremely vulnerable because they are scared, obviously, to come out and complain when they are mistreated or exploited," Handel said.

frank.fernandez@news-jrnl.com

Fighting Back

Here are some recommendations contained in the Southern Poverty Law Center's report, "Under Siege: Life for Low-income Latinos in the South."

· Congress should enact legislation to undo a "perverse incentive" for employers to hire undocumented workers on the belief those exploited workers won't complain and will lack legal power.

· The Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division should do more to fight "systemic discrimination cases."

· "The U.S. Department of Labor should devote substantially more resources to enforcing worker protections."

· "The 287 (g) program, which allows local law enforcement agencies to enforce immigration laws, should be terminated because it undermines trust in law enforcement and does not make communities safer."

· "Congress should enact a federal statute to effectively prohibit racial profiling."

· Congress should provide money needed to enforce Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which requires that law enforcement agencies and others who receive federal dollars must provide services to everyone regardless of race, color or national origin. By not providing "appropriate language services," such as an interpreter, law enforcement effectively excludes people who don't speak English from police services.

Key Findings

Key findings in the Southern Poverty Law Center's report, "Under Siege: Life for Low-income Latinos in the South" include:

· Latinos complained that they're pulled over by police for "the most minor of offenses -- or no offense at all."

· Latinos were arrested and faced substantial fines on charges of driving without a license, a frequent problem for undocumented immigrants.

· Police checkpoints in predominantly Latino areas were a common complaint, particularly in rural areas of northern Alabama.

· The 287(g) program, which allows local or state police to enforce federal immigration law. No agencies in Volusia or Flagler counties are in the 287(g) program, according to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Web site.

· Distrust of police prevents Latinos from reporting crimes and makes them attractive targets for criminals.

· Hispanic women suffer high rates of sexual harassment as male supervisors threaten to report them to immigration authorities if the women don't provide sexual favors.

· Latinos encounter a language barrier in courts, hospitals and schools.

· Employers know that immigrants, even those here legally, are often poorly equipped to protect their rights, resulting in "rampant wage theft, intimidation and unsafe working conditions."

More information:
· Read the full report


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What about employers profiling Americans so they do not get a job before illegals?

What about the Political Profiling of average Americans by DHS as 'right wing extremists' and 'potential terrorists'.

Illegal aliens are just that...they are here illegally. I do not care about their complaints.

If legal immigrants believe they are being unjustly harassed because of their ethnicity or race, they could help by denouncing La Raza , LULAC et al, and assisting law enforcement to identify employers who break the law, identify illegal aliens, and use their political influence to force DHS and local government to enforce the immigration laws, and end the concept of 'Sanctuary Cities' (and states). Illegal immigration hurts us all, including those who immigrate legally.

Originally Posted by vmonkey56

What about employers profiling Americans so they do not get a job before illegals?

Jobs is the whole thing.
We Americans are fighting our own government for OUR American jobs!
I bet the assimilated REAL legal immigrants aren't having a problem.
It's the anchor-babies and prior Amnestied Hispanics that are bothered.
We will never accept an Amnestied Illegal or Anchor-Baby as an American!
We are NOT STUPID...

They can Amnesty the illegals into our country but Americans will always know that they are fake Americans and will never measure up to what it means to be an American.

"The 287 (g) program, which allows local law enforcement agencies to enforce immigration laws, should be terminated because it undermines trust in law enforcement and does not make communities safer."

Undermines trust by whom? Americans or illegals. Quite honesty, I don't give a hoot what the illegals think about American laws. I want them enforced - NOW or sooner.

Does not make communities safer for whom? It's been proven that 287g and municipal and county laws against illegals have resulted in a drop in crime. So I can only assume that while it would be safer for Americans, illegals are worried about being deported while breaking our laws. Good for us.

Originally Posted by vmonkey56

What about employers profiling Americans so they do not get a job before illegals?

yes you said it.

I thought they where hiding in the shadows?

Well, as they say, "if the shoe fits...."

Them calling it racial profiling is like arresting a Mexican in Mexico and calling it racial profiling

We need no other explanation for the stupidity....."SPLC" says it all