Thread: As locals struggle, migrants find work in New Orleans

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As locals struggle, migrants find work in New Orleans
- Eliza Barclay, Special to The Chronicle
Wednesday, October 12, 2005


New Orleans -- Two weeks ago, Geremias Lopez was picking grapes near Bakersfield, but when he saw an advertisement on Univision, the nation's largest Spanish-language television network, for work on the Gulf Coast, he and a friend called the 1-800 number flashing on the screen and were soon aboard a Greyhound bus headed east.

Lopez and the 80-some other Mexican and Honduran immigrants in his crew are now earning $100 a day covering torn and mangled roofs with blue tarps until the roofs can be re-shingled and restored to some semblance of what they looked like before Hurricane Katrina struck six weeks ago.

For New Orleans residents, most of whom have yet to return, life remains very hard, and very uncertain. But for Lopez and his migrant workmates, it's a noticeable improvement over their minimum-wage jobs as California fruit pickers or as poultry processors in Arkansas.

They and Latino immigrants from all over the United States have been flocking to the region, often working for out-of-state companies which received the initial round of cleanup contracts.

Recognizing the demand for migrant labor, and to help speed reconstruction in the areas devastated by Hurricane Katrina, the Department of Homeland Security temporarily suspended rules mandating employers to prove that workers they hire are citizens or have a legal right to work in the United States.

In addition, President Bush suspended application in the Katrina-affected region of the 1931 Davis-Bacon Act, under which employers must pay prevailing wage rates on federally financed construction projects -- in order, Bush said, to "permit the employment of thousands of additional individuals."

The Louisiana Department of Labor says it has received requests from contractors to certify 500 illegal migrants. Agency officials estimate that the actual number of illegal migrants already working for contractors is far higher, because many employers are not bothering with the paperwork.

This is adding to the unhappiness of local contractors trying to re-establish their own businesses and hire local workers, after being evacuated or otherwise losing their ability to operate for weeks.

"The local people can't participate in their own recovery," said Jack Donahue, whose Mandeville, La.-based firm Donahue Favret Contractors Inc. specializes in such construction tasks as sheetrock and flooring removal and mold remediation.

Part of the problem, Donahue said, is that local construction workers scattered during the evacuation and are just beginning to come back. Many are returning to destroyed or severely damaged homes and have discovered that the hotels in the region are full of out-of-state workers, including migrants.

"There's no room for local people in the hotels," Donahue said.

Lopez, originally from the Mexican state of Chiapas, sleeps on the floor of a dank motel room with four other migrants in Gretna, La., just across the Mississippi River from New Orleans. The motel, which lost its sign, was flooded in the storm, forcing the removal of all of the furniture, including beds. But it is packed with migrant workers.

Jose Morillo, a Honduran who came west from Arkansas, is one of the motel's residents. His first job involved removing foul-smelling refrigerators full of rotting food in Slidell, La., two weeks after the hurricane hit. "Roofing is much better than cleaning," he said. "It's also much better to be in a hotel instead of the outdoor camps where we were getting bit by mosquitoes."

Of the 80-some roofers in Lopez and Morillo's motel, few are legal residents or possess temporary work visas, according to Morillo. Rarely was their immigration status an issue in their hiring.

"We're here doing this work for the same reason we have jobs back home: We're willing to do the dirty work, and we'll work 10 or more hours a day seven days a week," said Morillo.

But Morillo and Lopez may be among the luckier ones, according to immigrant rights activists in the region.

"Many of the ... contractors are just unscrupulous, promising all unskilled workers, not just the Latinos, a place to live, food and a per diem rate to work," said Victoria Cintra of the Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance (MIRA).

But not all outside contractors are hiring illegal migrants.

Mario Vargas leads a team of asbestos removers from Phoenix, employed by PDG Environmental Inc., based in Pittsburgh. His 10 employees here, all of Mexican descent, have lived in the United States for an average of 10 years and are legal residents.

"We'll be here until January for sure," Vargas said. "We've been hired to perform a particular task of removing asbestos at a mall, but then we'll all go back to Phoenix. Still, there's tons of work for us here if we want it."

But even as local contractors like Donahue scramble to get rebuilding work, other companies who have contracts have run up against a labor shortage, particularly of workers with specialized skills.

Hispanic Connection Inc., a Baton Rouge-based agency that recruits Latino laborers from abroad through the H2B temporary visa program, has been flooded with requests for laborers since the two hurricanes hit, said director Maria Edwards.

"I've received applications from firms that wanted to hire 30 people but were only able to find one," Edwards said. "They even posted in the shelters where evacuees are housed." H2B paperwork usually takes four months so applicants will not be receiving workers until January, she added.

Some local social service agencies say the situation is likely to continue for some time because many local residents may never return, deciding instead to relocate and start new lives in new cities. For those who do want to return, few of their old jobs exist.

"There is a big disconnect between the available jobs and the jobless people," said Valerie Keller, who runs the Arcadia Outreach Center in Lafayette, La., which currently has an estimated 27,000 evacuees from both Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. "Everyone throws money at the response, or the food, clothing and shelter, but what is more difficult to provide is the recovery services like matching the jobs with people who need them."

But Morillo says he has found his match.

"I cleaned up the beaches in Pensacola (Fla.) after Hurricane Ivan, so I know that there's always lots of work after a disaster," he said. "It's good money, and I can support my family here and back home in Honduras."

Some observers have predicted that after migrants spend months in the region with a steady stream of work, and earning a relatively good wage, they'll be tempted to stay, changing the area's demographics.

"If New Orleans reaches a critical mass of migrants, it could become a destination point for new migrants," said Mark Rosenblum, a fellow at the Migration Policy Institute and a professor of political science at the University of New Orleans.

However, Rosenblum thought it unlikely because New Orleans has historically had few Latino migrants, so there are few existing social networks to which Hispanic migrants tend to gravitate.

None of the migrant roofers interviewed by the Chronicle brought their families with them to New Orleans because they said the work here would dry up eventually.

Lopez, the Bakersfield grape picker, said he didn't plan to stay in New Orleans long, much less the United States.

"I have a wife in Chiapas, and we're building a house, so I'll go back there eventually," he said. "But for now this work is better than grape picking."

For all you citizens of America who live in that region that were affected by the hurricane and are now out of work and can't find a job just remember to point the finger at the a-hole in the White House who blatantly lifted the Davis-Bacon labor protection laws that just basically made that whole entire region a defacto day laborer sanctuary zone for invaders to take your jobs at cut throat wages. Congrats Jorge, you just did to New Orleans what it took illegal aliens 40 years to do to Los Angeles. This is another reason why Bush should be impeached. This blatant in your face aiding an abetting of illegal aliens shows just how hostile Bush is to the American ideal. We now know that this crackhead will stop at nothing to surrender America over to the NWO. I told you all that this fool would use Katrina as an excuse to push his open borders agenda further down our throats. I told you that Bush was going to make it all to easy for invaders to take away the jobs that use to belong to Americans in that region and then he'll turn around and say that they are just doing the jobs that we don't want to do.

Don't let Bush get away with that rubbish. You contact your rep and senators immediately and demand that Bush be impeached. No more Mr Nice American. The gloves come off now. Time to throw this phony out of the White House now before he does more unrepairable damage to our once great nation.

IMPEACH JORGE BUSH!!! I can't stress that enough.