Thread: Two freed sweatshop slaves become citizens

Aug 14, 1:22 PM EDT

Two freed sweatshop slaves become citizens

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Thirteen years after being freed from a garment factory sweatshop where they toiled behind razor wire and under guard, two former slave laborers from Thailand are now U.S. citizens.

Maliwan Clinton, 39, and Sukanya Chuai Ngan, 47, officially became Americans on Wednesday, long after state officials broke down the door of a boarded-up, cramped factory and liberated 72 captive Thai immigrant workers in the San Gabriel Valley, about 12 miles east of downtown Los Angeles.

Dozens of the former laborers, some of whom had been imprisoned for several years working 18 hours a day for less than $1 a day, are expected to become citizens this year.

"I'm American and this is my home now," Clinton told the Los Angeles Times. She married a volunteer who helped the immigrants after their release and now has two children.

The workers won a $4 million settlement in 1999 from manufacturers and retailers who did business with the garment factory.

The case marked the first time in federal court that garment workers successfully held the industry responsible for a labor contractor's exploitation.

The workers were lured from Thailand with the promise of a monthly salary of $1,000 - nearly 10 times what some of them were earning in their home country - for working from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. with weekends off.

The reality turned out to be vastly different. The immigrants were held against their will and told if they tried to escape, brutal U.S. police would shave her heads and stamp their scalps with marks of disgrace.

Officials raided the factory in August 1995. The sweatshop operators eventually pleaded guilty to conspiracy, required indentured servitude and harboring illegal immigrants.

The workers received work permits then permanent residency.

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Information from the Los Angeles Times, http://www.latimes.com


http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/ ... TE=DEFAULT

THIS HAPPENED WHERE?

AMERICA?

Of course only in Los Angeles, California!!!

Originally Posted by vmonkey56

THIS HAPPENED WHERE?

AMERICA?

San Gabriel Valley is in So. Cal. I can remember the news reports on this. It WAS awful.

Glenn Beck has been saying that some of the illegal have become slave laborers. He's right. Not all but a lot.

It comes down to greedy, unethical businesses.

You need to ask yourself, how many dirt poor third world peasants would volunteer to become slaves in the USA in order to get a green card? 100 million maybe? I wonder if the workers are partly complicit in any of this?

I think the problem with this "slave visa", it entices people to become slaves. It should be changed to a big cash settlement from the employer and a first class ticket home instead of a green card.

Originally Posted by Bowman

You need to ask yourself, how many dirt poor third world peasants would volunteer to become slaves in the USA in order to get a green card? 100 million maybe? I wonder if the workers are partly complicit in any of this?

I think the problem with this "slave visa", it entices people to become slaves. It should be changed to a big cash settlement from the employer and a first class ticket home instead of a green card.

It certainly can be fraught with fraud.

This will turn into another racket for illegals. You wait and see