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Cast light, not shadow
Palm Beach Post Editorial

Sunday, May 14, 2006

FEMA has done a terrible job responding to the needs of U.S. citizens, so there's little surprise that the agency does even worse when it comes to immigrants.

The Farmworker Association of Florida has filed a civil rights complaint on behalf of at least 200 workers in the Glades, most of them Hispanics who spoke little English. The complaint charges that the Federal Emergency Management Agency has ignored their requests for help since Hurricane Wilma. According to Florida Legal Services lawyers, FEMA provided no translators, was lackadaisical when inspecting damaged trailers and homes, and was rude to residents.

Many families are still trying to live under leaking roofs and inside moldy walls. In February, the farmworkers group sued FEMA, alleging that it didn't give illegal immigrants the short-term, non-cash emergency help they were due.

Immigrant farmworkers drive Florida's large agriculture industry and the even larger tourism industry. U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez spoke recently in Orlando at a convention of travel leaders and said the industry had to be more vocal in supporting federal legislation that would put qualifying illegal immigrants on a path to legal residency, then perhaps citizenship. He called it the "most important domestic issue of our time."

The country can't continue to ignore a shadow population of 12 million that contributes so much to the U.S. economy. FEMA's actions show what a hypocritical immigration policy does to people every day.