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How are immigrant workers treated differently?... Is it just?
Hundreds of thousands of immigrants work in Washington State. These workers pick our food, clean our bathrooms, and perform often the most unsafe, dirty, and underpaid jobs in our local economy. Immigrant workers paying taxes in the U.S. want the rights to apply for citizenship, reunify their families, and have a voice on the job without regard to legal status ... rights denied by their undocumented status. Does the road to citizenship need a new map?
In 2003, in our state, immigrant workers have been at the forefront of some of the most public and confrontational struggles to defend civil and workplace rights. On Thursday, September 11 Washington State JwJ held a WRB hearing at the Rainier Community center in Seattle. Organized as a kick off event to the Immigrant Worker Freedom Ride, the WRB hearing gave immigrant workers a chance to tell their stories to a crowd of 150 people. Workers testified about employer orchestrated INS raids, organized crime rings of immigrant smuggling, 9/11 related racist and religious harassment and discrimination, and selective enforcement of immigration laws to thwart workplace organizing.
Maria Fuentes, a janitor who lost her job after trying to organize in her workplace, gave testimony about how her employers used Social Security no-match letters as an excuse to fire her. Ahmed Noor, a Somali refugee, testified about being fired from his job at AT&T (now Comcast Broadband) because of his illegal detention by the US government for 19 days. The government tried to illegally deport him and the company accused him of abandoning his job, even denying his unemployment benefits. A painter who should have been there to testify could not because he was deported. His lawyer, Betsy Rodriguez-Silva spoke for him. A Mexican immigrant, he was put on a job where he worried about the unsafe working conditions. When he complained he was told that if he complained he would lose his job. Then the inevitable happened, he had an accident and fell off his unsafe scaffold. He went into a coma, when he came out he put in a claim with the board of labor and industries. Two days after filing, he was deported.
The attack on immigrant workers continues even after people become U.S. citizens.  Surjit Dhat is an American citizen of 34 years, who served with the US Navy in 2 tours in Vietnam and wanted to continue to serve his country. He was an airport screener at SeaTac airport who got fired from his job, along with 800 others when Bush federalized the workforce, subjecting them to a culturally biased secret test for which he refused to release test scores. Surjit was also subject often to September 11 related harassment while working at SeaTac.
Expert testimony was given by Liza Wilcox from Hate Free Zone and from Antonio Ginatta from the Washington commission on Hispanic Affairs. The Workers Rights Board was moderated by Reverend John Boonstra of the Washington Association of Churces. WRB panelists included Bill Hallerman, of the Washington Catholic Conference, Lisa Stone from the Northwest Women’s Law Center, Peter Coates, Seattle Building & Construction Trades Council, King County Council member Larry Gossett, and Rep. Frank Chopp, the Speaker of the House. The Board vowed to work to hold employers accountable for using the Bush government’s attack on immigrant workers while still expecting local taxpayer subsidies.
Many elected leaders, faith and community-based organizations, and labor unions have taken a stand in support of immigrant rights despite a federal government backlash after September 11. A week after this hearing, immigrant workers launched the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride. As a state and nation, we are in a historic moment of redefining how immigrants are treated.
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