XPost: ba.politics, dc.media, soc.penpals   
   XPost: alt.burningman   
   From: vanoose@outlook.com   
      
   Cry me a fucking river.  We don't need these admitted criminals   
   coming into the USA, bringing crime, diseases, third world   
   behavior and a decline in the standard of living for Americans.   
      
   HOUSTON — The kitchen of the detention center here was bustling   
   as a dozen immigrants boiled beans and grilled hot dogs,   
   preparing lunch for about 900 other detainees. Elsewhere, guards   
   stood sentry and managers took head counts, but the detainees   
   were doing most of the work — mopping bathroom stalls, folding   
   linens, stocking commissary shelves.   
      
   As the federal government cracks down on immigrants in the   
   country illegally and forbids businesses to hire them, it is   
   relying on tens of thousands of those immigrants each year to   
   provide essential labor — usually for $1 a day or less — at the   
   detention centers where they are held when caught by the   
   authorities.   
      
   This work program is facing increasing resistance from detainees   
   and criticism from immigrant advocates. In April, a lawsuit   
   accused immigration authorities in Tacoma, Wash., of putting   
   detainees in solitary confinement after they staged a work   
   stoppage and hunger strike. In Houston, guards pressed other   
   immigrants to cover shifts left vacant by detainees who refused   
   to work in the kitchen, according to immigrants interviewed here.   
      
   The federal authorities say the program is voluntary, legal and   
   a cost-saver for taxpayers. But immigrant advocates question   
   whether it is truly voluntary or lawful, and argue that the   
   government and the private prison companies that run many of the   
   detention centers are bending the rules to convert a captive   
   population into a self-contained labor force.   
      
   Last year, at least 60,000 immigrants worked in the federal   
   government’s nationwide patchwork of detention centers — more   
   than worked for any other single employer in the country,   
   according to data from United States Immigration and Customs   
   Enforcement, known as ICE. The cheap labor, 13 cents an hour,   
   saves the government and the private companies $40 million or   
   more a year by allowing them to avoid paying outside contractors   
   the $7.25 federal minimum wage. Some immigrants held at county   
   jails work for free, or are paid with sodas or candy bars, while   
   also providing services like meal preparation for other   
   government institutions.   
      
   Unlike inmates convicted of crimes, who often participate in   
   prison work programs and forfeit their rights to many wage   
   protections, these immigrants are civil detainees placed in   
   holding centers, most of them awaiting hearings to determine   
   their legal status. Roughly half of the people who appear before   
   immigration courts are ultimately permitted to stay in the   
   United States — often because they were here legally, because   
   they made a compelling humanitarian argument to a judge or   
   because federal authorities decided not to pursue the case.   
      
   “I went from making $15 an hour as a chef to $1 a day in the   
   kitchen in lockup,” said Pedro Guzmán, 34, who had worked for   
   restaurants in California, Minnesota and North Carolina before   
   he was picked up and held for about 19 months, mostly at Stewart   
   Detention Center in Lumpkin, Ga. “And I was in the country   
   legally.”   
      
   Mr. Guzmán said that he had been required to work even when he   
   was running a fever, that guards had threatened him with   
   solitary confinement if he was late for his 2 a.m. shift, and   
   that his family had incurred more than $75,000 in debt from   
   legal fees and lost income during his detention. A Guatemalan   
   native, he was released in 2011 after the courts renewed his   
   visa, which had mistakenly been revoked, in part because of a   
   clerical error. He has since been granted permanent residency.   
      
   Claims of Exploitation   
      
   Officials at private prison companies declined to speak about   
   their use of immigrant detainees, except to say that it was   
   legal. Federal officials said the work helped with morale and   
   discipline and cut expenses in a detention system that costs   
   more than $2 billion a year.   
      
   “The program allows detainees to feel productive and contribute   
   to the orderly operation of detention facilities,” said Gillian   
   M. Christensen, a spokeswoman for the immigration agency.   
   Detainees in the program are not officially employees, she said,   
   and their payments are stipends, not wages. No one is forced to   
   participate, she added, and there are usually more volunteers   
   than jobs.   
      
   Marian Martins, 49, who was picked up by ICE officers in 2009   
   for overstaying her visa and sent to Etowah County Detention   
   Center in Gadsden, Ala., said work had been her only ticket out   
   of lockdown, where she was placed when she arrived without ever   
   being told why.   
      
   Ms. Martins said she had worked most days cooking meals,   
   scrubbing showers and buffing hallways. Her only compensation   
   was extra free time outside or in a recreational room, where she   
   could mingle with other detainees, watch television or read, she   
   said.   
      
   “People fight for that work,” said Ms. Martins, who has no   
   criminal history. “I was always nervous about being fired,   
   because I needed the free time.”   
      
   Ms. Martins fled Liberia during the civil war there and entered   
   the United States on a visitor visa in 1990. She stayed and   
   raised three children, all of whom are American citizens,   
   including two sons in the Air Force. Because of her   
   deteriorating health, she was released from detention in August   
   2010 with an electronic ankle bracelet while awaiting a final   
   determination of her legal status.   
      
   Natalie Barton, a spokeswoman for the Etowah detention center,   
   declined to comment on Ms. Martins’s claims but said that all   
   work done on site by detained immigrants was unpaid, and that   
   the center complied with all local and federal rules.   
      
   The compensation rules at detention facilities are remnants of a   
   bygone era. A 1950 law created the federal Voluntary Work   
   Program and set the pay rate at a time when $1 went much   
   further. (The equivalent would be about $9.80 today.) Congress   
   last reviewed the rate in 1979 and opted not to raise it. It was   
   later challenged in a lawsuit under the Fair Labor Standards   
   Act, which sets workplace rules, but in 1990 an appellate court   
   upheld the rate, saying that “alien detainees are not government   
   ‘employees.’ ”   
      
   Immigrants in holding centers may be in the country illegally,   
   but they may also be asylum seekers, permanent residents or   
   American citizens whose documentation is questioned by the   
   authorities. On any given day, about 5,500 detainees out of the   
   30,000-plus average daily population work for $1, in 55 of the   
   roughly 250 detention facilities used by ICE. Local governments   
   operate 21 of the programs, and private companies run the rest,   
   agency officials said.   
      
   These detainees are typically compensated with credits toward   
   food, toiletries and phone calls that they say are sold at   
   inflated prices. (They can collect cash when they leave if they   
   have not used all their credits.) “They’re making money on us   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)