Extra! on Inequality; ICE at Gulf Spill
Two more items:
(1) The current issue of Extra!, the magazine of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, is about inequality, and there are (as always) some really great article. Two worth mentioning:
Wealth Gap Yawns—and So Do Media
Little interest in study of massive race/gender disparities
By Julie Hollar
Who Ate the Dessert?
Deficit mania ignores growth of income gap
By Neil deMause
Gotta love those titles. If you don’t subscribe to Extra!, you should do so immediately (click here).
(2) Immigrant Workers Targeted in Gulf Oil Spill Cleanup.
Hat-tip to the folks at Interfaith Worker Justice for alerting us to an article currently on the website of ColorLines, Louisiana Cops Probe Oil Spill Workers for Immigrant Gangsters. A tidbit from this article:
Fears have been circulating among immigrant workers involved in oil spill cleanup ever since ICE agents made their presence felt in May. In the Feet in Two Worlds and El Diario/La Prensa report last week, workers spoke from two command centers in St. Bernard Parish and Plaquemines Parish, both in southeast Louisiana, about encountering ICE agents. Feet in Two Worlds reporter Annie Correal wrote, “ICE agents arrived at the staging areas without prior notice, rounded up workers, and asked for documentation of their legal status,” citing Louisiana ICE spokesperson Temple Black.
Asked about these reports by ColorLines, Black at first only gave this statement:
“At the request of the private sector and local law enforcement, ICE conducted trainings on hiring requirements, such as verification of eligibility to work. ICE was also asked to perform a number of work authorization checks, all of which were valid. ICE neither conducted a worksite enforcement operation in conjunction with these requests nor made any arrests.”
This sounds like a replay of lots of ICE harassment that happened post-Katrina. Read the rest of the article here.
—Chris Sturr
