Immigrant and migrant workers call for financial assistance and to STOP the attacks on their human rights, which have actually stepped-up during this deadly pandemic! with Cal Soto, Director of and attorney for Workers Rights of the National Day Laborers Organizing Network (NDLON). Cal joined NDLON from LatinoJustice, where he launched the Rights Restoration Project and now partners with NDLONâs local worker leaders and labor centers using his legal training to add to the capacity and technical knowledge of grassroots movements to end wage theft, ensure worker safety, and increase job stability. Cal looks forward to the day when everyone can enjoy the fruits of their labor free from fear and exploitation.
The stimulus package signed by Trump on Friday reflects the skewed priorities of his administration, which views migrant workers only as useful targets for him to scapegoat. By dehumanizing and excluding migrants, the legislation has failed to protect the lives of everyone living in the United States. There is no greater way to exacerbate todayâs crisis then with ICE and CBP hell-bent on terrorizing communities, accelerating deportations, and increasing the detained population. Instead, funds and personnel should be reassigned and redeployed to CDC, FEMA, and other emergency needs says NDLON.
The threat of coronavirus exposes the backward beliefs underpinning Trumpism at its core â medieval walls will not keep you safe, the US cannot survive on its own, and whether Trump likes it or not, we already live, breath, and eat off the same table. COVID-19 doesnât care about what country you were born in, or how much you earn in a year. But it does make more clear the urgency of demands for worker and migrant justice â ignoring them now is pure folly. Cal Soto speaks to us about NDLONâs five-point Worker and Migrant Justice Response to Covid-19. In fact, the pandemic only makes more acute the need for comprehensive migrant justice, for the safety of our families, neighbors, and loved ones, immigrant and non-immigrant alike, local and national leaders must adopt a plan for Worker & Migrant Justice as part of the Coronavirus response. Undocumented workers are essential workers, and must be included in any coronavirus response.
produced by Ken Nash and Mimi Rosenberg
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