The Southern Poverty Law Center has won the return of almost $20,000 to a Latino migrant farmworker whose money was taken by police during a traffic stop in Alabama despite criminal charges never being brought against him.
Migrant workers who alleged they were forced to work for months without pay and endure squalid living conditions as they repaired apartments in the New Orleans area will finally be paid for their work under a settlement the Southern Poverty Law Center has reached with their employers.
A Latina factory worker in North Carolina was brutally assaulted by the plant manager after she had earlier reported his sexual harassment to officials of the yarn company that employed her, according to a federal court complaint filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The U.S. Department of Labor should repeal Bush administration regulations that have shredded labor protections for foreign guestworkers and aggressively enforce labor laws to protect all workers from exploitation, a Southern Poverty Law Center expert told a U.S. House subcommittee today.
Low-income Latino immigrants in the South are routinely the targets of wage theft, racial profiling and other abuses driven by an anti-immigrant climate that harms all Latinos regardless of their immigration status, according to a report released today by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Residents of 25 states and three other countries will take a stand against the sexual exploitation of farmworker women and other low-wage female immigrant workers in April as part of the "Bandana Project," a partnership between the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and community groups, universities and other advocacy organizations to raise awareness and educate these women about their rights.
In this study, the Southern Poverty Law Center found that Latinos are facing increasing hostility and discrimination as they fill low-wage jobs in Southern states that previously had few Latino residents. Based primarily on a survey of 500 low-income Latinos at five locations in the South, the report documented wage theft, racial profiling and other abuses driven by an anti-immigrant climate that harms all Latinos regardless of their immigration status.
A Latina factory worker in North Carolina was brutally assaulted by the plant manager after she had earlier reported his sexual harassment to officials of the yarn company that employed her, according to a federal court complaint filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
A recent federal appeals court ruling in an SPLC lawsuit involving fees paid by foreign guestworkers illustrates the need for reform of a program that results in widespread exploitation, workers and their advocates said.
New regulations for the nation’s H-2B guest worker program, enacted in the waning days of the Bush administration, threatened to weaken worker protections and make it easier to replace U.S. workers with temporary foreign labor. The Southern Poverty Law Center and a coalition of immigrant rights advocates filed a federal lawsuit challenging the new regulations.
