Immigrant group welcomes move to protect Caribbean workers

NEW YORK (CMC):

An immigrant rights group has welcomed an announcement by the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to protect Caribbean and other immigrant workers who suffer or witness violations of their labour rights from deportation.

Last Friday, the DHS announced that non-citizen Caribbean and other workers who are victims of, or witnesses to, the violation of labour rights can now access a streamlined and expedited deferred action request process.

The DHS said deferred action protects non-citizen workers from threats of immigration-related retaliation from the exploitive employers.

Elizabeth Joynes Jordan, deputy legal director of Make the Road New York, an immigration and policy group in New York City that boasts over 25,000 members, said that “every worker, regardless of immigration status, deserves to be paid the wages they’re owed and have their fundamental rights protected.

“Yet, all too often, unscrupulous employers disregard workers’ rights, pocket wages owed to their workers, and then threaten them if they report any abuse,” Joynes Jordan told the CMC. “So, we are encouraged by DHS’s announcement that will allow workers who have suffered or witnessed workplace abuse to obtain deferred action protections.

IMPORTANT STEP

“This is an important step forward to safeguard the rights of workers everywhere, regardless of status, and hold abusive employers accountable,” she added.

But Joynes Jordan said that as Make the Road New York applauded the DHS’ announcement, it urges the Biden administration to “take further steps to safeguard the rights of immigrants and to reverse course on recent measures that directly undermine the asylum system”.

The DHS said in a statement that, effective immediately, the new process will improve its “long-standing practice of using its discretionary authority to consider labour and employment agency-related requests for deferred action on a case-by-case basis”.

The DHS said these improvements advance the Biden administration’s commitment to empowering workers and improving workplace conditions by enabling all workers, including non-citizens, to assert their legal rights.