Tuesday, September 5, 2023

Fed-up immigrants gain fed hopes

Mexican immigrant workers, faces weather-beaten and bodies gaunt, showed the toll of long days spent in the punishing sun of a Louisiana crawfish farm. They'd had enough. 

Seated in a fast-food joint along I-10 in the heart of Acadiana, they described their plight to labor organizers: They were being terribly underpaid. Some even had their immigration papers seized

All of them were being housed in squalid facilities with brown tap water too dirty to drink or bathe in. 

The complaints voiced later reached federal authorities, which set in motion a 4-year legal battle between the Mexican-born crawfish harvesters and Louisiana employers. 

It ended months ago with a significant overhaul of American labor and immigration policy that affords new protections for migrant workers who blow the whistle on workplace abuses. (NOLA.com 09/05/23) Louisiana crawfish workers reshaped U.S. immigration rules | Business News | nola.com

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