Advocates say Texas exploiting day laborers after Harvey
Some days, he clears rotted drywall and hauls out furniture and carpet destroyed by Harvey's floodwaters. Other days, he chops fallen trees or helps to lay the foundations for new homes. He ventures daily into homes wearing a T-shirt, work pants and tennis shoes, often while surrounded by the pungent stench and raw sewage that flowed into homes during the flooding.
"I always wash and scrub myself, and I use alcohol or something similar so that I don't get infected," said Miranda, a native of
Hundreds of day laborers like Miranda have quietly become an integral part of the recovery from Harvey, toiling in dangerous conditions amid the fear of being picked up by immigration authorities.
Harvey damaged or destroyed 200,000 homes and flooded much of
Day laborers interviewed by The Associated Press said they've been hired by a mix of individual homeowners, work crews from out of state, and subcontractors working on residential and commercial buildings. Mostly immigrants, they operate in plain sight, gathering early in the morning in parking lots near construction stores and gas stations, and waiting to be offered work.
Advocates from the National Day Laborer Organizing Network recently fanned out to these sites with pens and clipboards to survey the workers about the conditions they're experiencing. Interviews suggested most are routinely exposed to mold and contamination, and aren't aware of legal protections they have even if they're not in the country legally. Advocates have been passing out flyers with information and holding worker trainings.
About a quarter of the more than 350 workers surveyed said they had been denied wages promised for cleanup work after Harvey, sometimes by employers who abandoned them at work sites after they had completed a job, according to a report on the survey by
More than 70 percent of the day laborers are in the
The problems they face have cropped up after every major recent storm. Day laborers were an integral part of
But while the federal government temporarily suspended some work-authorization laws after Katrina, the Trump administration ramped up immigration-related arrests this year and resumed field operations after Harvey. And
The demand for labor has also drawn in people who are unaccustomed to the work and untrained in basic safety measures, Mares said. He recently saw a pregnant woman cleaning an apartment building that had flooded without wearing gloves.
"People don't analyze it. They don't see the consequences," Mares said. "They go to work without knowing whether the business will even pay them."
In
"These people are scared," said
Sitting on the curb outside
"This is a country where I'm here as an immigrant. I don't have anything," Miranda said. "The day they catch me, they'll deport me."
Follow Merchant on Twitter at https://twitter.com/nomaanmerchant .
This story corrects the name of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network.
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