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“I only bought clothes for her once a year, when my tax refund check came,” Dolores Contreras explains. “Now she needs shoes, and I had to tell her we didn’t have any money. I stopped the cable and the internet she needs for school. When my cell phone contract is up next month, I’ll stop that too. I’ve never had enough money for a car, and now we’ve gone three months without paying the light bill.”
Contreras shares her misery with eighteen hundred other families. All lost their jobs when their employer, American Apparel, fired them for lacking immigration status.
“President Obama is responsible for putting us in this situation,” she charges angrily. “This is worse than an immigration raid. They want to keep us from working at all.”
The current firings highlight larger questions of immigration enforcement policy. “These workers have not only done nothing wrong, they’ve spent years making the company rich. No one ever called company profits illegal, or says they should give them back to the workers. So why are the workers called illegal?” asks Nativo Lopez, director of the Hermandad Mexicana Latinoamericana.
Nativo Lopez says he’ll organize the workers being fired if unions won’t, although recently he also expressed a desire for greater cooperation with the UFCW in the defense of fired workers. Last year the Hermandad began setting up workers’ councils in southern California neighborhoods, to oppose employer sanctions and help workers resist them. “If companies start firing people as they have here, this place will look like a war zone,” he warns, “but if we fight to defend people, we can organize them.”
Well I guess it sucks to be a criminal says it all.
This is the life they chose. The life filled with such risks the opted for when they decided not to apply for a VISA before entering.Its a shame the kids have to pay the price for their parents criminal behavior.
Now in order to file taxes one must have some documentation. In this regard I think its safe to assume hers were not valid. IE ID theft perhaps.
The current firings highlight larger questions of immigration enforcement policy. “These workers have not only done nothing wrong, they’ve spent years making the company rich. No one ever called company profits illegal, or says they should give them back to the workers. So why are the workers called illegal?” asks Nativo Lopez, director of the Hermandad Mexicana Latinoamericana.
Duh!!!! Doesn't this just make you sick!!
In reference to "a war zone", I agree wirh arizona, bring it on!!!! Maybe we'll finally wake up those morons in Washington and wake up the rest of those Americans in denial about this invasion. Now this is change I can get behind!
Kudos to Obama for stepping up and continuing/expanding policies to enforcing the law.
I agree, but it makes you wonder, is our voices possibly finally being heard? I just have no faith that this guy (Obama) would ever do the right thing by us (Americans) on his own!
Sorry, I don't mean to be political but this last year has erased my last grain of hope for our current government stepping up".
“If companies start firing people as they have here, this place will look like a war zone,” he warns
Larry Lopez is nothing more than a discredited activist and former politician. He is doing nothing more than trying to give himself some relevence again by "stirring the pot" and agitating those illegal aliens who were legally fired.
And, remember Larry.....if it does, indeed, turn into a "war zone" You will have been the one who fired the first shot....And, I suspect that You will be nowhere near that zone..
Was this "interview" done or printed in any othe news outlets or just La Prensa ?
"La Prensa San Diego views the news and events through a Hispanic/Chicano perspective or as we like to say through our ‘Brown Eyes’. We invite you to view our pages. We also invite letters and opinions for publication on both the Web and in our newspaper."
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