On 3/4/07, Jim Devine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
March 4, 2007/New York TIMES
Inmates Will Replace Migrants in Colorado Fields
By DAN FROSCH
DENVER, March 3 — As migrant laborers flee Colorado because of tough
new immigration restrictions, worried farmers are looking to prisoners
to fill their places in the fields.
In a pilot program run by the state Corrections Department, supervised
teams of low-risk inmates beginning this month will be available to
harvest the swaths of sweet corn, peppers and melons that sweep the
southeastern portion of the state.
Under the program, which has drawn criticism from groups concerned
about immigrants' rights and from others seeking changes in the
criminal justice system, farmers will pay a fee to the state, and the
inmates, who volunteer for the work, will be paid about 60 cents a
day, corrections officials said.
<snip>
The Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition estimates that there are
150,000 illegal immigrants in Colorado, many of them involved in
agriculture. Migrant workers typically travel here from Mexico, Texas
and New Mexico for the crop season, where their labor can last from
May through the late fall, before returning home to their families.
But those numbers could soon be reduced drastically, as workers who
are in the country illegally are unwilling to risk exposing their
status.
I wonder if they are also planning to provide convict labor for elder
care, too. :->
<http://www.scrippsnews.com/node/16509>
Immigrants, increasingly, provide elder care in U.S.
By SUSAN FERRISS
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Immigrants make up nearly 18 percent of the nation's baby sitters and
in-home aides for seniors or people with disabilities, according to
the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan research center.
--
Yoshie
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