• Crise capitaliste au moyen orient | Guillaume Deloison
    https://guillaumedeloison.wordpress.com/2018/10/08/dawla-crise-capitaliste-au-moyen-orient

    ISRAËL ET PALESTINE – CAPITAL, COLONIES ET ÉTAT

    Le conflit comme Histoire

    A la fin des guerres napoléoniennes, certaines parties du Moyen-Orient se retrouvèrent envahies par le nouveau mode de production capitaliste. Dans cette région, l’industrie textile indigène, surtout en Egypte, fut détruite par les textiles anglais bon marché dans les années 1830. Dès les années 1860, les fabricants britanniques avaient commencé à cultiver le coton le long du Nil. En 1869, on ouvrit le canal de Suez dans le but de faciliter le commerce britannique et français. Conformément à cette modernisation, on peut dater les origines de l’accumulation primitive en #Palestine à la loi de l’#Empire_ottoman de 1858 sur la #propriété_terrienne qui remplaçait la propriété collective par la propriété individuelle de la terre. Les chefs de village tribaux se transformèrent en classe de propriétaires terriens qui vendaient leurs titres aux marchands libanais, syriens, égyptiens et iraniens. Pendant toute cette période, le modèle de développement fut surtout celui d’un développement inégal, avec une bourgeoisie étrangère qui prenait des initiatives et une bourgeoisie indigène, si l’on peut dire, qui restait faible et politiquement inefficace.

    Sous le #Mandat_britannique, de nombreux propriétaires absentéistes furent rachetés par l’Association de colonisation juive, entraînant l’expulsion de métayers et de fermiers palestiniens. Étant donné que les dépossédés devaient devenir #ouvriers_agricoles sur leurs propres terres, une transformation décisive des relations de production commençait, conduisant aux premières apparitions d’un #prolétariat_palestinien. Ce processus eut lieu malgré une violente opposition de la part des #Palestiniens. Le grand tournant dans une succession de #révoltes fut le soulèvement de #1936-1939. Son importance réside dans le fait que « la force motrice de ce soulèvement n’était plus la paysannerie ou la bourgeoisie, mais, pour la première fois, un prolétariat agricole privé de moyens de travail et de subsistance, associé à un embryon de classe ouvrière concentrée principalement dans les ports et dans la raffinerie de pétrole de Haïfa ». Ce soulèvement entraîna des attaques contre des propriétaires palestiniens ainsi que contre des colons anglais et sionistes. C’est dans le même temps que se développa le mouvement des #kibboutz, comme expérience de vie communautaire inspiré notamment par des anarchistes comme Kropotkine, s’inscrivant dans le cadre du sionisme mais opposées au projet d’un état.

    La Seconde Guerre mondiale laissa un héritage que nous avons du mal à imaginer. L’implantation des juifs en Palestine, déjà en cours, mais de faible importance entre 1880 et 1929, connaît une augmentation dans les années 1930 et puis un formidable élan dans l’après-guerre ; de ce processus naquit #Israël. Le nouvel Etat utilisa l’appareil légal du Mandat britannique pour poursuivre l’expropriation des Palestiniens. La #prolétarisation de la paysannerie palestinienne s’étendit encore lors de l’occupation de la Cisjordanie et de la Bande de Gaza en 1967. Cette nouvelle vague d’accumulation primitive ne se fit pas sous la seule forme de l’accaparement des #terres. Elle entraîna aussi le contrôle autoritaire des réserves d’#eau de la Cisjordanie par le capital israélien par exemple.

    Après la guerre de 1967, l’Etat israélien se retrouvait non seulement encore entouré d’Etats arabes hostiles, mais aussi dans l’obligation de contrôler la population palestinienne des territoires occupés. Un tiers de la population contrôlée par l’Etat israélien était alors palestinienne. Face à ces menaces internes et externes, la survie permanente de l’Etat sioniste exigeait l’unité de tous les Juifs israéliens, occidentaux et orientaux. Mais unir tous les Juifs derrière l’Etat israélien supposait l’intégration des #Juifs_orientaux, auparavant exclus, au sein d’une vaste colonie de travail sioniste. La politique consistant à établir des colonies juives dans les territoires occupés est un élément important de l’extension de la #colonisation_travailliste sioniste pour inclure les Juifs orientaux auparavant exclus. Bien entendu, le but immédiat de l’installation des #colonies était de consolider le contrôle d’Israël sur les #territoires_occupés. Cependant, la politique de colonisation offrait aussi aux franges pauvres de la #classe_ouvrière_juive un logement et des emplois qui leur permettaient d’échapper à leur position subordonnée en Israël proprement dit. Ceci ne s’est pas fait sans résistance dans la classe ouvrière Israélienne, certain s’y opposaient comme les #Panthéres_noire_israélienne mais l’#Histadrout,« #syndicat » d’Etat et employeur important s’efforçait d’étouffer les luttes de la classe ouvrière israélienne, comme par exemple les violents piquets de grève des cantonniers.

    En 1987, ce sont les habitants du #camp_de_réfugiés de Jabalya à Gaza qui furent à l’origine de l’#Intifada, et non l’#OLP (Organisation de Libération de la Palestine) composé par la bourgeoisie Palestinienne, basée en Tunisie et complètement surprise. Comme plus tard en 2000 avec la seconde intifada, ce fut une réaction de masse spontanée au meurtre de travailleurs palestiniens. A long terme, l’Intifada a permis de parvenir à la réhabilitation diplomatique de l’OLP. Après tout, l’OLP pourrait bien être un moindre mal comparée à l’activité autonome du prolétariat. Cependant, la force de négociation de l’OLP dépendait de sa capacité, en tant que « seul représentant légitime du peuple palestinien », à contrôler sa circonscription, ce qui ne pouvait jamais être garanti, surtout alors que sa stratégie de lutte armée s’était révélée infructueuse. Il était donc difficile pour l’OLP de récupérer un soulèvement à l’initiative des prolétaires, peu intéressés par le nationalisme, et qui haïssaient cette bourgeoisie palestinienne presque autant que l’Etat israélien.

    Quand certaines personnes essayèrent d’affirmer leur autorité en prétendant être des leaders de l’Intifada, on raconte qu’un garçon de quatorze ans montra la pierre qu’il tenait et dit : « C’est ça, le leader de l’Intifada. » Les tentatives actuelles de l’Autorité palestinienne pour militariser l’Intifada d’aujourd’hui sont une tactique pour éviter que cette « anarchie » ne se reproduise. L’utilisation répandue des pierres comme armes contre l’armée israélienne signifiait qu’on avait compris que les Etats arabes étaient incapables de vaincre Israël au moyen d’une guerre conventionnelle, sans parler de la « lutte armée » de l’OLP. Le désordre civil « désarmé » rejetait obligatoirement « la logique de guerre de l’Etat » (bien qu’on puisse aussi le considérer comme une réaction à une situation désespérée, dans laquelle mourir en « martyr » pouvait sembler préférable à vivre dans l’enfer de la situation présente). Jusqu’à un certain point, le fait de lancer des pierres déjouait la puissance armée de l’Etat d’Israël.

    D’autres participants appartenaient à des groupes relativement nouveaux, le #Hamas et le #Jihad_Islamique. Pour essayer de mettre en place un contrepoids à l’OLP, Israël avait encouragé la croissance de la confrérie musulmane au début des années 1980. La confrérie ayant fait preuve de ses sentiments anti-classe ouvrière en brûlant une bibliothèque qu’elle jugeait être un » foyer communiste « , Israël commença à leur fournir des armes.

    D’abord connus comme les « accords Gaza-Jéricho », les accords d’Oslo fit de l’OLP l’autorité palestinienne. Le Hamas a su exploiter ce mécontentement tout en s’adaptant et en faisant des compromis. Ayant rejeté les accords d’Oslo, il avait boycotté les premières élections palestiniennes issues de ces accords en 1996. Ce n’est plus le cas désormais. Comme tous les partis nationalistes, le Hamas avec son discours religieux n’a nullement l’intention de donner le pouvoir au peuple, avec ou sans les apparences de la démocratie bourgeoise. C’est d’ailleurs ce qu’il y a de profondément commun entre ce mouvement et l’OLP dans toutes ses composantes : la mise en place d’un appareil politico-militaire qui se construit au cours de la lutte, au nom du peuple mais clairement au-dessus de lui dès qu’il s’agit de prendre puis d’exercer le pouvoir. Après plusieurs années au gouvernement, le crédit du Hamas est probablement et selon toute apparence bien entamé, sans que personne non plus n’ait envie de revenir dans les bras du Fatah (branche militaire de l’OLP). C’est semble-t-il le scepticisme, voire tout simplement le désespoir et le repli sur soi, qui semblent l’emporter chaque jour un peu plus au sein de la population.

    Le sionisme, un colonialisme comme les autres ?

    Dans cette situation, la question de déterminer les frontières de ce qui délimiterait un État israélien « légitime » est oiseuse, tant il est simplement impossible : la logique de l’accaparement des territoires apparaît inséparable de son existence en tant qu’État-nation. S’interroger dans quelle mesure l’État israélien est plus ou moins « légitime » par rapport à quelque autre État, signifie simplement ignorer comment se constituent toujours les États-nations en tant qu’espaces homogènes.

    Pour comprendre la situation actuelle il faut appréhender la restructuration générale des rapports de classes à partir des années 1970. Parallèlement aux deux « crises pétrolières » de 1973-74 et 1978-80, à la fin du #nationalisme_arabe et l’ascension de l’#islamisme, la structure économique et sociale de l’État d’Israël change radicalement. Le #sionisme, dans son strict sens, fut la protection et la sauvegarde du « travail juif », soit pour le capital israélien, contre la concurrence internationale, soit pour la classe ouvrière contre les prolétaires palestiniens : ce fut en somme, un « compromis fordiste » post-1945, d’enracinement d’une fraction du capital dans dans un État-nation. Le sionisme impliquait qu’il donne alors à l’État et à la société civile une marque de « gauche » dans ce compromis interclassiste et nationaliste. C’est ce compromis que le Likoud a progressivement liquidé ne pouvant plus garantir le même niveau de vie au plus pauvres. Pourtant la définition d’Israël comme « État sioniste » résiste. Agiter des mots comme « sioniste », « lobby », etc. – consciemment ou pas – sert à charger l’existence d’Israël d’une aire d’intrigue, de mystère, de conspiration, d’exceptionnalité, dont il n’est pas difficile de saisir le message subliminal : les Israéliens, c’est-à-dire les Juifs, ne sont pas comme les autres. Alors que le seul secret qu’il y a dans toute cette histoire, c’est le mouvement du capital que peu regardent en face. La concurrence généralisé, qui oppose entre eux « ceux d’en haut » et aussi « ceux d’en bas ». L’aggravation de la situation du prolétariat israélien et la quart-mondialisation du prolétariat palestinien appartiennent bien aux mêmes mutations du capitalisme israélien, mais cela ne nous donne pour autant les conditions de la moindre « solidarité » entre les deux, bien au contraire. Pour le prolétaire israélien, le Palestinien au bas salaire est un danger social et de plus en plus physique, pour le prolétaire palestinien les avantages que l’Israélien peut conserver reposent sur son exploitation, sa relégation accrue et l’accaparement des territoires ».

    La #solidarité est devenue un acte libéral, de conscience, qui se déroule entièrement dans le for intérieur de l’individu. Nous aurons tout au plus quelques slogans, une manifestation, peut-être un tract, deux insultes à un flic… et puis tout le monde rentre chez soi. Splendeur et misère du militantisme. Entre temps, la guerre – traditionnelle ou asymétrique – se fait avec les armes, et la bonne question à se poser est la suivante : d’où viennent-elles ? Qui les paye ? Il fut un temps, les lance-roquettes Katioucha arrivaient avec le « Vent d’Est ». Aujourd’hui, pour les Qassam, il faut dire merci à la #Syrie et à l’#Iran. Il fut un temps où l’on pouvait croire que la Révolution Palestinienne allait enflammer le Tiers Monde et, de là, le monde entier. En réalité le sort des Palestiniens se décidait ailleurs, et ils servirent de chair à canon à l’intérieur des équilibres de la #Guerre_Froide. Réalité et mythe de la « solidarité internationale ».

    Nous savons trop bien comment la #religion peut être « le soupir de la créature opprimée, le sentiment d’un monde sans cœur » (Karl Marx, Contribution à la critique de la philosophie du droit de Hegel). Mais cette généralité vaut en Palestine, en Italie comme partout ailleurs. Dans le Proche et Moyen-Orient, comme dans la plupart des pays arabes du bassin méditerranéen, l’islamisme n’est pas une idéologie tombée du ciel, elle correspond à l’évolution des luttes entre les classes dans cette zone, à la fin des nationalisme arabe et la nécessité de l’appareil d’état pour assurer l’accumulation capitaliste. Le minimum, je n’ose même pas dire de solidarité, mais de respect pour les prolétaires palestiniens et israeliens, nous impose tout d’abord d’être lucides et sans illusions sur la situation actuelle ; de ne pas considérer le prolétariat palestinien comme des abrutis qui se feraient embobiner par le Hamas ni comme des saints investi par le Mandat du Ciel Prolétarien ; de ne pas considérer le prolétariat israélien comme des abruti qui serait simplement rempli de haine envers les palestinien ni comme des saint dont la situation ne repose pas sur l’exploitation d’autres. L’#antisionisme est une impasse, tout comme l’#antimondialisme (défense du #capital_national contre le capital mondialisé), ou toutes les propositions de gestion alternative du capital, qui font parties du déroulement ordinaire de la lutte des classe sans jamais abolir les classes. Sans pour autant tomber dans un appel à la révolution globale immédiate pour seule solution, il nous faut partir de la réalité concrètes et des divisions existantes du mode de production, pour s’y attaquer. Le communisme n’est pas le fruit d’un choix, c’est un mouvement historique. C’est avec cette approche que nous cherchons à affronter cette question. Il en reste pas moins que désormais – à force de réfléchir a partir de catégories bourgeoises comme « le droit », « la justice » et « le peuple » – il n’est pas seulement difficile d’imaginer une quelconque solution, mais il est devenu quasi impossible de dire des choses sensées à cet égard.

    (version partiellement corrigée de ses erreurs typo et orthographe par moi)

    • Exploitation, vulnérabilité et résistance : le cas des #ouvriers_agricoles indiens dans l’Agro Pontino

      De nombreuses représentations trompeuses continuent à peser sur l’exploitation des ouvriers agricoles étrangers en Italie, rendant difficile la compréhension du phénomène et l’intervention sur ses causes réelles. Cet article tente de questionner les principaux lieux communs sur le sujet, en analysant un cas particulièrement éclairant : celui de la communauté #Pendjabi de #religion_sikh employée sur l’Agro Pontino, dans le Latium. Cette étude de cas permet, d’une part, de faire ressortir les conditions d’exploitation systémiques, masquées derrière des mécanismes apparemment légaux ; de l’autre, il révèle que même les individus les plus vulnérables peuvent résister à l’exploitation et revendiquer activement leurs droits.

      https://www.cairn.info/revue-confluences-mediterranee-2019-4-page-45.htm

    • #In_migrazione

      In Migrazione è una Società Cooperativa Sociale nata nel 2015 dalla volontà di persone impegnate nella ricerca, nell’accoglienza e nel sostegno agli stranieri in Italia.

      Diversi percorsi professionali e umani che hanno attraversato un ampio spaccato di esperienze diverse e che con In Migrazione si sono uniti per dare vita ad un soggetto collettivo, innovativo, aperto e trasparente.

      Una Cooperativa nata per sperimentare nuovi progetti di qualità e innovative metodologie al fine di interpretare e concretizzare percorsi d’aiuto efficaci verso i migranti che vivono nel nostro Paese situazioni di disagio e difficoltà. Esperienze concrete che sappiano diventare buone pratiche riproducibili, per contribuire a migliorare quel sistema di accoglienza e inclusione sociale degli stranieri.

      Le nostre ricerche e le concrete sperimentazioni progettuali mettono al centro la persona, con i suoi peculiari bisogni, aspettative e sogni.

      Mettiamo a disposizione queste esperienze e le nostre metodologie alle altre associazioni, cooperative, Enti pubblici e privati, professionisti e volontari del settore, convinti che nel sociale non possano e non debbano esistere copyright.

      https://www.inmigrazione.it

    • Progetto “Dignità-Joban Singh”, contro la schiavitù dei braccianti

      Una serie di sportelli di accoglienza, ascolto e sostegno, ma anche di assistenza legale, sociale, di formazione e di informazione, in tutta la provincia di Latina. Un progetto per dare voce alle vittime di lavoro schiavo, in memoria del giovane di origini indiane, morto suicida il 6 giugno 2020 a Sabaudia

      Si chiama Dignità-Joban Singh ed è il progetto in corso organizzato dall’associazione Tempi Moderni contro le varie forme di schiavismo e sfruttamento che mortificano e riducono in schiavitù migliaia di persone, immigrati e italiani, indiani e africani, uomini e donne, in questa Italia fondata sul lavoro ma anche su una persistente presenza di razzisti, violenti, mafiosi e di sfruttatori che mortificano la democrazia ed esprimono chiaramente la loro natura predatoria.

      Joban Singh, di appena 25 anni e residente nel residence “Bella Farnia Mare”, nel Comune di Sabaudia, in provincia di Latina, il 6 giugno scorso è stato trovato senza vita all’interno del suo appartamento. Joban decise di impiccarsi dopo essere entrato in Italia mediante un trafficante di esseri umani indiano, essere stato gravemente sfruttato in una delle maggiori aziende agricole dell’Agro Pontino e aver subito il rifiuto da parte del padrone alla sua richiesta di emersione dall’irregolarità mediante art. 103 del Decreto Rilancio (D.L. n. 34/2020) del governo.

      Dedicare questo progetto alla sua memoria, per non dimenticare ciò che significa vivere come uno schiavo in un paese libero, è un impegno che viene sottoscritto da Tempi Moderni ma che può camminare solo sulle gambe di tanti, o meglio di una comunità di persone responsabili e ribelle contro i padroni e i padrini di oggi.

      In questa Italia ci sono, secondo il rapporto Agromafie e caporalato dell’Osservatorio Placido Rizzotto della Flai-Cgil (2020), tra 400 e 450mila lavoratori e lavoratrici che solo in agricoltura risultano esposti allo sfruttamento e al caporalato. Di queste ultime, più di 180mila sono impiegate in condizione di grave vulnerabilità sociale e forte sofferenza occupazionale. Secondo il sesto Rapporto Agromafia dell’Eurispes, il business delle agromafie, che comprendono le forme di grave sfruttamento, vale 24,5 miliardi di euro l’anno, con un balzo, nel corso del 2018, del 12,4%.

      Un fiume di denaro che è espressione di un’ideologia della disuguaglianza penetrata nei processi culturali delle società occidentali e troppo spesso relazione fondamentale del mondo del lavoro, in particolare del lavoro di fatica. È questo un sistema che produce lo schiavismo contemporaneo, come più volte il “Rapporto Italia”, ancora dell’Eurispes, ha messo in luce.

      Ancora nel 2019, ad esempio, l’Eurispes aveva esplicitamente dichiarato che lo sfruttamento è una fattispecie criminale le cui principali vittime sono i migranti provenienti dall’Europa dell’Est, dall’Africa, dall’Asia, dall’America Latina. Lo sfruttamento, infatti, risultava più diffuso nei comparti più esposti alle irregolarità, al sommerso e all’abuso, dove chi fornisce prestazioni lavorative è in condizione di maggiore vulnerabilità.

      Si registrano dunque casi più numerosi, ancora secondo l’Eurispes, nell’agricoltura e pastorizia, a danno di polacchi, bulgari, rumeni, originari dell’ex U.R.S.S., africani e, in misura crescente, pakistani e indiani; nell’edilizia, a danno di europei dell’Est; nel settore tessile e manifatturiero, a danno di cinesi; nel lavoro domestico (soprattutto come badanti), a danno di soggetti provenienti dall’Europa dell’Est, dall’ex U.R.S.S., dall’Asia e dall’America del Sud.

      Insomma, uomini e donne a cui viene violata la dignità ogni giorno, costretti ad eseguire gli ordini del padrone, a sottostare ai suoi interessi e logiche di dominio. Quando questo potere si esercita nei confronti delle donne, lo sfruttamento assume caratteri devastanti. Ci sono infatti anche casi di violenza sessuale, di subordinazione delle lavoratrici immigrate alle logiche di dominio del boss, del padrone, del capo di turno.

      In provincia di Latina e precisamente a Sabaudia, appena poco prima di Natale, un’operazione denominata “Schiavo” e condotta dalla guardia di finanza, ha permesso di liberare dallo sfruttamento 290 lavoratori, soprattutto di origine indiana, che da anni venivano retribuiti con salari mensili inferiori anche del 60% rispetto a quelli previsti dal contratto provinciale, senza il riconoscimento degli straordinari, con l’obbligo di lavorare anche la domenica, impiegati senza le necessarie misure di sicurezza.

      Dunque, cosa fare? Avere il coraggio di capire, organizzarsi e agire collettivamente. Non si hanno alternative. La povertà, lo sfruttamento, la schiavitù, la violenza, non si abrogano per decreto. Non basta una legge. Serve un’azione collettiva espressione di una volontà radicale di contrasto di questo fenomeno mediante innanzitutto l’accoglienza e l’ascolto delle sue vittime, la costruzione di una relazione orizzontale con loro, dialettica, professionale e anche in questo coraggiosa, perché si deve prevedere l’azione di denuncia dei padroni insieme a quella della tutela.

      Ed è questa la sintesi perfetta del progetto Dignità–Joban Singh che ha organizzato e avviato una serie di sportelli di accoglienza, ascolto, sostegno e anche di assistenza legale, sociale, di formazione e di informazione, in tutta la provincia di Latina. Si tratta di sportelli che hanno il compito di accogliere e di fornire assistenza legale gratuita alle donne e agli uomini gravemente sfruttati, di qualunque nazionalità, vittime di tratta e caporalato, di violenze, anche sessuali, obbligati al silenzio o alla subordinazione.

      Insomma, un progetto realizzato grazie all’ausilio di avvocati di grande esperienza e con mediatori culturali affidabili e professionali, fondato sulla pedagogia degli oppressi di Freire e gli insegnamenti di Don Milani, Don Primo Mazzolari e Don Sardelli. Un progetto che vuole anche contrastare le strategie (razziste) mediatiche, politiche e sociali di stigmatizzazione, stereotipizzazione ed esclusione di coloro che sono considerati antropologicamente diversi.

      Un progetto che però ha bisogno del sostegno della maggioranza di questo paese, donne e uomini che non vogliono vivere sotto il ricatto delle mafie, dei violenti, degli sfruttatori, dei neoschiavisti, dei razzisti, in favore di un’Italia che merita un futuro diverso, migliore.

      https://www.nigrizia.it/notizia/progetto-dignita-joban-singh-contro-la-schiavitu-dei-braccianti

    • Marco Omizzolo

      Marco Omizzolo is a sociologist, researcher and journalist, who has been documenting and denoucing human rights violations against Sikh migrant workers exploited in the fields in the province of Latina (central Italy). In a context where “agrimafia” is rampant and many farms are controlled by criminal organisations, migrants have to work for up to 13 hours a day in inhumane conditions and under the orders of “caporali” (gangmasters), they earn well below the minimum wage and they have to live in cramped accommodation. To document their situation, Marco has worked undercover in the fields and he also went to Punjab (India) to follow an Indian human trafficker, where he investigated the connections between human trafficking and the system of agrimafia. Marco is also one of the founders of InMigrazione, an organisation that supports migrant workers informing them about their rights, helping them organise and fight for labour rights, and giving them the legal support they might need. In 2016, Marco and some Sikh activists managed to organise the first mass strike in Latina, joined by over 4000 workers.

      Because of his work - and particularly because of his investigations denouncing the criminal organisations involved in the agribusiness and the local food industry - Marco Omizzolo has been receiving serious threats. His car has been repeatedly damaged, he is often under surveillance and he has been forced to relocate because of the threats received.

      https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/en/profile/marco-omizzolo

    • The Indian migrants lured into forced labor on Mussolini’s farmland

      Gurinder Dhillon still remembers the day he realized he had been tricked. It was 2009, and he had just taken out a $16,000 loan to start a new life. Originally from Punjab, India, Dhillon had met an agent in his home village who promised him the world.

      “He sold me this dream,” Dhillon, 45, said. A new life in Europe. Good money — enough to send back to his family in India. Clothes, a house, plenty of work. He’d work on a farm, picking fruits and vegetables, in a place called the Pontine Marshes, a vast area of farmland in the Lazio region, south of Rome, Italy.

      He took out a sizable loan from the Indian agents, who in return organized his visa, ticket and travel to Italy. The real cost of this is around $2,000 — the agents were making an enormous profit.

      “The thing is, when I got here, the whole situation changed. They played me,” Dhillon said. “They brought me here like a slave.”

      On his first day out in the fields, Dhillon climbed into a trailer with about 60 other people and was then dropped off in his assigned hoop house. That day, he was on the detail for zucchini, tomatoes and eggplant. It was June, and under the plastic, it was infernally hot. It felt like at least 100 degrees, Dhillon remembers. He sweated so much that his socks were soaked. He had to wring them out halfway through the day and then put them back on — there was no time to change his clothes. As they worked, an Italian boss yelled at them constantly to work faster and pick more.

      Within a few hours of that first shift, it dawned on Dhillon that he had been duped. “I didn’t think I had been tricked — I knew I had,” he said. This wasn’t the life or the work he had been promised.

      What he got instead was 3.40 euros (about $3.65) an hour, for a workday of up to 14 hours. The workers weren’t allowed bathroom breaks.

      On these wages, he couldn’t see how he would ever repay the enormous loan he had taken out. He was working alongside some other men, also from India, who had been there for years. ”Will it be like this forever?” he asked them. “Yes,” they said. “It will be like this forever.”

      Ninety years ago, a very different harvest was taking place. Benito Mussolini was celebrating the first successful wheat harvest of the Pontine Marshes. It was a new tradition for the area, which for millennia had been nothing but a vast, brackish, barely-inhabited swamp.

      No one managed to tame it — until Mussolini came to power and launched his “Battle for Grain.” The fascist leader had a dream for the area: It would provide food and sustenance for the whole country.

      Determined to make the country self-sufficient as a food producer, Mussolini spoke of “freeing Italy from the slavery of foreign bread” and promoted the virtues of rural land workers. At the center of his policy was a plan to transform wild, uncultivated areas into farmland. He created a national project to drain Italy’s swamps. And the boggy, mosquito-infested Pontine Marshes were his highest priority.

      His regime shipped in thousands of workers from all over Italy to drain the waterlogged land by building a massive system of pumps and canals. Billions of gallons of water were dredged from the marshes, transforming them into fertile farmland.

      The project bore real fruit in 1933. Thousands of black-shirted Fascists gathered to hear a brawny-armed, suntanned Mussolini mark the first wheat harvest of the Pontine Marshes.

      "The Italian people will have the necessary bread to live,” Il Duce told the crowd, declaring how Italy would never again be reliant on other countries for food. “Comrade farmers, the harvest begins.”

      The Pontine Marshes are still one of the most productive areas of Italy, an agricultural powerhouse with miles of plastic-covered hoop houses, growing fruit and vegetables by the ton. They are also home to herds of buffalo that make Italy’s famous buffalo mozzarella. The area provides food not just for Italy but for Europe and beyond. Jars of artichokes packed in oil, cans of Italian plum tomatoes and plump, ripe kiwi fruits often come from this part of the world. But Mussolini’s “comrade farmers” harvesting the land’s bounty are long gone. Tending the fields today are an estimated 30,000 agricultural workers like Dhillon, most hailing from Punjab, India. For many of them — and by U.N. standards — the working conditions are akin to slave labor.

      When Urmila Bhoola, the U.N. special rapporteur on contemporary slavery, visited the area, she found that many working conditions in Italy’s agricultural sector amounted to forced labor due to the amount of hours people work, the low salaries and the gangmasters, or “caporali,” who control them.

      The workers here are at the mercy of the caporali, who are the intermediaries between the farm workers and the owners. Some workers are brought here with residency and permits, while others are brought fully off the books. Regardless, they report making as little as 3-4 euros an hour. Sometimes, though, they’re barely paid at all. When Samrath, 34, arrived in Italy, he was not paid for three months of work on the farms. His boss claimed his pay had gone entirely into taxes — but when he checked with the government office, he found his taxes hadn’t been paid either.

      Samrath is not the worker’s real name. Some names in this story have been changed to protect the subjects’ safety.

      “I worked for him for all these months, and he didn’t pay me. Nothing. I worked for free for at least three months,” Samrath told me. “I felt so ashamed and sad. I cried so much.” He could hardly bring himself to tell his family at home what had happened.

      I met Samrath and several other workers on a Sunday on the marshes. For the Indian Sikh workers from Punjab, this is usually the only day off for the week. They all gather at the temple, where they pray together and share a meal of pakoras, vegetable curry and rice. The women sit on one side, the men on the other. It’s been a long working week — for the men, out in the fields or tending the buffaloes, while the women mostly work in the enormous packing centers, boxing up fruits and vegetables to be sent out all over Europe.

      Another worker, Ramneet, told me how he waited for his monthly check — usually around 1,300 euros (about $1,280) per month, for six days’ work a week at 12-14 hours per day. But when the check came, the number on it was just 125 euros (about $250).

      “We were just in shock,” Ramneet said. “We panicked — our monthly rent here is 600 euros.” His boss claimed, again, that the money had gone to taxes. It meant he had worked almost for free the entire month. Other workers explained to me that even when they did have papers, they could risk being pushed out of the system and becoming undocumented if their bosses refused to issue them payslips.

      Ramneet described how Italian workers on the farms are treated differently from Indian workers. Italian workers, he said, get to take an hour for lunch. Indian workers are called back after just 20 minutes — despite having their pay cut for their lunch hour.

      “When Meloni gives her speeches, she talks about getting more for the Italians,” Ramneet’s wife Ishleen said, referring to Italy’s new prime minister and her motto, “Italy and Italians first.” “She doesn’t care about us, even though we’re paying taxes. When we’re working, we can’t even take a five-minute pause, while the Italian workers can take an hour.”

      Today, Italy is entering a new era — or, some people argue, returning to an old one. In September, Italians voted in a new prime minister, Giorgia Meloni. As well as being the country’s first-ever female prime minister, she is also Italy’s most far-right leader since Mussolini. Her supporters — and even some leaders of her party, Brothers of Italy — show a distinct reverence for Mussolini’s National Fascist Party.

      In the first weeks of Meloni’s premiership, thousands of Mussolini admirers made a pilgrimage to Il Duce’s birthplace of Predappio to pay homage to the fascist leader, making the Roman salute and hailing Meloni as a leader who might resurrect the days of fascism. In Latina, the largest city in the marshes, locals interviewed by national newspapers talked of being excited about Meloni’s victory — filled with hopes that she might be true to her word and bring the area back to its glory days in the time of Benito Mussolini. One of Meloni’s undersecretaries has run a campaign calling for a park in Latina to return to its original name: Mussolini Park.

      During her campaign, a video emerged of Meloni discussing Mussolini as a 19-year-old activist. “I think Mussolini was a good politician. Everything he did, he did for Italy,” she told journalists. Meloni has since worked to distance herself from such associations with fascism. In December, she visited Rome’s Jewish ghetto as a way of acknowledging Mussolini’s crimes against humanity. “The racial laws were a disgrace,” she told the crowd.

      A century on from Italy’s fascist takeover, Meloni’s victory has led to a moment of widespread collective reckoning, as a national conversation takes place about how Mussolini should be remembered and whether Meloni’s premiership means Italy is reconnecting with its fascist past.

      Unlike in Germany, which tore down — and outlawed — symbols of Nazi terror, reminders of Mussolini’s rule remain all over Italy. There was no moment of national reckoning after the war ended and Mussolini was executed. Hundreds of fascist monuments and statues dot the country. Slogans left over from the dictatorship can be seen on post offices, municipal buildings and street signs. Collectively, when Italians discuss Mussolini, they do remember his legacy of terror — his alliance with Adolf Hitler, anti-Semitic race laws and the thousands of Italian Jews he sent to the death camps. But across the generations, Italians also talk about other legacies of his regime — they talk of the infrastructure and architecture built during the period and of how he drained the Pontine Marshes and rid them of malaria, making the land into an agricultural haven.

      Today in the Pontine Marshes, which some see as a place brought into existence by Il Duce — and where the slogans on one town tower praise “the land that Mussolini redeemed from deadly sterility” — the past is bristling with the present.

      “The legend that has come back to haunt this town, again and again, is that it’s a fascist city. Of course, it was created in the fascist era, but here we’re not fascists — we’re dismissed as fascists and politically sidelined as a result,” Emilio Andreoli, an author who was born in Latina and has written books about the city’s history, said. Politicians used to target the area as a key campaigning territory, he said, but it has since fallen off most leaders’ agendas. And indeed, in some ways, Latina is a place that feels forgotten. Although it remains a top agricultural producer, other kinds of industry and infrastructure have faltered. Factories that once bustled here lie empty. New, faster roads and railways that were promised to the city by previous governments never materialized.

      Meloni did visit Latina on her campaign trail and gave speeches about reinvigorating the area with its old strength. “This is a land where you can breathe patriotism. Where you breathe the fundamental and traditional values that we continue to defend — despite being considered politically incorrect,” she told the crowd.

      But the people working this land are entirely absent from Meloni’s rhetorical vision. Marco Omizzolo, a professor of sociology at the University of Sapienza in Rome, has for years studied and engaged with the largely Sikh community of laborers from India who work on the marshes.

      Omizzolo explained to me how agricultural production in Italy has systematically relied on the exploitation of migrant workers for decades.

      “Many people are in this,” he told me, when we met for coffee in Rome. “The owners of companies who employ the workers. The people who run the laborers’ daily work. Local and national politicians. Several mafia clans.”

      “Exploitation in the agricultural sector has been going on for centuries in Italy,” Giulia Tranchina, a researcher at Human Rights Watch focusing on migration, said. She described that the Italian peasantry was always exploited but that the system was further entrenched with the arrival of migrant workers. “The system has always treated migrants as manpower — as laborers to exploit, and never as persons carrying equal rights as Italian workers.” From where she’s sitting, Italy’s immigration laws appear to have been designed to leave migrants “dependent on the whims and the wills of their abusive employers,” Tranchina said.

      The system of bringing the workers to Italy — and keeping them there — begins in Punjab, India. Omizzolo described how a group of traffickers recruits prospective workers with promises of lucrative work abroad and often helps to arrange high-interest loans like the one that Gurinder took out. Omizzolo estimates that about a fifth of the Indian workers in the Pontine Marshes come via irregular routes, with some arriving from Libya, while many others are smuggled into Italy from Serbia across land and sea, aided by traffickers. Their situation is more perilous than those who arrived with visas and work permits, as they’re forced to work under the table without contracts, benefits or employment rights.

      Omizzolo knows it all firsthand. A Latina native, he grew up playing football by the vegetable and fruit fields and watching as migrant workers, first from North Africa, then from India, came to the area to work the land. He began studying the forces at play as a sociologist during his doctorate and even traveled undercover to Punjab to understand how workers are picked up and trafficked to Italy.

      As a scholar and advocate for stronger labor protections, he has drawn considerable attention to the exploitative systems that dominate the area. In 2016, he worked alongside Sikh laborers to organize a mass strike in Latina, in which 4,000 people participated. All this has made Omizzolo a target of local mafia forces, Indian traffickers and corrupt farm bosses. He has been surveilled and chased in the street and has had his car tires slashed. Death threats are nothing unusual. These days, he does not travel to Latina without police protection.

      The entire system could become even further entrenched — and more dangerous for anyone speaking out about it — under Meloni’s administration. The prime minister has an aggressively anti-migrant agenda, promising to stop people arriving on Italy’s shores in small boats. Her government has sent out a new fleet of patrol boats to the Libyan Coast Guard to try to block the crossings, while making it harder for NGOs to carry out rescue operations.

      At the end of February, at least 86 migrants drowned off the coast of Calabria in a shipwreck. When Meloni visited Calabria a few weeks later, she did not go to the beach where the migrants’ bodies were found or to the funeral home that took care of their remains. Instead, she announced a new policy: scrapping special protection residency permits for migrants.

      Tranchina, from Human Rights Watch, explained that getting rid of the “special protection” permits will leave many migrant workers in Italy, including those in the Pontine Marshes, effectively undocumented.

      “The situation is worsening significantly under the current government,” she said. “An army of people, who are currently working, paying taxes, renting houses, will now be forced to accept very exploitative working conditions — at times akin to slavery — out of desperation.”

      Omizzolo agreed. Meloni’s hostile environment campaign against arriving migrants is making people in the marshes feel “more fragile and blackmailable,” he told me.

      “Meloni is entrenching the current system in place in the Pontine Marshes,” Omizzolo said. “Her policies are interested in keeping things in their current state. Because the people who exploit the workers here are among her voter base.”

      And then there’s the matter of money and how people are paid. A few months into her administration, Meloni introduced a proposal to raise the ceiling for cash transactions from 2,000 euros (about $2,110) to 5,000 euros ($5,280), a move that critics saw as an attempt to better insulate black market and organized crime networks from state scrutiny.

      Workers describe that they were often paid in cash and that their bosses were always looking for ways to take them off the books. “We have to push them to pay us the official way and keep our contracts,” Rajvinder, 24, said. “They prefer to give us cash.” Being taken off a contract and paid under the table is a constant source of anxiety. “If I don’t have a work contract, my papers will expire after three months,” Samrath explained, describing how he would then become undocumented in Italy.

      Omizzolo says Meloni’s cash laws will continue to preserve the corruption and sustain a shadow economy that grips the workers coming to the Pontine Marshes. Even for people who once worked above the table, the new government’s laissez-faire attitude towards the shadow economy is pushing them back into obscurity. “That law is directly contributing to the black market — people who used to be on the books, and have proper contracts, are now re-entering the shadow economy,” he said.

      Tranchina, from Human Rights Watch, explained that getting rid of the “special protection” permits will leave many migrant workers in Italy, including those in the Pontine Marshes, effectively undocumented.

      “The situation is worsening significantly under the current government,” she said. “An army of people, who are currently working, paying taxes, renting houses, will now be forced to accept very exploitative working conditions — at times akin to slavery — out of desperation.”

      Omizzolo agreed. Meloni’s hostile environment campaign against arriving migrants is making people in the marshes feel “more fragile and blackmailable,” he told me.

      “Meloni is entrenching the current system in place in the Pontine Marshes,” Omizzolo said. “Her policies are interested in keeping things in their current state. Because the people who exploit the workers here are among her voter base.”

      And then there’s the matter of money and how people are paid. A few months into her administration, Meloni introduced a proposal to raise the ceiling for cash transactions from 2,000 euros (about $2,110) to 5,000 euros ($5,280), a move that critics saw as an attempt to better insulate black market and organized crime networks from state scrutiny.

      Workers describe that they were often paid in cash and that their bosses were always looking for ways to take them off the books. “We have to push them to pay us the official way and keep our contracts,” Rajvinder, 24, said. “They prefer to give us cash.” Being taken off a contract and paid under the table is a constant source of anxiety. “If I don’t have a work contract, my papers will expire after three months,” Samrath explained, describing how he would then become undocumented in Italy.

      Omizzolo says Meloni’s cash laws will continue to preserve the corruption and sustain a shadow economy that grips the workers coming to the Pontine Marshes. Even for people who once worked above the table, the new government’s laissez-faire attitude towards the shadow economy is pushing them back into obscurity. “That law is directly contributing to the black market — people who used to be on the books, and have proper contracts, are now re-entering the shadow economy,” he said.

      The idealistic image of the harvest was powerful propaganda at the time. Not shown were the workers, brought in from all over the country, who died of malaria while digging the trenches and canals to drain the marsh. It also stands in contrast to today’s reality. Workers are brought here from the other side of the world, on false pretenses, and find themselves trapped in a system with no escape from the brutal work schedule and the resulting physical and mental health risks. In October, a 24-year-old Punjabi farm worker in the town of Sabaudia killed himself. It’s not the first time a worker has died by suicide — depression and opioid addiction are common among the workforce.

      “We are all guilty, without exception. We have decided to lose this battle for democracy. Dear Jaspreet, forgive us. Or perhaps, better, haunt our consciences forever,” Omizzolo wrote on his Facebook page.

      Talwinder, 28, arrived on the marsh last year. “I had no hopes in India. I had no dreams, I had nothing. It is difficult here — in India, it was difficult in a different way. But at least [in India] I was working for myself.” His busiest months of the year are coming up — he’ll work without a day off. And although the mosquitoes no longer carry malaria, they still plague the workers. “They’re fatter than the ones in India,” he laughs. “I heard it’s because this place used to be a jungle.”

      Mussolini’s vision for the marsh was to turn it into an agricultural center for the whole of Italy, giving work to thousands of Italians and building up a strong working peasantry. Today, vegetables, olives and cheeses from the area are shipped to the United States and sold in upmarket stores to shoppers seeking authentic, artisan foods from the heart of the old world. But it comes at an enormous price to those who produce it. And under Meloni’s premiership, they only expect that cost to rise.

      “These days, if my family ask me if they should come here, like my nephew or relatives, I tell them no,” said Samrath. “Don’t come here. Stay where you are.”

      https://www.codastory.com/rewriting-history/indian-migrants-italy-pontine-marshes

  • « Ils nous parlent comme à des chiens » : le labeur éreintant des cueilleurs de muguet du 1er mai | Nicolas Mollé
    https://www.bastamag.net/Fete-des-travailleurs-premier-mai-saisonniers-conditions-travail-vente-de-

    Pénibilité, pressions de l’encadrement, faibles salaires : le labeur des ouvriers agricoles saisonniers du muguet est loin des clichés rayonnants et sympathiques associés à cette plante printanière censée symboliser la fête des travailleurs. Source : Basta !

  • « On est traités comme des animaux » : à Beaucaire, les saisonniers étrangers, entre conditions de vie difficiles et crainte du coronavirus, Sofia Fischer
    https://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2020/06/13/a-beaucaire-les-saisonniers-etrangers-entre-conditions-de-vie-difficiles-et-


    Photos, ARNOLD JEROCKI / DIVERGENCE POUR « LE MONDE »

    Début juin, des clusters de Covid-19 ont été découverts parmi les ouvriers agricoles, venus majoritairement d’Amérique du Sud, qui circulent entre Gard, Vaucluse et Bouches-du-Rhône. Le dépistage révèle les pratiques douteuses de la filière.

    Dans la longue file d’attente qui s’étend devant le gymnase de Beaucaire (Gard) transformé en centre de dépistage, les accents de Colombie et de l’Equateur se mêlent à ceux, plus hachés, des membres de la Croix-Rouge. Un homme s’inquiète auprès de son voisin, en espagnol : « Est-ce qu’il faut une carte Vitale ? Parce que je n’en ai pas. »

    Sur ces terres fertiles, limitrophes des Bouches-du-Rhône et proches du Vaucluse, beaucoup d’ouvriers agricoles, provenant majoritairement d’Amérique du Sud et transitant par l’Espagne, arrivent tous les ans par bus entiers au printemps. Très dépendants de cette main-d’œuvre, d’autant plus en période de crise sanitaire, les agriculteurs membres de la Fédération des syndicats d’exploitants agricoles des Bouches-du-Rhône avaient manifesté le 20 mai à Arles et Aix pour s’assurer de leur venue. Alors, à la réouverture des frontières, ils sont arrivés. Avec, a priori, plusieurs cas de Covid-19 à bord.

    A quelques kilomètres de Beaucaire, de l’autre côté du Rhône, plusieurs foyers du virus sont apparus début juin. Une trentaine de cas ont été découverts dans un camping de travailleurs installé au milieu des champs à Noves et chez un producteur de fraises à Maillane, au nord des Bouches-du-Rhône. Une opération de dépistage a depuis été lancée. Les derniers bilans attestent 158 cas dans le département, 53 autres dans le Gard et 39 autres dans le Vaucluse. Des chiffres qui devraient augmenter au début de la semaine du 16 juin.


    Dépistage de travailleurs étrangers, le 10 juin à Beaucaire (Gard).

    Dans le complexe sportif, jeudi 11 juin, on s’active. Des entraîneurs de football, des professeurs et même une boulangère se sont proposés pour faire office de traducteurs, rassurer les parents inquiets et répondre aux questions. Pour faire venir au gymnase les saisonniers étrangers, qui sont parfois en situation irrégulière et ne parlent pour la plupart pas le français, l’agence régionale de santé (ARS) a dû innover. En utilisant, par exemple, les réseaux paroissiaux : David Flores, le prêtre équatorien de la ville, a fait circuler le message quotidiennement à ses fidèles par la messagerie WhatsApp.

    « Bouche-à-oreille »

    Les communiqués annonçant les dépistages gratuits pendant trois jours ont été traduits en espagnol et placardés sur les épiceries latinos du centre-ville. « On compte beaucoup sur le bouche-à-oreille pour rassurer les gens qui auraient peur de venir », explique Claude Rols, délégué de l’ARS dans le Gard.

    Pour l’ARS, qui, face à ce genre de situation, met en place un dispositif de traçage des contacts permettant d’enquêter sur les déplacements et les échanges entre individus, la tâche s’annonce ardue. Car ces ouvriers agricoles, souvent accueillis dans des chambres ou des mobile-homes collectifs, travaillent sur plusieurs lieux à la fois. Les risques de contamination deviennent donc importants au gré des déplacements, souvent effectués dans des véhicules collectifs. « Sans compter que tous les magasins latinos sont à Beaucaire » , explique Angel (certains prénoms ont été modifiés), 48 ans. L’Equatorien, qui ramasse les abricots en ce moment, l’assure : « Tout le monde se retrouve là-bas le week-end. »


    Un dispositif de traçage de contacts mis en place par l’agence régionale de santé pour enquêter sur les déplacements et les échanges entre individus.

    A la sortie du centre, Pablo, 22 ans, et Nathaly, 21 ans, font un signe de croix. « J’ai un bébé en Espagne, explique le jeune Colombien. Si je suis positif, je ne sais pas ce que je vais faire. Je suis venu ici pour travailler. » Nathaly, elle, a tenté de convaincre celle qui partage sa chambre sur l’exploitation de concombres où elle travaille de venir elle aussi se faire dépister. « Impossible : elle a beaucoup trop peur. Soit de la police de l’air et des frontières, soit d’être renvoyée en Espagne sans son salaire », explique-t-elle.

    Depuis les Bouches-du-Rhône voisines, où les campagnes de dépistage ont démarré début juin, beaucoup de saisonniers disent avoir appris leurs résultats par l’entreprise d’intérim qui les emploie et non par un médecin. Ils attendent toujours un document médical. Une vidéo montrant des chambres surpeuplées dans un domaine près d’Arles où plusieurs cas de Covid-19 ont été détectés circule sur les réseaux sociaux. Un Equatorien sur place raconte que des vigiles mèneraient la garde à l’entrée de la ferme.

    Dans la nuit du vendredi 12 au samedi 13 juin, sept employées saisonnières qui auraient testé positives au Covid-19, dispersées dans plusieurs fermes autour d’Arles (Bouches-du-Rhône), ont été transportées dans un centre d’isolement à Miramas. Elles disent avoir appris qu’elles étaient porteuses du virus par leur employeur début juin et n’avoir reçu aucun document médical. Elles refusaient de bouger sans de plus amples informations.

    « Esclaves du XXIe siècle »

    « C’est le chauffeur de la boîte d’intérim pour laquelle je travaille qui m’a dit que j’étais positive, explique Liliana qui, affolée, a contacté Le Monde pendant l’opération, tout en tentant de s’isoler tant bien que mal dans le domaine où elle se trouvait. Je n’ai jamais reçu de SMS, de mail, ou de courrier officiel. Et là, on nous embarque, je ne sais même pas où. Ils menacent d’appeler la police. » La préfecture des Bouches-du-Rhône, contactée samedi, parle de départs « volontaires », pour une mise à l’isolement plus « confortable ». « Il y a eu un moment de panique ou d’incompréhension, admet-elle, mais des informations devraient remonter très vite sur ce qui s’est passé. »

    Le fonctionnement opaque des entreprises, très lucratives, dont dépendent les saisonniers est souvent en cause. La plus connue d’entre elles, Terra Fecundis, devait être jugée pour près de 112 millions d’euros de fraude sociale début mai à Marseille. Mais l’audience de la plus grosse affaire de dumping social en France a été reportée pour cause de crise sanitaire. Les syndicats dénoncent depuis des années leurs conditions de travail, n’hésitant pas à parler « d’esclaves du XXIe siècle ».

    Parmi les ouvriers, beaucoup témoignent d’heures supplémentaires non payées, de retenues sur salaire non justifiées, de malaises, et parfois mêmes de violences. Javier, carrure large et voix chancelante, raconte « qu’on lui jette des pommes » sur la tête régulièrement. « On est traités comme des animaux. La cheffe de file a déjà fait pleurer plusieurs ouvriers. » Un autre dit avoir été renvoyé pour avoir publié une vidéo des conditions déplorables dans lesquelles il était confiné dans une ferme des Bouches-du-Rhône.

    Alberto, 36 ans, aujourd’hui sédentarisé en France, raconte ses débuts « avec des sociétés espagnoles » : des saisons « terribles », où il n’était payé « qu’un tiers des heures vraiment faites ». « Si votre tête de leur revenait pas, où qu’ils estimaient que vous ne travailliez pas assez vite, ils vous demandaient de ne pas revenir l’après-midi, explique-t-il. Parfois, si on avait déjà fait une semaine, ils ne la payaient pas. » Alors, selon ce père de famille, « c’est évident que si j’étais encore avec eux, je ne voudrais pas me faire tester ».


    Des travailleurs saisonniers, le 11 juin à Beaucaire (Gard).

    « On va devoir tirer les conclusions de ce qui s’est passé », admet Patrick Lévêque, patron de la Fédération des syndicats d’exploitants agricoles des Bouches-du-Rhône. S’il se serait bien passé de l’annonce des multiples clusters dans le monde agricole, il assure n’être pas surpris : « Nous avons continué de bosser pour nourrir la France pendant tout le confinement. C’était un risque, évidemment. »

    « On ne nous dit rien »

    A quelques encablures du centre de dépistage, on retrouve l’épicentre de cette immigration : l’intérieur des remparts de la ville musée de Beaucaire. Le maire Rassemblement national (ex-Front national), Julien Sanchez, a été réélu dès le premier tour le 15 mars. Dans les épiceries latinos, entre les bananes plantain et les bonbons au dulce de leche, des agriculteurs ont épinglé des annonces traduites en espagnol. « Cherche bras pour travailler dans la vigne. Cotisations en Espagne. »

    Une femme demande si elle peut être renvoyée si jamais le résultat était positif. Une autre s’inquiète pour un ami confiné chez son employeur, dans un dortoir avec plusieurs cas de Covid-19. Un couple à qui on a imposé une quarantaine après avoir covoituré avec un collègue testé positif s’inquiète : seront-ils payés quand même à la fin du mois ? « On ne nous dit rien », confie le mari.

    Dans les rues de Beaucaire, la nuit tombe. Les terrasses se remplissent doucement. Sur les tables, les « unes » des journaux locaux avec le nombre de cas qui grimpe dangereusement. Les riverains s’inquiètent. « Avec les conditions dans lesquelles ils vivent, ce n’est pas étonnant qu’il y ait autant de Covid chez les Latinos » , estime Alain, bière à la main.« Avec cette histoire, raconte Alberto, les gens nous regardent un peu bizarrement. Il y en a qui changent carrément de trottoir. »


    Les épiceries latinos du centre-ville ont été des relais dans la campagne de dépistage gratuit.

    #saisonniers #sans_papiers #ouvriers_agricoles #intérim #agriculture #clusters #Terra_Fecundis #fraude_sociale #Covid-19

    • Haaa le fameux : « Nous avons continué de bosser pour nourrir la France pendant tout le confinement. C’était un risque, évidemment. »

    • Le travail détaché en agriculture condamné… avec sursis
      https://www.sante-et-travail.fr/travail-detache-agriculture-condamne-sursis

      Si le procès engagé contre l’entreprise de travail temporaire Terra Fecundis a permis de sanctionner certains abus autour du détachement de travailleurs agricoles, ce système de prêt de main-d’œuvre demeure légal et source de dérives graves concernant les conditions de travail. [paywall]

      Communiqué de presse (12/7/21) de la Confédération paysanne, partie civile dans ce procès :
      https://confederationpaysanne.fr/rp_article.php?id=11630

      La Confédération paysanne se félicite des condamnations prononcées le 8 juillet par le tribunal correctionnel de Marseille dans le dossier de la société espagnole Terra Fecundis, poursuivie pour détournement du cadre européen du travail détaché et délits de marchandage en bande organisée.

      Les dirigeants de cette entreprise de travail temporaire ont notamment été condamnés à des peines de 4 ans de prison avec sursis et à une interdiction définitive d’exercer cette activité.

      Terra Fecundis est aussi condamnée à 500.000 euros d’amende et à l’interdiction d’exercer l’activité de travail temporaire en France, quand Terra Bus Mediterraneo se voit interdite d’exercer le transport de personnes et condamnée à une amende de 200.000 euros.

      En condamnant ainsi les acteurs de ce vaste trafic de travailleurs.euses agricoles, la justice a pris la mesure des enjeux humains, sociaux et économiques de ce dossier. Nous regrettons cependant qu’ aucune entreprise ayant utilisé la main d’œuvre proposée par Terra Fecundis en France n’ait été poursuivie
      La Confédération paysanne s’est vue reconnaître la légitimité à agir, puisque sa demande de constitution de partie civile a été acceptée par le tribunal. L’audience relative au montant des dommages et intérêts aura lieu le 19 novembre prochain.

      Notre syndicat défend un modèle agricole, l’agriculture paysanne, qui passe par le respect des salarié.es et des droits sociaux. Des entreprises comme Terra Fecundis sont les chevilles ouvrières d’un système de concurrence déloyale, fondé sur une main d’œuvre exploitée, auquel doivent faire face celles et ceux qui emploient et rémunèrent correctement leurs salarié.es dans le respect des droits sociaux et du droit du travail. Il est inadmissible qu’ils se trouvent pénalisés par ces pratiques qui ont cours dans la filière fruits et légumes.

      La Confédération paysanne dénonce encore une fois ce système d’exploitation de travailleurs.euses et sera partie prenante des procédures qui se présenteront, en cohérence avec notre exigence de conditionnalité sociale des aides publiques.

      #marchands_d'esclaves

    • Saisonniers en servage N° 78 de Plein droit, la revue du #Gisti (octobre 2008)
      https://www.gisti.org/spip.php?article1237

      Dans la vallée du Rhône, en Andalousie, dans la région des Pouilles en Italie, la transformation totale des modes de culture des fruits et légumes s’est accompagnée d’une précarisation encore accrue, et aujourd’hui extrême, de la main-d’œuvre, majoritairement étrangère, de ce secteur. Contrats courts voire emploi illégal, dépendance totale vis-à-vis d’employeurs imposant des conditions de travail et d’hébergement indignes, invisibilisation des atteintes à la santé, tout un système d’exploitation et de déréglementation du droit du travail s’est développé contre lequel les saisonniers étrangers tentent depuis quelques années de se mobiliser.

      CODETRAS – Collectif de défense des travailleur.euse.s étranger.ère.s dans l’agriculture
      http://www.codetras.org
      #codetras #agro_industrie

  • USA : Dublin façon frontière Mexique/USA

    Faute d’accord avec le #Guatemala (pour l’instant bloqué du fait du recours déposé par plusieurs membres de l’opposition devant la Cour constitutionnelle) et le #Mexique les désignant comme des « #pays_sûr », les USA ont adopté une nouvelle réglementation en matière d’#asile ( « #Interim_Final_Rule » - #IFR), spécifiquement pour la #frontière avec le Mexique, qui n’est pas sans faire penser au règlement de Dublin : les personnes qui n’auront pas sollicité l’asile dans un des pays traversés en cours de route avant d’arriver aux USA verront leur demande rejetée.
    Cette règle entre en vigueur aujourd’hui et permet donc le #refoulement de toute personne « who enters or attempts to enter the United States across the southern border, but who did not apply for protection from persecution or torture where it was available in at least one third country outside the alien’s country of citizenship, nationality, or last lawful habitual residence through which he or she transited en route to the United States. »
    Lien vers le règlement : https://www.dhs.gov/news/2019/07/15/dhs-and-doj-issue-third-country-asylum-rule
    Plusieurs associations dont ACLU (association US) vont déposer un recours visant à le faire invalider.
    Les USA recueillent et échangent déjà des données avec les pays d’Amérique centrale et latine qu’ils utilisent pour débouter les demandeurs d’asile, par exemple avec le Salvador : https://psmag.com/social-justice/homeland-security-uses-foreign-databases-to-monitor-gang-activity

    Reçu via email le 16.07.2019 de @pascaline

    #USA #Etats-Unis #Dublin #Dublin_façon_USA #loi #Dublin_aux_USA #législation #asile #migrations #réfugiés #El_Salvador

    • Trump Administration Implementing ’3rd Country’ Rule On Migrants Seeking Asylum

      The Trump administration is moving forward with a tough new asylum rule in its campaign to slow the flow of Central American migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. Asylum-seeking immigrants who pass through a third country en route to the U.S. must first apply for refugee status in that country rather than at the U.S. border.

      The restriction will likely face court challenges, opening a new front in the battle over U.S. immigration policies.

      The interim final rule will take effect immediately after it is published in the Federal Register on Tuesday, according to the departments of Justice and Homeland Security.

      The new policy applies specifically to the U.S.-Mexico border, saying that “an alien who enters or attempts to enter the United States across the southern border after failing to apply for protection in a third country outside the alien’s country of citizenship, nationality, or last lawful habitual residence through which the alien transited en route to the United States is ineligible for asylum.”

      “Until Congress can act, this interim rule will help reduce a major ’pull’ factor driving irregular migration to the United States,” Homeland Security acting Secretary Kevin K. McAleenan said in a statement about the new rule.

      The American Civil Liberties Union said it planned to file a lawsuit to try to stop the rule from taking effect.

      “This new rule is patently unlawful and we will sue swiftly,” Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU’s national Immigrants’ Rights Project, said in a statement.

      Gelernt accused the Trump administration of “trying to unilaterally reverse our country’s legal and moral commitment to protect those fleeing danger.”

      The strict policy shift would likely bring new pressures and official burdens on Mexico and Guatemala, countries through which migrants and refugees often pass on their way to the U.S.

      On Sunday, Guatemala’s government pulled out of a meeting between President Jimmy Morales and Trump that had been scheduled for Monday, citing ongoing legal questions over whether the country could be deemed a “safe third country” for migrants who want to reach the U.S.

      Hours after the U.S. announced the rule on Monday, Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said it was a unilateral move that will not affect Mexican citizens.

      “Mexico does not agree with measures that limit asylum and refugee status for those who fear for their lives or safety, and who fear persecution in their country of origin,” Ebrard said.

      Ebrard said Mexico will maintain its current policies, reiterating the country’s “respect for the human rights of all people, as well as for its international commitments in matters of asylum and political refuge.”

      According to a DHS news release, the U.S. rule would set “a new bar to eligibility” for anyone seeking asylum. It also allows exceptions in three limited cases:

      “1) an alien who demonstrates that he or she applied for protection from persecution or torture in at least one of the countries through which the alien transited en route to the United States, and the alien received a final judgment denying the alien protection in such country;

      ”(2) an alien who demonstrates that he or she satisfies the definition of ’victim of a severe form of trafficking in persons’ provided in 8 C.F.R. § 214.11; or,

      “(3) an alien who has transited en route to the United States through only a country or countries that were not parties to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, the 1967 Protocol, or the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.”

      The DHS release describes asylum as “a discretionary benefit offered by the United States Government to those fleeing persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.”

      The departments of Justice and Homeland Security are publishing the 58-page asylum rule as the Trump administration faces criticism over conditions at migrant detention centers at the southern border, as well as its “remain in Mexico” policy that requires asylum-seekers who are waiting for a U.S. court date to do so in Mexico rather than in the U.S.

      In a statement about the new rule, U.S. Attorney General William Barr said that current U.S. asylum rules have been abused, and that the large number of people trying to enter the country has put a strain on the system.

      Barr said the number of cases referred to the Department of Justice for proceedings before an immigration judge “has risen exponentially, more than tripling between 2013 and 2018.” The attorney general added, “Only a small minority of these individuals, however, are ultimately granted asylum.”

      https://www.npr.org/2019/07/15/741769333/u-s-sets-new-asylum-rule-telling-potential-refugees-to-apply-elsewhere

    • Le journal The New Yorker : Trump est prêt à signer un accord majeur pour envoyer à l’avenir les demandeurs d’asile au Guatemala

      L’article fait état d’un projet de #plate-forme_externalisée pour examiner les demandes de personnes appréhendées aux frontières US, qui rappelle à la fois une proposition britannique (jamais concrétisée) de 2003 de créer des processing centers extra-européens et la #Pacific_solution australienne, qui consiste à déporter les demandeurs d’asile « illégaux » de toute nationalité dans des pays voisins. Et l’article évoque la « plus grande et la plus troublante des questions : comment le Guatemala pourrait-il faire face à un afflux si énorme de demandeurs ? » Peut-être en demandant conseil aux autorités libyennes et à leurs amis européens ?

      –-> Message reçu d’Alain Morice via la mailling-list Migreurop.

      Trump Is Poised to Sign a Radical Agreement to Send Future Asylum Seekers to Guatemala

      Early next week, according to a D.H.S. official, the Trump Administration is expected to announce a major immigration deal, known as a safe-third-country agreement, with Guatemala. For weeks, there have been reports that negotiations were under way between the two countries, but, until now, none of the details were official. According to a draft of the agreement obtained by The New Yorker, asylum seekers from any country who either show up at U.S. ports of entry or are apprehended while crossing between ports of entry could be sent to seek asylum in Guatemala instead. During the past year, tens of thousands of migrants, the vast majority of them from Central America, have arrived at the U.S. border seeking asylum each month. By law, the U.S. must give them a chance to bring their claims before authorities, even though there’s currently a backlog in the immigration courts of roughly a million cases. The Trump Administration has tried a number of measures to prevent asylum seekers from entering the country—from “metering” at ports of entry to forcing people to wait in Mexico—but, in every case, international obligations held that the U.S. would eventually have to hear their asylum claims. Under this new arrangement, most of these migrants will no longer have a chance to make an asylum claim in the U.S. at all. “We’re talking about something much bigger than what the term ‘safe third country’ implies,” someone with knowledge of the deal told me. “We’re talking about a kind of transfer agreement where the U.S. can send any asylum seekers, not just Central Americans, to Guatemala.”

      From the start of the Trump Presidency, Administration officials have been fixated on a safe-third-country policy with Mexico—a similar accord already exists with Canada—since it would allow the U.S. government to shift the burden of handling asylum claims farther south. The principle was that migrants wouldn’t have to apply for asylum in the U.S. because they could do so elsewhere along the way. But immigrants-rights advocates and policy experts pointed out that Mexico’s legal system could not credibly take on that responsibility. “If you’re going to pursue a safe-third-country agreement, you have to be able to say ‘safe’ with a straight face,” Doris Meissner, a former commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, told me. Until very recently, the prospect of such an agreement—not just with Mexico but with any other country in Central America—seemed far-fetched. Yet last month, under the threat of steep tariffs on Mexican goods, Trump strong-armed the Mexican government into considering it. Even so, according to a former Mexican official, the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador is stalling. “They are trying to fight this,” the former official said. What’s so striking about the agreement with Guatemala, however, is that it goes even further than the terms the U.S. sought in its dealings with Mexico. “This is a whole new level,” the person with knowledge of the agreement told me. “In my read, it looks like even those who have never set foot in Guatemala can potentially be sent there.”

      At this point, there are still more questions than answers about what the agreement with Guatemala will mean in practice. A lot will still have to happen before it goes into force, and the terms aren’t final. The draft of the agreement doesn’t provide much clarity on how it will be implemented—another person with knowledge of the agreement said, “This reads like it was drafted by someone’s intern”—but it does offer an exemption for Guatemalan migrants, which might be why the government of Jimmy Morales, a U.S. ally, seems willing to sign on. Guatemala is currently in the midst of Presidential elections; next month, the country will hold a runoff between two candidates, and the current front-runner has been opposed to this type of deal. The Morales government, however, still has six months left in office. A U.N.-backed anti-corruption body called the CICIG, which for years was funded by the U.S. and admired throughout the region, is being dismantled by Morales, whose own family has fallen under investigation for graft and financial improprieties. Signing an immigration deal “would get the Guatemalan government in the U.S.’s good graces,” Stephen McFarland, a former U.S. Ambassador to Guatemala, told me. “The question is, what would they intend to use that status for?” Earlier this week, after Morales announced that he would be meeting with Trump in Washington on Monday, three former foreign ministers of Guatemala petitioned the country’s Constitutional Court to block him from signing the agreement. Doing so, they said, “would allow the current president of the republic to leave the future of our country mortgaged, without any responsibility.”

      The biggest, and most unsettling, question raised by the agreement is how Guatemala could possibly cope with such enormous demands. More people are leaving Guatemala now than any other country in the northern triangle of Central America. Rampant poverty, entrenched political corruption, urban crime, and the effects of climate change have made large swaths of the country virtually uninhabitable. “This is already a country in which the political and economic system can’t provide jobs for all its people,” McFarland said. “There are all these people, their own citizens, that the government and the political and economic system are not taking care of. To get thousands of citizens from other countries to come in there, and to take care of them for an indefinite period of time, would be very difficult.” Although the U.S. would provide additional aid to help the Guatemalan government address the influx of asylum seekers, it isn’t clear whether the country has the administrative capacity to take on the job. According to the person familiar with the safe-third-country agreement, “U.N.H.C.R. [the U.N.’s refugee agency] has not been involved” in the current negotiations. And, for Central Americans transferred to Guatemala under the terms of the deal, there’s an added security risk: many of the gangs Salvadorans and Hondurans are fleeing also operate in Guatemala.

      In recent months, the squalid conditions at borderland detention centers have provoked a broad political outcry in the U.S. At the same time, a worsening asylum crisis has been playing out south of the U.S. border, beyond the immediate notice of concerned Americans. There, the Trump Administration is quietly delivering on its promise to redraw American asylum practice. Since January, under a policy called the Migration Protection Protocols (M.P.P.), the U.S. government has sent more than fifteen thousand asylum seekers to Mexico, where they now must wait indefinitely as their cases inch through the backlogged American immigration courts. Cities in northern Mexico, such as Tijuana and Juarez, are filling up with desperate migrants who are exposed to violent crime, extortion, and kidnappings, all of which are on the rise.This week, as part of the M.P.P., the U.S. began sending migrants to Tamaulipas, one of Mexico’s most violent states and a stronghold for drug cartels that, for years, have brutalized migrants for money and for sport.

      Safe-third-country agreements are notoriously difficult to enforce. The logistics are complex, and the outcomes tend not to change the harried calculations of asylum seekers as they flee their homes. These agreements, according to a recent study by the Migration Policy Institute, are “unlikely to hold the key to solving the crisis unfolding at the U.S. southern border.” The Trump Administration has already cut aid to Central America, and the U.S. asylum system remains in dire need of improvement. But there’s also little question that the agreement with Guatemala will reduce the number of people who reach, and remain in, the U.S. If the President has made the asylum crisis worse, he’ll also be able to say he’s improving it—just as he can claim credit for the decline in the number of apprehensions at the U.S. border last month. That was the result of increased enforcement efforts by the Mexican government acting under U.S. pressure.

      There’s also no reason to expect that the Trump Administration will abandon its efforts to force the Mexicans into a safe-third-country agreement as well. “The Mexican government thought that the possibility of a safe-third-country agreement with Guatemala had fallen apart because of the elections there,” the former Mexican official told me. “The recent news caught top Mexican officials by surprise.” In the next month, the two countries will continue immigration talks, and, again, Mexico will face mounting pressure to accede to American demands. “The U.S. has used the agreement with Guatemala to convince the Mexicans to sign their own safe-third-country agreement,” the former official said. “Its argument is that the number of migrants Mexico will receive will be lower now.”

      https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trump-poised-to-sign-a-radical-agreement-to-send-future-asylum-seekers-to
      #externalisation

    • After Tariff Threat, Trump Says Guatemala Has Agreed to New Asylum Rules

      President Trump on Friday again sought to block migrants from Central America from seeking asylum, announcing an agreement with Guatemala to require people who travel through that country to seek refuge from persecution there instead of in the United States.

      American officials said the deal could go into effect within weeks, though critics vowed to challenge it in court, saying that Guatemala is itself one of the most dangerous countries in the world — hardly a refuge for those fleeing gangs and government violence.

      Mr. Trump had been pushing for a way to slow the flow of migrants streaming across the Mexican border and into the United States in recent months. This week, the president had threatened to impose tariffs on Guatemala, to tax money that Guatemalan migrants in the United States send back to family members, or to ban all travel from the country if the agreement were not signed.

      Joined in the Oval Office on Friday by Interior Minister Enrique Degenhart of Guatemala, Mr. Trump said the agreement would end what he has described as a crisis at the border, which has been overwhelmed by hundreds of thousands of families fleeing violence and persecution in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala.
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      “These are bad people,” Mr. Trump told reporters after a previously unannounced signing ceremony. He said the agreement would “end widespread abuse of the system and the crippling crisis on our border.”

      Officials did not release the English text of the agreement or provide many details about how it would be put into practice along the United States border with Mexico. Mr. Trump announced the deal in a Friday afternoon Twitter post that took Guatemalan politicians and leaders at immigration advocacy groups by surprise.

      Kevin K. McAleenan, the acting secretary of homeland security, described the document signed by the two countries as a “safe third” agreement that would make migrants ineligible for protection in the United States if they had traveled through Guatemala and did not first apply for asylum there.

      Instead of being returned home, however, the migrants would be sent back to Guatemala, which under the agreement would be designated as a safe place for them to live.

      “They would be removable, back to Guatemala, if they want to seek an asylum claim,” said Mr. McAleenan, who likened the agreement to similar arrangements in Europe.
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      The move was the latest attempt by Mr. Trump to severely limit the ability of refugees to win protection in the United States. A new regulation that would have also banned most asylum seekers was blocked by a judge in San Francisco earlier this week.

      But the Trump administration is determined to do everything it can to stop the flow of migrants at the border, which has infuriated the president. Mr. Trump has frequently told his advisers that he sees the border situation as evidence of a failure to make good on his campaign promise to seal the border from dangerous immigrants.

      More than 144,200 migrants were taken into custody at the southwest border in May, the highest monthly total in 13 years. Arrests at the border declined by 28 percent in June after efforts in Mexico and the United States to stop migrants from Central America.

      Late Friday, the Guatemalan government released the Spanish text of the deal, which is called a “cooperative agreement regarding the examination of protection claims.” In an earlier statement announcing the agreement, the government had referred to an implementation plan for Salvadorans and Hondurans. It does not apply to Guatemalans who request asylum in the United States.

      By avoiding any mention of a “safe third country” agreement, President Jimmy Morales of Guatemala appeared to be trying to sidestep a recent court ruling blocking him from signing a deal with the United States without the approval of his country’s congress.

      Mr. Morales will leave office in January. One of the candidates running to replace him, the conservative Alejandro Giammattei, said that it was “irresponsible” for Mr. Morales to have agreed to an accord without revealing its contents first.

      “It is up to the next government to attend to this negotiation,” Mr. Giammattei wrote on Twitter. His opponent, Sandra Torres, had opposed any safe-third-country agreement when it first appeared that Mr. Morales was preparing to sign one.

      Legal groups in the United States said the immediate effect of the agreement will not be clear until the administration releases more details. But based on the descriptions of the deal, they vowed to ask a judge to block it from going into effect.

      “Guatemala can neither offer a safe nor fair and full process, and nobody could plausibly argue otherwise,” said Lee Gelernt, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who argued against other recent efforts to limit asylum. “There’s no way they have the capacity to provide a full and fair procedure, much less a safe one.”

      American asylum laws require that virtually all migrants who arrive at the border must be allowed to seek refuge in the United States, but the law allows the government to quickly deport migrants to a country that has signed a “safe third” agreement.

      But critics said that the law clearly requires the “safe third” country to be a truly safe place where migrants will not be in danger. And it requires that the country have the ability to provide a “full and fair” system of protections that can accommodate asylum seekers who are sent there. Critics insisted that Guatemala meets neither requirement.

      They also noted that the State Department’s own country condition reports on Guatemala warn about rampant gang activity and say that murder is common in the country, which has a police force that is often ineffective at best.

      Asked whether Guatemala is a safe country for refugees, Mr. McAleenan said it was unfair to tar an entire country, noting that there are also places in the United States that are not safe.

      In 2018, the most recent year for which data is available, 116,808 migrants apprehended at the southwest border were from Guatemala, while 77,128 were from Honduras and 31,636 were from El Salvador.

      “It’s legally ludicrous and totally dangerous,” said Eleanor Acer, the senior director for refugee protection at Human Rights First. “The United States is trying to send people back to a country where their lives would be at risk. It sets a terrible example for the rest of the world.”

      Administration officials traveled to Guatemala in recent months, pushing officials there to sign the agreement, according to an administration official. But negotiations broke down in the past two weeks after Guatemala’s Constitutional Court ruled that Mr. Morales needed approval from lawmakers to make the deal with the United States.

      The ruling led Mr. Morales to cancel a planned trip in mid-July to sign the agreement, leaving Mr. Trump fuming.

      “Now we are looking at the BAN, Tariffs, Remittance Fees, or all of the above,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter on July 23.

      Friday’s action suggests that the president’s threats, which provoked concern among Guatemala’s business community, were effective.

      https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/26/world/americas/trump-guatemala-asylum.html

    • Este es el acuerdo migratorio firmado entre Guatemala y Estados Unidos

      Prensa Libre obtuvo en primicia el acuerdo que Guatemala firmó con Estados Unidos para detener la migración desde el Triángulo Norte de Centroamérica.

      Estados Unidos y Guatemala firmaron este 26 de julio un “acuerdo de asilo”, después de que esta semana el presidente Donald Trump amenazara a Guatemala con imponer aranceles para presionar por la negociación del convenio.

      Según Trump, el acuerdo “va a dar seguridad a los demandantes de asilo legítimos y a va detener los fraudes y abusos en el sistema de asilo”.

      El acuerdo fue firmado en el Despacho Oval de la Casa Blanca entre Kevin McAleenan, secretario interino de Seguridad Nacional de los Estados Unidos, y Enrique Degenhart, ministro de Gobernación de Guatemala.

      “Hace mucho tiempo que hemos estado trabajando con Guatemala y ahora podemos hacerlo de la manera correcta”, dijo el mandatario estadounidense.

      Este es el contenido íntegro del acuerdo:

      ACUERDO ENTRE EL GOBIERNO DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA Y EL GOBIERNO DE LA REPÚBLICA DE GUATEMALA RELATIVO A LA COOPERACIÓN RESPECTO AL EXAMEN DE SOLICITUDES DE PROTECCIÓN

      EL GOBIERNO DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA Y EL GOBIERNO DE LA REPÚBLICA DE GUATEMALA, en lo sucesivo de forma individual una “Parte” o colectivamente “las Partes”,

      CONSIDERANDO que Guatemala norma sus relaciones con otros países de conformidad con principios, reglas y prácticas internacionales con el propósito de contribuir al mantenimiento de la paz y la libertad, al respeto y defensa de los derechos humanos, y al fortalecimiento de los procesos democráticos e instituciones internacionales que garanticen el beneficio mutuo y equitativo entre los Estados; considerando por otro lado, que Guatemala mantendrá relaciones de amistad, solidaridad y cooperación con aquellos Estados cuyo desarrollo económico, social y cultural sea análogo al de Guatemala, como el derecho de las personas a migrar y su necesidad de protección;

      CONSIDERANDO que en la actualidad Guatemala incorpora en su legislación interna leyes migratorias dinámicas que obligan a Guatemala a reconocer el derecho de toda persona a emigrar o inmigrar, por lo que cualquier migrante puede entrar, permanecer, transitar, salir y retornar a su territorio nacional conforme a su legislación nacional; considerando, asimismo, que en situaciones no previstas por la legislación interna se debe aplicar la norma que más favorezca al migrante, siendo que por analogía se le debería dar abrigo y cuidado temporal a las personas que deseen ingresar de manera legal al territorio nacional; considerando que por estos motivos es necesario promover acuerdos de cooperación con otros Estados que respeten los mismos principios descritos en la política migratoria de Guatemala, reglamentada por la Autoridad Migratoria Nacional;

      CONSIDERANDO que Guatemala es parte de la Convención sobre el Estatuto de los Refugiados de 1951, celebrada en Ginebra el 28 de julio de 1951 (la “Convención de 1951″) y del Protocolo sobre el Estatuto de los Refugiados, firmado en Nueva York el 31 de enero de 1967 (el “Protocolo de 1967′), del cual los Estados Unidos son parte, y reafirmando la obligación de las partes de proporcionar protección a refugiados que cumplen con los requisitos y que se encuentran físicamente en sus respectivos territorios, de conformidad con sus obligaciones según esos instrumentos y sujetos . a las respectivas leyes, tratados y declaraciones de las Partes;

      RECONOCIENDO especialmente la obligación de las Partes respecto a cumplir el principio de non-refoulement de no devolución, tal como se desprende de la Convención de 1951 y del Protocolo de 1967, así como la Convención contra la Tortura y Otros Tratos o Penas Crueles, Inhumanos o Degradantes, firmada en Nueva York el 10 de diciembre de 1984 (la “Convención contra la Tortura”), con sujeción a las respectivas reservas, entendimientos y declaraciones de las Partes y reafirmando sus respectivas obligaciones de fomentar y proteger los derechos humanos y las libertades fundamentales en consonancia con sus obligaciones en el ámbito internacional;

      RECONOCIENDO y respetando las obligaciones de cada Parte de conformidad con sus leyes y políticas nacionales y acuerdos y arreglos internacionales;

      DESTACANDO que los Estados Unidos de América y Guatemala ofrecen sistemas de protección de refugiados que son coherentes con sus obligaciones conforme a la Convención de 1951 y/o el Protocolo de 1967;

      DECIDIDOS a mantener el estatuto de refugio o de protección temporal equivalente, como medida esencial en la protección de los refugiados o asilados, y al mismo tiempo deseando impedir el fraude en el proceso de solicitud de refugio o asilo, acción que socava su legitimo propósito; y decididos a fortalecer la integridad del proceso oficial para solicitar el estatuto de refugio o asilo, así como el respaldo público a dicho proceso;

      CONSCIENTES de que la distribución de la responsabilidad relacionada con solicitudes de protección debe garantizar en la práctica que se identifique a las personas que necesitan protección y que se eviten las violaciones del principio básico de no devolución; y, por lo tanto, comprometidos con salvaguardar para cada solicitante del estatuto de refugio o asilo que reúna las condiciones necesarias el acceso a un procedimiento completo e imparcial para determinar la solicitud;

      ACUERDAN lo siguiente:

      ARTÍCULO 1

      A efectos del presente Acuerdo:

      1. “Solicitud de protección” significa la solicitud de una persona de cualquier nacionalidad, al gobierno de una de las Partes para recibir protección conforme a sus respectivas obligaciones institucionales derivadas de la Convención de 1951, del Protocolo de 1967 o de la Convención contra la Tortura, y de conformidad con las leyes y políticas respectivas de las Partes que dan cumplimiento a esas obligaciones internacionales, así como para recibir cualquier otro tipo de protección temporal equivalente disponible conforme al derecho migratorio de la parte receptora.

      2. “Solicitante de protección” significa cualquier persona que presenta una solicitud de protección en el territorio de una de las partes.

      3. “Sistema para determinar la protección” significa el conjunto de políticas, leyes, prácticas administrativas y judiciales que el gobierno de cada parte emplea para decidir respecto de las solicitudes de protección.

      4. “Menor no acompañado” significa un solicitante de protección que no ha cumplido los dieciocho (18) años de edad y cuyo padre, madre o tutor legal no está presente ni disponible para proporcionar atención y custodia presencial en los Estados Unidos de América o en Guatemala, donde se encuentre el menor no acompañado.

      5. En el caso de la inmigración a Guatemala, las políticas respecto de leyes y migración abordan el derecho de las personas a entrar, permanecer, transitar y salir de su territorio de conformidad con sus leyes internas y los acuerdos y arreglos internacionales, y permanencia migratoria significa permanencia por un plazo de tiempo autorizado de acuerdo al estatuto migratorio otorgado a las personas.

      ARTÍCULO 2

      El presente Acuerdo no aplica a los solicitantes de protección que son ciudadanos o nacionales de Guatemala; o quienes, siendo apátridas, residen habitualmente en Guatemala.

      ARTÍCULO 3

      1. Para garantizar que los solicitantes de protección trasladados a Guatemala por los Estados Unidos tengan acceso a un sistema para determinar la protección, Guatemala no retornará ni expulsará a solicitantes de protección en Guatemala, a menos que el solicitante abandone la ‘solicitud o que esta sea denegada a través de una decisión administrativa.

      2. Durante el proceso de traslado, las personas sujetas al presente Acuerdo serán responsabilidad de los Estados Unidos hasta que finalice el proceso de traslado.

      ARTÍCULO 4

      1. La responsabilidad de determinar y concluir en su territorio solicitudes de protección recaerá en los Estados Unidos, cuando los Estados Unidos establezcan que esa persona:

      a. es un menor no acompañado; o

      b. llegó al territorio de los Estados Unidos:

      i. con una visa emitida de forma válida u otro documento de admisión válido, que no sea de tránsito, emitido por los Estados Unidos; o

      ii. sin que los Estados Unidos de América le exigiera obtener una visa.

      2. No obstante el párrafo 1 de este artículo, Guatemala evaluará las solicitudes de protección una por una, de acuerdo a lo establecido y autorizado por la autoridad competente en materia migratoria en sus políticas y leyes migratorias y en su territorio, de las personas que cumplen los requisitos necesarios conforme al presente Acuerdo, y que llegan a los Estados Unidos a un puerto de entrada o entre puertos de entrada, en la fecha efectiva del presente Acuerdo o posterior a ella. Guatemala evaluará la solicitud de protección, conforme al plan de implementación inicial y los procedimientos operativos estándar a los que se hace referencia en el artículo 7, apartados 1 y 5.

      3. Las Partes aplicarán el presente Acuerdo respecto a menores no acompañados de conformidad con sus respectivas leyes nacionales,

      4. Las Partes contarán con procedimientos para garantizar que los traslados de los Estados Unidos a Guatemala de las personas objeto del presente Acuerdo sean compatibles con sus obligaciones, leyes nacionales e internacionales y políticas migratorias respectivas.

      5. Los Estados Unidos tomarán la decisión final de que una persona satisface los requisitos para una excepción en virtud de los artículos 4 y 5 del presente Acuerdo.

      ARTÍCULO 5

      No obstante cualquier disposición del presente Acuerdo, cualquier parte podrá, según su propio criterio, examinar cualquier solicitud de protección que se haya presentado a esa Parte cuando decida que es de su interés público hacerlo.

      ARTÍCULO 6

      Las Partes podrán:

      1. Intercambiar información cuando sea necesario para la implementación efectiva del presente Acuerdo con sujeción a las leyes y reglamentación nacionales. Dicha información no será divulgada por el país receptor excepto de conformidad con sus leyes y reglamentación nacionales.

      2. Las Partes podrán intercambiar de forma habitual información respecto á leyes, reglamentación y prácticas relacionadas con sus respectivos sistemas para determinar la protección migratoria.

      ARTÍCULO 7

      1. Las Partes elaborarán procedimientos operativos estándar para asistir en la implementación del presente Acuerdo. Estos procedimientos incorporarán disposiciones para notificar por adelantado, a Guatemala, el traslado de cualquier persona conforme al presente Acuerdo. Los Estados Unidos colaborarán con Guatemala para identificar a las personas idóneas para ser trasladadas al territorio de Guatemala.

      2. Los procedimientos operativos incorporarán mecanismos para solucionar controversias que respeten la interpretación e implementación de los términos del presente Acuerdo. Los casos no previstos que no puedan solucionarse a través de estos mecanismos serán resueltos a través de la vía diplomática.

      3. Los Estados Unidos prevén cooperar para fortalecer las capacidades institucionales de Guatemala.

      4. Las Partes acuerdan evaluar regularmente el presente Acuerdo y su implementación, para subsanar las deficiencias encontradas. Las Partes realizarán las evaluaciones conjuntamente, siendo la primera dentro de un plazo máximo de tres (3) meses a partir de la fecha de entrada en operación del Acuerdo y las siguientes evaluaciones dentro de los mismos plazos. Las Partes podrán invitar, de común acuerdo, a otras organizaciones pertinentes con conocimientos especializados sobre el tema a participar en la evaluación inicial y/o cooperar para el cumplimiento del presente Acuerdo.

      5. Las Partes prevén completar un plan de implementación inicial, que incorporará gradualmente, y abordará, entre otros: a) los procedimientos necesarios para llevar a cabo el traslado de personas conforme al presente Acuerdo; b) la cantidad o número de personas a ser trasladadas; y c) las necesidades de capacidad institucional. Las Partes planean hacer operativo el presente Acuerdo al finalizarse un plan de implementación gradual.

      ARTÍCULO 8

      1. El presente Acuerdo entrará en vigor por medio de un canje de notas entre las partes en el que se indique que cada parte ha cumplido con los procedimientos jurídicos nacionales necesarios para que el Acuerdo entre en vigor. El presente Acuerdo tendrá una vigencia de dos (2) años y podrá renovarse antes de su vencimiento a través de un canje de notas.

      2. Cualquier Parte podrá dar por terminado el presente Acuerdo por medio de una notificación por escrito a la otra Parte con tres (3) meses de antelación.

      3. Cualquier parte podrá, inmediatamente después de notificar a la otra parte por escrito, suspender por un periodo inicial de hasta tres (3) meses la implementación del presente Acuerdo. Esta suspensión podrá extenderse por periodos adicionales de hasta tres (3) meses por medio de una notificación por escrito a la otra parte. Cualquier parte podrá, con el consentimiento por escrito de la otra, suspender cualquier parte del presente Acuerdo.

      4. Las Partes podrán, por escrito y de mutuo acuerdo, realizar cualquier modificación o adición al presente Acuerdo. Estas entrarán en vigor de conformidad con los procedimientos jurídicos pertinentes de cada Parte y la modificación o adición constituirá parte integral del presente Acuerdo.

      5. Ninguna disposición del presente Acuerdo deberá interpretarse de manera que obligue a las Partes a erogar o comprometer fondos.

      EN FE DE LO CUAL, los abajo firmantes, debidamente autorizados por sus respectivos gobiernos, firman el presente Acuerdo.

      HECHO el 26 de julio de 2019, por duplicado en los idiomas inglés y español, siendo ambos textos auténticos.

      POR EL GOBIERNO DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA: Kevin K. McAleenan, Secretario Interino de Seguridad Nacional.

      POR EL GOBIERNO DE LA REPÚBLICA DE GUATEMALA: Enrique A. Degenhart Asturias, Ministro de Gobernación.

      https://www.prensalibre.com/guatemala/migrantes/este-es-el-acuerdo-migratorio-firmado-entre-guatemala-y-estados-unidos

    • Washington signe un accord sur le droit d’asile avec le Guatemala

      Sous la pression du président américain, le Guatemala devient un « pays tiers sûr », où les migrants de passage vers les Etats-Unis doivent déposer leurs demandes d’asile.

      Sous la pression de Donald Trump qui menaçait de lui infliger des sanctions commerciales, le Guatemala a accepté vendredi 26 juillet de devenir un « pays tiers sûr » pour contribuer à réduire le nombre de demandes d’asile aux Etats-Unis. L’accord, qui a été signé en grande pompe dans le bureau ovale de la Maison blanche, en préfigure d’autres, a assuré le président américain, qui a notamment cité le Mexique.

      Faute d’avoir obtenu du Congrès le financement du mur qu’il souhaitait construire le long de la frontière avec le Mexique, Donald Trump a changé de stratégie en faisant pression sur les pays d’Amérique centrale pour qu’ils l’aident à réduire le flux de migrants arrivant aux Etats-Unis, qui a atteint un niveau record sous sa présidence.

      Une personne qui traverse un « pays tiers sûr » doit déposer sa demande d’asile dans ce pays et non dans son pays de destination. Sans employer le terme « pays tiers sûr », le gouvernement guatémaltèque a précisé dans un communiqué que l’accord conclu avec les Etats-Unis s’appliquerait aux réfugiés originaires du Honduras et du Salvador.

      Contreparties pour les travailleurs agricoles

      S’adressant à la presse devant la Maison blanche, le président américain a indiqué que les ouvriers agricoles guatémaltèques auraient en contrepartie un accès privilégié aux fermes aux Etats-Unis.

      Le président guatémaltèque Jimmy Morales devait signer l’accord de « pays tiers sûr » la semaine dernière mais il avait été contraint de reculer après que la Cour constitutionnelle avait jugé qu’il ne pouvait pas prendre un tel engagement sans l’accord du Parlement, ce qui avait provoqué la fureur de Donald Trump.

      Invoquant la nécessité d’éviter des « répercussions sociales et économiques », le gouvernement guatémaltèque a indiqué qu’un accord serait signé dans les prochains jours avec Washington pour faciliter l’octroi de visas de travail agricole temporaires aux ressortissants guatémaltèques. Il a dit espérer que cette mesure serait ultérieurement étendue aux secteurs de la construction et des services.

      Les Etats-Unis sont confrontés à une flambée du nombre de migrants qui cherchent à franchir sa frontière sud, celle qui les séparent du Mexique. En juin, les services de police aux frontières ont arrêté 104 000 personnes qui cherchaient à entrer illégalement aux Etats-Unis. Ils avaient été 144 000 le mois précédent.

      https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2019/07/27/washington-signe-un-accord-sur-le-droit-d-asile-avec-le-guatemala_5493979_32
      #agriculture #ouvriers_agricoles #travail #fermes

    • Migrants, pressions sur le Mexique

      Sous la pression des États-Unis, le Mexique fait la chasse aux migrants sur son territoire, et les empêche d’avancer vers le nord. Au mois de juin, les autorités ont arrêté près de 24 000 personnes sans papiers.

      Debout sur son radeau, Edwin maugrée en regardant du coin de l’œil la vingtaine de militaires de la Garde Nationale mexicaine postés sous les arbres, côté mexicain. « C’est à cause d’eux si les affaires vont mal », bougonne le jeune Guatémaltèque en poussant son radeau à l’aide d’une perche. « Depuis qu’ils sont là, plus personne ne peut passer au Mexique ».

      Les eaux du fleuve Suchiate, qui sépare le Mexique du Guatemala, sont étrangement calmes depuis le mois de juin. Fini le ballet incessant des petits radeaux de fortune, où s’entassaient, pêle-mêle, villageois, commerçants et migrants qui se rendaient au Mexique. « Mais ça ne change rien, les migrants traversent plus loin », sourit le jeune homme.

      La stratégie du président américain Donald Trump pour contraindre son voisin du sud à réduire les flux migratoires en direction des États-Unis a mis le gouvernement mexicain aux abois : pour éviter une nouvelle fois la menace de l’instauration de frais de douanes de 5 % sur les importations mexicaines, le gouvernement d’Andrés Manuel López Obrador a déployé dans l’urgence 6 500 éléments de la Garde Nationale à la frontière sud du Mexique.
      Des pots-de-vin lors des contrôles

      Sur les routes, les opérations de contrôle sont partout. « Nous avons été arrêtés à deux reprises par l’armée », explique Natalia, entourée de ses garçons de 11 ans, 8 ans et 3 ans. Cette Guatémaltèque s’est enfuie de son village avec son mari et ses enfants, il y a dix jours. Son époux, témoin protégé dans le procès d’un groupe criminel, a été menacé de mort. « Au premier contrôle, nous leur avons donné 1 500 pesos (NDLR, 70 €), au deuxième 2 500 pesos (118 €), pour qu’ils nous laissent partir », explique la mère de famille, assise sous le préau de l’auberge du Père César Augusto Cañaveral, l’une des deux auberges qui accueillent les migrants à Tapachula.

      Conçu pour 120 personnes, l’établissement héberge actuellement plus de 300 personnes, dont une centaine d’enfants en bas âge. « On est face à une politique anti-migratoire de plus en plus violente et militarisée, se désole le Père Cañaveral. C’est devenu une véritable chasse à l’homme dehors, alors je leur dis de sortir le moins possible pour éviter les arrestations ». Celles-ci ont en effet explosé depuis l’ultimatum du président des États-Unis : du 1er au 24 juin, l’Institut National de Migration (INM) a arrêté près de 24 000 personnes en situation irrégulière, soit 1 000 personnes détenues par jour en moyenne, et en a expulsé plus de 17 000, essentiellement des Centraméricains. Du jamais vu.
      Des conditions de détention « indignes »

      À Tapachula, les migrants arrêtés sont entassés dans le centre de rétention Siglo XXI. À quelques mètres de l’entrée de cette forteresse de béton, Yannick a le regard vide et fatigué. « Il y avait tellement de monde là-dedans que ma fille y est tombée malade », raconte cet Angolais âgé de 33 ans, sa fille de 3 ans somnolant dans ses bras. « Ils viennent de nous relâcher car ils ne vont pas nous renvoyer en Afrique, ajoute-il. Heureusement, car à l’intérieur on dort par terre ». « Les conditions dans ce centre sont indignes », dénonce Claudia León Aug, coordinatrice du Service jésuite des réfugiés pour l’Amérique latine, qui a visité à plusieurs reprises le centre de rétention Siglo XXI. « La nourriture est souvent avariée, les enfants tombent malades, les bébés n’ont droit qu’à une seule couche par jour, et on a même recensé des cas de tortures et d’agressions ».

      Tapachula est devenu un cul-de-sac pour des milliers de migrants. Ils errent dans les rues de la ville, d’hôtel en d’hôtel, ou louent chez l’habitant, faute de pouvoir avancer vers le nord. Les compagnies de bus, sommées de participer à l’effort national, demandent systématiquement une pièce d’identité en règle. « On ne m’a pas laissé monter dans le bus en direction de Tijuana », se désole Elvis, un Camerounais de 34 ans qui rêve de se rendre au Canada.

      Il sort de sa poche un papier tamponné par les autorités mexicaines, le fameux laissez-passer que délivrait l’Institut National de Migration aux migrants extra-continentaux, pour qu’ils traversent le Mexique en 20 jours afin de gagner la frontière avec les États-Unis. « Regardez, ils ont modifié le texte, maintenant il est écrit que je ne peux pas sortir de Tapachula », accuse le jeune homme, dépité, avant de se rasseoir sur le banc de la petite cour de son hôtel décati dans la périphérie de Tapachula. « La situation est chaotique, les gens sont bloqués ici et les autorités ne leur donnent aucune information, pour les décourager encore un peu plus », dénonce Salvador Lacruz, coordinateur au Centre des Droits humains Centro Fray Matías de Córdova.
      Explosion du nombre des demandes d’asile au Mexique

      Face à la menace des arrestations et des expulsions, de plus en plus de migrants choisissent de demander l’asile au Mexique. Dans le centre-ville de Tapachula, la Commission mexicaine d’aide aux réfugiés (COMAR), est prise d’assaut dès 4 heures du matin par les demandeurs d’asile. « On m’a dit de venir avec tous les documents qui prouvent que je suis en danger de mort dans mon pays », explique Javier, un Hondurien de 34 ans qui a fait la queue une partie de la nuit pour ne pas rater son rendez-vous.

      Son fils de 9 ans est assis sur ses genoux. « J’ai le certificat de décès de mon père et celui de mon frère. Ils ont été assassinés pour avoir refusé de donner de l’argent aux maras », explique-t-il, une pochette en plastique dans les mains. « Le prochain sur la liste, c’est moi, c’est pour ça que je suis parti pour les États-Unis, mais je vois que c’est devenu très difficile, alors je me pose ici, ensuite, on verra ».

      Les demandes d’asile au Mexique ont littéralement explosé : 31 000 pour les six premiers mois de 2019, c’est trois fois plus qu’en 2018 à la même période, et juin a été particulièrement élevé, avec 70 % de demandes en plus par rapport à janvier. La tendance devrait se poursuivre du fait de la décision prise le 15 juillet dernier par le président américain, que toute personne « entrant par la frontière sud des États-Unis » et souhaitant demander l’asile aux États-Unis le fasse, au préalable, dans un autre pays, transformant ainsi le Mexique, de facto, en « pays tiers sûr ».

      « Si les migrants savent que la seule possibilité de demander l’asile aux États-Unis, c’est de l’avoir obtenu au Mexique, ils le feront », observe Salvador Lacruz. Mais si certains s’accrochent à Tapachula, d’autres abandonnent. Jesús Roque, un Hondurien de 21 ans, « vient de signer » comme disent les migrants centraméricains en référence au programme de retour volontaire mis en place par le gouvernement mexicain. « C’est impossible d’aller plus au nord, je rentre chez moi », lâche-t-il.

      Comme lui, plus de 35 000 personnes sont rentrées dans leur pays, essentiellement des Honduriens et des Salvadoriens. À quelques mètres, deux femmes pressent le pas, agacées par la foule qui se presse devant les bureaux de la COMAR. « Qu’ils partent d’ici, vite ! », grogne l’une. Le mur tant désiré par Donald Trump s’est finalement érigé au Mexique en quelques semaines. Dans les esprits aussi.

      https://www.la-croix.com/Monde/Ameriques/Le-Mexique-verrouille-frontiere-sud-2019-08-01-1201038809

    • US Move Puts More Asylum Seekers at Risk. Expanded ‘#Remain_in_Mexico’ Program Undermines Due Process

      The Trump administration has drastically expanded its “Remain in Mexico” program while undercutting the rights of asylum seekers at the United States southern border, Human Rights Watch said today. Under the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) – known as the “Remain in Mexico” program – asylum seekers in the US are returned to cities in Mexico where there is a shortage of shelter and high crime rates while awaiting asylum hearings in US immigration court.

      Human Rights Watch found that asylum seekers face new or increased barriers to obtaining and communicating with legal counsel; increased closure of MPP court hearings to the public; and threats of kidnapping, extortion, and other violence while in Mexico.

      “The inherently inhumane ‘Remain in Mexico’ program is getting more abusive by the day,” said Ariana Sawyer, assistant US Program researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The program’s rapid growth in recent months has put even more people and families in danger in Mexico while they await an increasingly unfair legal process in the US.”

      The United States will begin sending all Central American asylum-seeking families to Mexico beginning the week of September 29, 2019 as part of the most recent expansion of the “Remain in Mexico” program, the Department of Homeland Security acting secretary, Kevin McAleenan, announced on September 23.

      Human Rights Watch concluded in a July 2019 report that the MPP program has had serious rights consequences for asylum seekers, including high – if not insurmountable – barriers to due process on their asylum claims in the United States and threats and physical violence in Mexico. Human Rights Watch recently spoke to seven asylum seekers, as well as 26 attorneys, migrant shelter operators, Mexican government officials, immigration court workers, journalists, and advocates. Human Rights Watch also observed court hearings for 71 asylum seekers in August and analyzed court filings, declarations, photographs, and media reports.

      “The [MPP] rules, which are never published, are constantly changing without advance notice,” said John Moore, an asylum attorney. “And so far, every change has had the effect of further restricting the already limited access we attorneys have with our clients.”

      Beyond the expanded program, which began in January, the US State Department has also begun funding a “voluntary return” program carried out by the United Nations-affiliated International Organization for Migration (IOM). The organization facilitates the transportation of asylum seekers forced to wait in Mexico back to their country of origin but does not notify US immigration judges. This most likely results in negative judgments against asylum seekers for not appearing in court, possibly resulting in a ban of up to 10 years on entering the US again, when they could have withdrawn their cases without penalty.

      Since July, the number of people being placed in the MPP program has almost tripled, from 15,079 as of June 24, to 40,033 as of September 7, according to the Mexican National Institute of Migration. The Trump administration has increased the number of asylum seekers it places in the program at ports of entry near San Diego and Calexico, California and El Paso, Texas, where the program had already been in place. The administration has also expanded the program to Laredo and Brownsville, Texas, even as the overall number of border apprehensions has declined.

      As of early August, more than 26,000 additional asylum seekers were waiting in Mexican border cities on unofficial lists to be processed by US Customs and Border Protection as part the US practice of “metering,” or of limiting the number of people who can apply for asylum each day by turning them back from ports of entry in violation of international law.

      In total, more than 66,000 asylum seekers are now in Mexico, forced to wait months or years for their cases to be decided in the US. Some have given up waiting and have attempted to cross illicitly in more remote and dangerous parts of the border, at times with deadly results.

      As problematic as the MPP program is, seeking asylum will likely soon become even more limited. On September 11, the Supreme Court temporarily allowed the Trump administration to carry out an asylum ban against anyone entering the country by land after July 16 who transited through a third country without applying for asylum there. This could affect at least 46,000 asylum seekers, placed in the MPP program or on a metering list after mid-July, according to calculations based on data from the Mexican National Institute of Migration. Asylum seekers may still be eligible for other forms of protection, but they carry much higher eligibility standards and do not provide the same level of relief.

      Human Rights Watch contacted the Department of Homeland Security and the US Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review with its findings and questions regarding the policy changes and developments but have not to date received a response. The US government should immediately cease returning asylum seekers to Mexico and instead ensure them meaningful access to full and fair asylum proceedings in US immigration courts, Human Rights Watch said. Congress should urgently act to cease funding the MPP program. The US should manage asylum-seeker arrivals through a genuine humanitarian response that includes fair determinations of an asylum seeker’s eligibility to remain in the US. The US should simultaneously pursue longer-term efforts to address the root causes of forced displacement in Central America.

      “The Trump administration seems intent on making the bad situation for asylum seekers even worse by further depriving them of due process rights,” Sawyer said. “The US Congress should step in and put an end to these mean-spirited attempts to undermine and destroy the US asylum system.”

      New Concerns over the MPP Program

      Increased Barriers to Legal Representation

      Everyone in the MPP has the right to an attorney at their own cost, but it has been nearly impossible for asylum seekers forced to remain in Mexico to get legal representation. Only about 1.3 percent of participants have legal representation, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University, a research center that examined US immigration court records through June 2019. In recent months, the US government has raised new barriers to obtaining representation and accessing counsel.

      When the Department of Homeland Security created the program, it issued guidance that:

      in order to facilitate access to counsel for aliens subject to return to Mexico under the MPP who will be transported to their immigration court hearings, [agents] will depart from the [port of entry] with the alien at a time sufficient to ensure arrival at the immigration court not later than one hour before his or her scheduled hearing time in order to afford the alien the opportunity to meet in-person with his or her legal representative.

      However, according to several attorneys Human Rights Watch interviewed in El Paso, Texas, and as Human Rights Watch observed on August 12 to 15 in El Paso Immigration Court, the Department of Homeland Security and the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), which manages the immigration court, have effectively barred attorneys from meeting with clients for the full hour before their client’s hearing begins. Rather than having free access to their clients, attorneys are now required to wait in the building lobby on a different level than the immigration court until the court administrator notifies security guards that attorneys may enter.

      As Human Rights Watch has previously noted, one hour is insufficient for adequate attorney consultation and preparation. Still, several attorneys said that this time in court was crucial. Immigration court is often the only place where asylum seekers forced to wait in Mexico can meet with attorneys since lawyers capable of representing them typically work in the US. Attorneys cannot easily travel to Mexico because of security and logistical issues. For MPP participants without attorneys, there are now also new barriers to getting basic information and assistance about the asylum application process.

      Human Rights Watch observed in May a coordinated effort by local nongovernmental organizations and attorneys in El Paso to perform know-your-rights presentations for asylum seekers without an attorney and to serve as “Friend of the Court,” at the judge’s discretion. The Executive Office for Immigration Review has recognized in the context of unaccompanied minors that a Friend of the Court “has a useful role to play in assisting the court and enhancing a respondent’s comprehension of proceedings.”

      The agency’s memos also say that, “Immigration Judges and court administrators remain encouraged to facilitate pro bono representation” because pro bono attorneys provide “respondents with welcome legal assistance and the judge with efficiencies that can only be realized when the respondent is represented.”

      To that end, immigration courts are encouraged to support “legal orientations and group rights presentations” by nonprofit organizations and attorneys.

      One of the attorneys involved in coordinating the various outreach programs at the El Paso Immigration Court said, however, that on June 24 the agency began barring all contact between third parties and asylum seekers without legal representation in both the courtroom and the lobby outside. This effectively ended all know-your-rights presentations and pro bono case screenings, though no new memo was issued. Armed guards now prevent attorneys in the US from interacting with MPP participants unless the attorneys have already filed official notices that they are representing specific participants.

      On July 8, the agency also began barring attorneys from serving as “Friend of the Court,” several attorneys told Human Rights Watch. No new memo has been issued on “Friend of the Court” either.

      In a July 16 email to an attorney obtained by Human Rights Watch, an agency spokesman, Rob Barnes, said that the agency shut down “Friend of the Court” and know-your-rights presentations to protect asylum seekers from misinformation after it “became aware that persons from organizations not officially recognized by EOIR...were entering EOIR space in El Paso.

      However, most of the attorneys and organizations now barred from performing know-your-rights presentations or serving as “Friend of the Court” in El Paso are listed on a form given to asylum seekers by the court of legal service providers, according to a copy of the form given to Human Rights Watch and attorneys and organizations coordinating those services.

      Closure of Immigration Court Hearings to the Public

      When Human Rights Watch observed court hearings in El Paso on May 8 to 10, the number of asylum seekers who had been placed in the MPP program and scheduled to appear in court was between 20 and 24 each day, with one judge hearing all of these cases in a single mass hearing. At the time, those numbers were considered high, and there was chaos and confusion as judges navigated a system that was never designed to provide hearings for people being kept outside the US.

      When Human Rights Watch returned to observe hearings just over three months later, four judges were hearing a total of about 250 cases a day, an average of over 60 cases for each judge. Asylum seekers in the program, who would previously have been allowed into the US to pursue their claims at immigration courts dispersed around the country, have been primarily funneled through courts in just two border cities, causing tremendous pressures on these courts and errors in the system. Some asylum seekers who appeared in court found their cases were not in the system or received conflicting instructions about where or when to appear.

      One US immigration official said the MPP program had “broken the courts,” Reuters reported.

      The Executive Office for Immigration Review has stated that immigration court hearings are generally supposed to be open to the public. The regulations indicate that immigration judges may make exceptions and limit or close hearings if physical facilities are inadequate; if there is a need to protect witnesses, parties, or the public interest; if an abused spouse or abused child is to appear; or if information under seal is to be presented.

      In recent weeks, however, journalists, attorneys, and other public observers have been barred from these courtrooms in El Paso by court administrators, security guards, and in at least one case, by a Department of Homeland Security attorney, who said that a courtroom was too full to allow a Human Rights Watch researcher entry.

      Would-be observers are now frequently told by the court administrator or security guards that there is “no room,” and that dockets are all “too full.”

      El Paso Immigration Court Administrator Rodney Buckmire told Human Rights Watch that hundreds of people receive hearings each day because asylum seekers “deserve their day in court,” but the chaos and errors in mass hearings, the lack of access to attorneys and legal advice, and the lack of transparency make clear that the MPP program is severely undermining due process.

      During the week of September 9, the Trump administration began conducting hearings for asylum seekers returned to Mexico in makeshift tent courts in Laredo and Brownsville, where judges are expected to preside via videoconference. At a September 11 news conference, DHS would not commit to allowing observers for those hearings, citing “heightened security measures” since the courts are located near the border. Both attorneys and journalists have since been denied entry to these port courts.

      Asylum Seekers Describe Risk of Kidnapping, Other Crimes

      As the MPP has expanded, increasing numbers of asylum seekers have been placed at risk of kidnapping and other crimes in Mexico.

      Two of the northern Mexican states to which asylum seekers were initially being returned under the program, Baja California and Chihuahua, are among those with the most homicides and other crimes in the country. Recent media reports have documented ongoing harm to asylum seekers there, including rape, kidnapping, sexual exploitation, assault, and other violent crimes.

      The program has also been expanded to Nuevo Laredo and Matamoros, both in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, which is on the US State Department’s “do not travel” list. The media and aid workers have also reported that migrants there have experienced physical violence, sexual assault, kidnapping, and other abuses. There have been multiple reports in 2019 alone of migrants being kidnapped as they attempt to reach the border by bus.

      Jennifer Harbury, a human rights attorney and activist doing volunteer work with asylum-seekers on both sides of the border, collected sworn declarations that they had been victims of abuse from three asylum seekers who had been placed in the MPP program and bused by Mexican immigration authorities to Monterrey, Mexico, two and a half hours from the border. Human Rights Watch examined these declarations, in which asylum seekers reported robbery, extortion, and kidnapping, including by Mexican police.

      Expansion to Mexican Cities with Even Fewer Protections

      Harbury, who recently interviewed hundreds of migrants in Mexico, described asylum seekers sent to Nuevo Laredo as “fish in a barrel” because of their vulnerability to criminal organizations. She said that many of the asylum seekers she interviewed said they had been kidnapped or subjected to an armed assault at least once since they reached the border.

      Because Mexican officials are in many cases reportedly themselves involved in crimes against migrants, and because nearly 98 percent of crimes in Mexico go unsolved, crimes committed against migrants routinely go unpunished.

      In Matamoros, asylum seekers have no meaningful shelter access, said attorneys with Lawyers for Good Government (L4GG) who were last there from August 22 to 26. Instead, more than 500 asylum seekers were placed in an encampment in a plaza near the port of entry to the US, where they were sleeping out in the open, despite temperatures of over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Henriette Vinet-Martin, a lawyer with the group, said she saw a “nursing mother sleeping on cardboard with her baby” and that attorneys also spoke to a woman in the MPP program there who said she had recently miscarried in a US hospital while in Customs and Border Protection custody. The attorneys said some asylum seekers had tents, but many did not.

      Vinet-Martin and Claire Noone, another lawyer there as part of the L4GG project, said they found children with disabilities who had been placed in the MPP program, including two children with Down Syndrome, one of them eight months old.

      Human Rights Watch also found that Customs and Border Protection continues to return asylum seekers with disabilities or other chronic health conditions to Mexico, despite the Department of Homeland Security’s initial guidance that no one with “known physical/mental health issues” would be placed in the program. In Ciudad Juárez, Human Rights Watch documented six such cases, four of them children. In one case, a 14-year-old boy had been placed in the program along with his mother and little brother, who both have intellectual disabilities, although the boy said they have family in the US. He appeared to be confused and distraught by his situation.

      The Mexican government has taken some steps to protect migrants in Ciudad Juárez, including opening a large government-operated shelter. The shelter, which Human Rights Watch visited on August 22, has a capacity of 3,000 migrants and is well-stocked with food, blankets, sleeping pads, personal hygiene kits, and more. At the time of the visit, the shelter held 555 migrants, including 230 children, primarily asylum seekers in the MPP program.

      One Mexican government official said the government will soon open two more shelters – one in Tijuana with a capacity of 3,000 and another in Mexicali with a capacity of 1,500.

      Problems Affecting the ‘Assisted Voluntary Return’ Program

      In October 2018, the International Organization for Migration began operating a $1.65 million US State Department-funded “Assisted Voluntary Return” program to assist migrants who have decided or felt compelled to return home. The return program originally targeted Central Americans traveling in large groups through the interior of Mexico. However, in July, the program began setting up offices in Ciudad Juárez, Tijuana, and Mexicali focusing on asylum seekers forced to wait in those cities after being placed in the MPP program. Alex Rigol Ploettner, who heads the International Organization for Migration office in Ciudad Juárez, said that the organization also provides material support such as bunk beds and personal hygiene kits to shelters, which the organization asks to refer interested asylum seekers to the Assisted Voluntary Return program. Four shelter operators in Ciudad Juárez confirmed these activities.

      As of late August, Rigol Ploettner said approximately 500 asylum seekers in the MPP program had been referred to Assisted Voluntary Return. Of those 500, he said, about 95 percent were found to be eligible for the program.

      He said the organization warns asylum seekers that returning to their home country may cause them to receive deportation orders from the US in absentia, meaning they will most likely face a ban on entering the US of up to 10 years.

      The organization does not inform US immigration courts that they have returned asylum seekers, nor are asylum seekers assisted in withdrawing their petition for asylum, which would avoid future penalties in the US.

      “For now, as the IOM, we don’t have a direct mechanism for withdrawal,” Rigol Ploettner said. Human Rights Watch is deeply concerned about the failure to notify the asylum courts when people who are on US immigration court dockets return home and the negative legal consequences for asylum seekers. These concerns are heightened by the environment in which the Assisted Voluntary Return Program is operating. Asylum seekers in the MPP are in such a vulnerable situation that it cannot be assumed that decisions to return home are based on informed consent.

      https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/09/25/us-move-puts-more-asylum-seekers-risk

      via @pascaline

    • Sweeping Language in Asylum Agreement Foists U.S. Responsibilities onto El Salvador

      Amid a tightening embrace of Trump administration policies, last week El Salvador agreed to begin taking asylum-seekers sent back from the United States. The agreement was announced on Friday but details were not made public at the time. The text of the agreement — which The Intercept requested and obtained from the Department of Homeland Security — purports to uphold international and domestic obligations “to provide protection for eligible refugees,” but immigration experts see the move as the very abandonment of the principle of asylum. Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy analyst at American Immigration Council, called the agreement a “deeply cynical” move.

      The agreement, which closely resembles one that the U.S. signed with Guatemala in July, implies that any asylum-seeker who is not from El Salvador could be sent back to that country and forced to seek asylum there. Although officials have said that the agreements would apply to people who passed through El Salvador or Guatemala en route, the text of the agreements does not explicitly make that clear.

      “This agreement is so potentially sweeping that it could be used to send an asylum-seeker who never transited El Salvador to El Salvador,” said Eleanor Acer, senior director of refugee protection at the nonprofit organization Human Rights First.

      DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

      The Guatemalan deal has yet to take effect, as Guatemala’s Congress claims to need to ratify it first. DHS officials are currently seeking a similar arrangement with Honduras and have been pressuring Mexico — under threats of tariffs — to crack down on U.S.-bound migration.

      The agreement with El Salvador comes after the Supreme Court recently upheld the Trump administration’s most recent asylum ban, which requires anyone who has transited through another country before reaching the border to seek asylum there first, and be denied in that country, in order to be eligible for asylum in the U.S. Meanwhile, since January, more than 42,000 asylum-seekers who filed their claims in the U.S. before the ban took effect have been pushed back into Mexico and forced to wait there — where they have been subjected to kidnapping, rape, and extortion, among other hazards — as the courts slowly weigh their eligibility.

      Reichlin-Melnick called the U.S.-El Salvador deal “yet another sustained attack at our system of asylum protections.” It begins by invoking the international Refugee Convention and the principle of non-refoulement, which is the crux of asylum law — the guarantee not to return asylum-seekers to a country where they would be subjected to persecution or death. Karen Musalo, law professor at U.C. Hastings Center for Gender and Refugee Studies, called that invocation “Orwellian.”

      “The idea that El Salvador is a safe country for asylum-seekers when it is one of the major countries sending asylum-seekers to the U.S., a country with one of the highest homicide and femicide rates in the world, a place in which gangs have control over large swathes of the country, and the violence is causing people to flee in record numbers … is another absurdity that is beyond the pale,” Musalo said.

      “El Salvador is not a country that is known for having any kind of protection for its own citizens’ human rights,” Musalo added. “If they can’t protect their own citizens, it’s absolutely absurd to think that they can protect people that are not their citizens.”

      “They’ve looked at all of the facts,” Reichlin-Melnick said. “And they’ve decided to create their own reality.”

      Last week, the Salvadoran newspaper El Faro reported that the country’s agency that reviews asylum claims only has a single officer. Meanwhile, though homicide rates have gone down in recent months — since outsider president Nayib Bukele took office in June — September has already seen an increase in homicides. Bukele’s calculus in accepting the agreement is still opaque to Salvadoran observers (Guatemala’s version was deeply unpopular in that country), but he has courted U.S. investment and support. The legal status of nearly 200,000 Salvadorans with temporary protected status in the U.S. is also under threat from the administration. This month also saw the symbolic launch of El Salvador’s Border Patrol — with U.S. funding and support. This week, Bukele, who has both sidled up to Trump and employed Trumpian tactics, will meet with the U.S. president in New York to discuss immigration.

      Reichlin-Melnick noted that the Guatemalan and Salvadoran agreements, as written, could bar people not only from seeking asylum, but also from two other protections meant to fulfill the non-refoulement principle: withholding of removal (a stay on deportation) and the Convention Against Torture, which prevents people from being returned to situations where they may face torture. That would mean that these Central American cooperation agreements go further than the recent asylum ban, which still allows people to apply for those other protections.

      Another major difference between the asylum ban and these agreements is that with the asylum ban, people would be deported to their home countries. If these agreements go into effect, the U.S. will start sending people to Guatemala or El Salvador, regardless of where they may be from. In the 1980s, the ACLU documented over 100 cases of Salvadorans who were harmed or killed after they were deported from the U.S. After this agreement goes into effect, it will no longer be just Salvadorans who the U.S. will be sending into danger.

      https://theintercept.com/2019/09/23/el-salvador-asylum-agreement

    • La forteresse Trump ou le pari du mur

      Plus que sur le mur promis pendant sa campagne, Donald Trump semble fonder sa #politique_migratoire sur une #pression_commerciale sur ses voisins du sud, remettant en cause les #échanges économiques mais aussi culturels avec le Mexique. Ce mur ne serait-il donc que symbolique ?
      Alors que l’administration américaine le menaçait de #taxes_douanières et de #guerre_commerciale, le Mexique d’Andres Lopez Obrador a finalement concédé de freiner les flux migratoires.

      Après avoir accepté un #accord imposé par Washington, Mexico a considérablement réduit les flux migratoires et accru les #expulsions. En effet, plus de 100 000 ressortissants centre-américains ont été expulsés du Mexique vers le #Guatemala dans les huit premiers mois de l’année, soit une hausse de 63% par rapport à l’année précédente selon les chiffres du Guatemala.

      Par ailleurs, cet été le Guatemala a conclu un accord de droit d’asile avec Washington, faisant de son territoire un « #pays_sûr » auprès duquel les demandeurs d’asiles ont l’obligation d’effectuer les premières démarches. Le Salvador et le #Honduras ont suivi la voie depuis.

      Et c’est ainsi que, alors qu’il rencontrait les plus grandes difficultés à obtenir les financements pour le mur à la frontière mexicaine, Donald Trump mise désormais sur ses voisins pour externaliser sa politique migratoire.

      Alors le locataire de la Maison Blanche a-t-il oublié ses ambitions de poursuivre la construction de cette frontière de fer et de béton ? Ce mur n’était-il qu’un symbole destiné à montrer à son électorat son volontarisme en matière de lutte contre l’immigration ? Le retour de la campagne est-il susceptible d’accélérer les efforts dans le domaine ?

      D’autre part, qu’en est-il de la situation des migrants sur le terrain ? Comment s’adaptent-ils à cette nouvelle donne ? Quelles conséquences sur les parcours migratoires des hommes, des femmes et des enfants qui cherchent à gagner les Etats-Unis ?

      On se souvient de cette terrible photo des cadavres encore enlacés d’un père et de sa petite fille de 2 ans, Oscar et Valeria Alberto, originaires du Salvador, morts noyés dans les eaux tumultueuses du Rio Bravo en juin dernier alors qu’ils cherchaient à passer aux Etats-Unis.

      Ce destin tragique annonce-t-il d’autres drames pour nombre de candidats à l’exil qui, quelques soient les politiques migratoires des Etats, iront au bout de leur vie avec l’espoir de l’embellir un peu ?

      https://www.franceculture.fr/emissions/cultures-monde/les-frontieres-de-la-colere-14-la-forteresse-trump-ou-le-pari-du-mur

      #Mexique #symbole #barrières_frontalières #USA #Etats-Unis #renvois #push-back #refoulements

    • Mexico sends asylum seekers south — with no easy way to return for U.S. court dates

      The exhausted passengers emerge from a sleek convoy of silver and red-streaked buses, looking confused and disoriented as they are deposited ignominiously in this tropical backwater in southernmost Mexico.

      There is no greeter here to provide guidance on their pending immigration cases in the United States or on where to seek shelter in a teeming international frontier town packed with marooned, U.S.-bound migrants from across the globe.

      The bus riders had made a long and perilous overland trek north to the Rio Grande only to be dispatched back south to Mexico’s border with Central America — close to where many of them had begun their perilous journeys weeks and months earlier. At this point, some said, both their resources and sense of hope had been drained.

      “We don’t know what we’re going to do next,” said Maria de Los Angeles Flores Reyes, 39, a Honduran accompanied by her daughter, Cataren, 9, who appeared petrified after disembarking from one of the long-distance buses. “There’s no information, nothing.”

      The two are among more than 50,000 migrants, mostly Central Americans, whom U.S. immigration authorities have sent back to Mexico this year to await court hearings in the United States under the Trump administration’s Remain in Mexico program.

      Immigration advocates have assailed the program as punitive, while the White House says it has worked effectively — discouraging many migrants from following up on asylum cases and helping to curb what President Trump has decried as a “catch and release” system in which apprehended migrants have been freed in U.S. territory pending court proceeding that can drag on for months or years.

      The ever-expanding ranks pose a growing dilemma for Mexican authorities, who, under intense pressure from the White House, had agreed to accept the returnees and provide them with humanitarian assistance.

      As the numbers rise, Mexico, in many cases, has opted for a controversial solution: Ship as many asylum seekers as possible more than 1,000 miles back here in the apparent hope that they will opt to return to Central America — even if that implies endangering or foregoing prospective political asylum claims in U.S. immigration courts.

      Mexican officials, sensitive to criticism that they are facilitating Trump’s hard-line deportation agenda, have been tight-lipped about the shadowy busing program, under which thousands of asylum-seekers have been returned here since August. (Mexican authorities declined to provide statistics on just how many migrants have been sent back under the initiative.)

      In a statement, Mexico’s immigration agency called the 40-hour bus rides a “free, voluntary and secure” alternative for migrants who don’t want to spend months waiting in the country’s notoriously dangerous northern border towns.

      Advocates counter that the program amounts to a barely disguised scheme for encouraging ill-informed migrants to abandon their ongoing petitions in U.S. immigration court and return to Central America. Doing so leaves them to face the same conditions that they say forced them to flee toward the United States, and, at the same time, would undermine the claims that they face persecution at home.

      “Busing someone back to your southern border doesn’t exactly send them a message that you want them to stay in your country,” said Maureen Meyer, who heads the Mexico program for the Washington Office on Latin America, a research and advocacy group. “And it isn’t always clear that the people on the buses understand what this could mean for their cases in the United States.”

      Passengers interviewed on both ends of the bus pipeline — along the northern Mexican border and here on the southern frontier with Guatemala — say that no Mexican official briefed them on the potential legal jeopardy of returning home.

      “No one told us anything,” Flores Reyes asked after she got off the bus here, bewildered about how to proceed. “Is there a safe place to stay here until our appointment in December?”

      The date is specified on a notice to appear that U.S. Border Patrol agents handed her before she and her daughter were sent back to Mexico last month after having been detained as illegal border-crossers in south Texas. They are due Dec. 16 in a U.S. immigration court in Harlingen, Texas, for a deportation hearing, according to the notice, stamped with the capital red letters MPP — for Migrant Protection Protocols, the official designation of Remain in Mexico.

      The free bus rides to the Guatemalan border are strictly a one-way affair: Mexico does not offer return rides back to the northern border for migrants due in a U.S. immigration court, typically several months later.

      Beti Suyapa Ortega, 36, and son Robinson Javier Melara, 17, in a Mexican immigration agency waiting room in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico.

      “At this point, I’m so frightened I just want to go home,” said Beti Suyapa Ortega, 36, from Honduras, who crossed the border into Texas intending to seek political asylum and surrendered to the Border Patrol.

      She, along with her son, 17, were among two dozen or so Remain in Mexico returnees waiting recently for a southbound bus in a spartan office space at the Mexican immigration agency compound in Nuevo Laredo, across the Rio Grande from Laredo, Texas.

      Ortega and others said they were terrified of venturing onto the treacherous streets of Nuevo Laredo — where criminal gangs control not only drug trafficking but also the lucrative enterprise of abducting and extorting from migrants.

      “We can’t get out of here soon enough. It has been a nightmare,” said Ortega, who explained that she and her son had been kidnapped and held for two weeks and only released when a brother in Atlanta paid $8,000 in ransom. “I can never come back to this place.”

      The Ortegas, along with a dozen or so other Remain in Mexico returnees, left later that evening on a bus to southern Mexico. She said she would skip her date in U.S. immigration court, in Laredo — an appointment that would require her to pass through Nuevo Laredo and expose herself anew to its highly organized kidnapping and extortion gangs.

      The Mexican government bus service operates solely from the northern border towns of Nuevo Laredo and Matamoros, officials say. Both are situated in hyper-dangerous Tamaulipas state, a cartel hub on the Gulf of Mexico that regularly ranks high nationwide in homicides, “disappearances” and the discovery of clandestine graves.

      The long-haul Mexican busing initiative began in July, after U.S. immigration authorities began shipping migrants with court cases to Tamaulipas. Earlier, Remain in Mexico had been limited to sending migrants with U.S. court dates back to the northern border towns of Tijuana, Mexicali and Ciudad Juarez.

      At first, the buses left migrants departing from Tamaulipas state in the city of Monterrey, a relatively safe industrial center four hours south of the U.S. border. But officials there, including the state governor, complained about the sudden influx of hundreds of mostly destitute Central Americans. That’s when Mexican authorities appear to have begun busing all the way back to Ciudad Hidalgo, along Mexico’s border with Guatemala.

      A separate, United Nations-linked program has also returned thousands of migrants south from two large cities on the U.S. border, Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez.

      The packed buses arrive here two or three times a week, with no apparent set schedule.

      On a recent morning, half a dozen, each ferrying more than 40 migrants, came to a stop a block from the Rodolfo Robles international bridge that spans the Suchiate River, the dividing line between Mexico and Guatemala. Part of the fleet of the Omnibus Cristobal Colon long-distance transport company, the buses displayed windshield signs explaining they were “in the service” of Mexico’s national immigration agency.

      The migrants on board had begun the return journey south in Matamoros, across from Brownsville, Texas, after having been sent back there by U.S. immigration authorities.

      Many clutched folders with notices to appear in U.S. immigration court in Texas in December.

      But some, including Flores Reyes, said they were terrified of returning to Matamoros, where they had been subjected to robbery or kidnapping. Nor did they want to return across the Rio Grande to Texas, if it required travel back through Matamoros.

      Flores Reyes said kidnappers held her and her daughter for a week in Matamoros before they managed to escape with the aid of a fellow Honduran.

      The pair later crossed into Texas, she said, and they surrendered to the U.S. Border Patrol. On Sept. 11, they were sent back to Matamoros with a notice to appear Dec. 16 in immigration court in Harlingen.

      “When they told us they were sending us back to Matamoros I became very upset,” Flores Reyes said. “I can’t sleep. I’m still so scared because of what happened to us there.”

      Fearing a second kidnapping, she said, she quickly agreed to take the transport back to southern Mexico.

      Christian Gonzalez, 23, a native of El Salvador who was also among those recently returned here, said he had been mugged in Matamoros and robbed of his cash, his ID and his documents, among them the government notice to appear in U.S. immigration court in Texas in December.

      “Without the paperwork, what can I do?” said an exasperated Gonzalez, a laborer back in Usulutan province in southeastern El Salvador. “I don’t have any money to stay here.”

      He planned to abandon his U.S. immigration case and return to El Salvador, where he said he faced threats from gangs and an uncertain future.

      Standing nearby was Nuvia Carolina Meza Romero, 37, accompanied by her daughter, Jessi, 8, who clutched a stuffed sheep. Both had also returned on the buses from Matamoros. Meza Romero, too, was in a quandary about what do, but seemed resigned to return to Honduras.

      “I can’t stay here. I don’t know anyone and I don’t have any money,” said Meza Romero, who explained that she spent a week in U.S. custody in Texas after crossing the Rio Grande and being apprehended on Sept. 2.

      Her U.S. notice to appear advised her to show up on Dec. 3 in U.S. immigration court in Brownsville.

      “I don’t know how I would even get back there at this point,” said Meza Romero, who was near tears as she stood with her daughter near the border bridge.

      Approaching the migrants were aggressive bicycle taxi drivers who, for a fee of the equivalent of about $2, offered to smuggle them back across the river to Guatemala on rafts made of planks and inner tubes, thus avoiding Mexican and Guatemalan border inspections.

      Opting to cross the river were many bus returnees from Matamoros, including Meza Romero, her daughter and Gonzalez, the Salvadoran.

      But Flores Reyes was hesitant to return to Central America and forfeit her long-sought dream of resettling in the United States, even if she had to make her way back to Matamoros on her own.

      “Right now, we just need to find some shelter,” Flores Reyes said as she ambled off in search of some kind of lodging, her daughter holding her mother’s arm. “We have an appointment on Dec. 16 on the other side. I plan to make it. I’m not ready to give up yet.”

      https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2019-10-15/buses-to-nowhere-mexico-transports-migrants-with-u-s-court-dates-to-its-far

      –---------

      Commentaire de @pascaline via la mailing-list Migreurop :

      Outre le dispositif d’expulsion par charter de l’OIM (https://seenthis.net/messages/730601) mis en place à la frontière nord du Mexique pour les MPPs, le transfert et l’abandon des demandeurs d’asile MPPS à la frontière avec le Guatemala, par les autorités mexicaines est présentée comme une façon de leur permettre d’échapper à la dangerosité des villes frontalières du Nord tout en espérant qu’ils choississent de retourner par eux-mêmes « chez eux »...

    • In a first, U.S. starts pushing Central American families seeking asylum to Guatemala

      U.S. officials have started to send families seeking asylum to Guatemala, even if they are not from the Central American country and had sought protection in the United States, the Los Angeles Times has learned.

      In July, the Trump administration announced a new rule to effectively end asylum at the southern U.S. border by requiring asylum seekers to claim protection elsewhere. Under that rule — which currently faces legal challenges — virtually any migrant who passes through another country before reaching the U.S. border and does not seek asylum there will be deemed ineligible for protection in the United States.

      A few days later, the administration reached an agreement with Guatemala to take asylum seekers arriving at the U.S. border who were not Guatemalan. Although Guatemala’s highest court initially said the country’s president couldn’t unilaterally enter into such an agreement, since late November, U.S. officials have forcibly returned individuals to Guatemala under the deal.

      At first, U.S. officials said they would return only single adults. But starting Tuesday, they began applying the policy to non-Guatemalan parents and children, according to communications obtained by The Times and several U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officials.

      One family of three from Honduras, as well as a separate Honduran parent and child, were served with notices on Tuesday that they’d soon be deported to Guatemala.

      The Trump administration has reached similar agreements with Guatemala’s Northern Triangle neighbors, El Salvador and Honduras, in each case obligating those countries to take other Central Americans who reach the U.S. border. Those agreements, however, have yet to be implemented.

      The administration describes the agreements as an “effort to share the distribution of hundreds of thousands of asylum claims.”

      The deals — also referred to as “safe third country” agreements — “are formed between the United States and foreign countries where aliens removed to those countries would have access to a full and fair procedure for determining a claim to asylum or equivalent temporary protection,” according to the federal notice.

      Guatemala has virtually no asylum system of its own, but the Trump administration and Guatemalan government both said the returns would roll out slowly and selectively.

      The expansion of the policy to families could mean many more asylum seekers being forcibly removed to Guatemala.

      Experts, advocates, the United Nations and Guatemalan officials say the country doesn’t have the capacity to handle any sizable influx, much less process potential protection claims. Guatemala’s own struggles with corruption, violence and poverty helped push more than 270,000 Guatemalans to the U.S. border in fiscal 2019.

      Citizenship and Immigration Services and Homeland Security officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

      https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2019-12-10/u-s-starts-pushing-asylum-seeking-families-back-to-guatemala-for-first-time

    • U.S. implements plan to send Mexican asylum seekers to Guatemala

      Mexicans seeking asylum in the United States could be sent to Guatemala under a bilateral agreement signed by the Central American nation last year, according to documents sent to U.S. asylum officers in recent days and seen by Reuters.

      In a Jan. 4 email, field office staff at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) were told Mexican nationals will be included in the populations “amenable” to the agreement with Guatemala.

      The agreement, brokered last July between the administration of Republican President Donald Trump and the outgoing Guatemalan government, allows U.S. immigration officials to send migrants requesting asylum at the U.S.-Mexican border to apply for protection in Guatemala instead.

      Mexico objects to the plan, its foreign ministry said in a statement late on Monday, adding that it would be working with authorities to find “better options” for those that could be affected.

      Trump has made clamping down on unlawful migration a top priority of his presidency and a major theme of his 2020 re-election campaign. His administration penned similar deals with Honduras and El Salvador last year.

      U.S. Democrats and pro-migrant groups have opposed the move and contend asylum seekers will face danger in Guatemala, where the murder rate is five times that of the United States, according to 2017 data compiled by the World Bank. The country’s asylum office is tiny and thinly staffed and critics have argued it lacks the capacity to properly vet a significant increase in cases.

      Guatemalan President-elect Alejandro Giammattei, who takes office this month, has said he will review the agreement.

      Acting Deputy U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Ken Cuccinelli said in a tweet in December that Mexicans were being considered for inclusion under the agreement.

      USCIS referred questions to DHS, which referred to Cuccinelli’s tweet. Mexico’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

      Alejandra Mena, a spokeswoman for Guatemala’s immigration institute, said that since the agreement was implemented in November, the United States has sent 52 migrants to the country. Only six have applied for asylum in Guatemala, Mena said.

      On Monday, an additional 33 Central American migrants arrived on a flight to Guatemala City, she said.

      Unaccompanied minors cannot be sent to Guatemala under the agreement, which now applies only to migrants from Honduras, El Salvador and Mexico, according to the guidance documents. Exceptions are made if the migrants can establish that they are “more likely than not” to be persecuted or tortured in Guatemala based on their race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.

      Numbers of Central American migrants apprehended at the border fell sharply in the second part of 2019 after Mexico deployed National Guard troops to stem the flow, under pressure from Trump.

      Overall, border arrests are expected to drop again in December for the seventh straight month, a Homeland Security official told Reuters last week, citing preliminary data.

      The U.S. government says another reason for the reduction in border crossings is a separate program, known as the Migrant Protection Protocols, that has forced more than 56,000 non-Mexican migrants to wait in Mexico for their U.S. immigration court hearings.

      With fewer Central Americans at the border, U.S. attention has turned to Mexicans crossing illegally or requesting asylum. About 150,000 Mexican single adults were apprehended at the border in fiscal 2019, down sharply from previous decades but still enough to bother U.S. immigration hawks.

      https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration/us-implements-plan-to-send-mexican-asylum-seekers-to-guatemala-idUSKBN1Z51S
      #Guatemala

    • Mexico begins flying, busing migrants back to #Honduras

      Hundreds of Central American migrants who entered southern Mexico in recent days have either been pushed back into Guatemala by Mexican troops, shipped to detention centers or returned to Honduras, officials said Tuesday. An unknown number slipped past Mexican authorities and continued north.

      The latest migrant caravan provided a public platform for Mexico to show the U.S. government and migrants thinking of making the trip that it has refined its strategy and produced its desired result: This caravan will not advance past its southern border.

      What remained unclear was the treatment of the migrants who already find themselves on their way back to the countries they fled last week.

      “Mexico doesn’t have the capacity to process so many people in such a simple way in a couple of days,” said Guadalupe Correa Cabrera, a professor at George Mason University studying how the caravans form.

      The caravan of thousands had set out from Honduras in hopes Mexico would grant them passage, posing a fresh test of U.S. President Donald Trump’s effort to reduce the flow of migrants arriving at the U.S. border by pressuring other governments to stop them.

      Mexican Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard said 2,400 migrants entered Mexico legally over the weekend. About 1,000 of them requested Mexico’s help in returning to their countries. The rest were being held in immigration centers while they start legal processes that would allow them to seek refuge in Mexico or obtain temporary work permits that would confine them to southern Mexico.

      On Tuesday afternoon, Jesus, a young father from Honduras who offered only his first name, rested in a shelter in Tecun Uman, Guatemala, with his wife and their baby, unsure of what to do next.

      “No country’s policy sustains us,” he said in response to hearing Ebrard’s comments about the situation. “If we don’t work, we don’t eat. (He) doesn’t feed us, doesn’t care for our children.”

      Honduran officials said more than 600 of its citizens were expected to arrive in that country Tuesday by plane and bus and more would follow in the coming days.

      Of an additional 1,000 who tried to enter Mexico illegally Monday by wading across the Suchiate river, most were either forced back or detained later by immigration agents, according to Mexican officials.

      Most of the hundreds stranded in the no-man’s land on the Mexican side of the river Monday night returned to Guatemala in search of water, food and a place to sleep. Late Tuesday, the first buses carrying Hondurans left Tecun Uman with approximately 150 migrants heading back to their home country.

      Mexican authorities distributed no water or food to those who entered illegally, in what appeared to be an attempt by the government to wear out the migrants.

      Alejandro Rendón, an official from Mexico’s social welfare department, said his colleagues were giving water to those who turned themselves in or were caught by immigration agents, but were not doing the same along the river because it was not safe for workers to do so.

      “It isn’t prudent to come here because we can’t put the safety of the colleagues at risk,” he said.

      Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Tuesday that the government is trying to protect the migrants from harm by preventing them from traveling illegally through the country. He said they need to respect Mexican laws.

      “If we don’t take care of them, if we don’t know who they are, if we don’t have a register, they pass and get to the north, and the criminal gangs grab them and assault them, because that’s how it was before,” he said. “They disappeared them.”

      Mexican Interior Minister Olga Sánchez Cordero commended the National Guard for its restraint, saying: “In no way has there been an act that we could call repression and not even annoyance.”

      But Honduras’ ambassador to Mexico said there had been instances of excessive force on the part of the National Guard. “We made a complaint before the Mexican government,” Alden Rivera said in an interview with HCH Noticias without offering details. He also conceded migrants had thrown rocks at Mexican authorities.

      An Associated Press photograph of a Mexican National Guardsman holding a migrant in a headlock was sent via Twitter by acting U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Ken Cuccinelli with the message: “We appreciate Mexico doing more than they did last year to interdict caravans attempting to move illegally north to our southern border.”

      “They absolutely must be satisfied with (Mexico’s) actions because in reality it’s their (the United States’) plan,” said Correa Cabrera, the George Mason professor. “They’re congratulating themselves, because in reality it wasn’t López Obrador’s plan.”

      She said it is an complicated issue for Mexico, but the National Guard had no business being placed at the border to handle immigration because they weren’t trained for it. The government “is sending a group that doesn’t know how to and can’t protect human rights because they’re trained to do other kinds of things,” she said.

      Mexico announced last June that it was deploying the newly formed National Guard to assist in immigration enforcement to avoid tariffs that Trump threatened on Mexican imports.

      Darlin René Romero and his wife were among the few who spent the night pinned between the river and Mexican authorities.

      Rumors had circulated through the night that “anything could happen, that being there was very dangerous,” Romero said. But the couple from Copan, Honduras, spread a blanket on the ground and passed the night 20 yards from a line of National Guard troops forming a wall with their riot shields.

      They remained confident that Mexico would allow them to pass through and were trying to make it to the northern Mexican city of Monterrey, where his sister lives.

      They said a return home to impoverished and gang-plagued Honduras, where most of the migrants are from, was unthinkable.

      https://apnews.com/4d685100193f6a2c521267fe614356df

  • Fruits of Wrath
    http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/bigpicture/2015/06/05/fruits-wrath/itIvSlz1490HHFKnlinosK/story.html

    Fruit pickers in the Baja California peninsula of Mexico, railing against a life of grinding poverty, have blocked roads, staged marches and held meetings with lawmakers since March as frustration over working conditions boiled over. One labourer in San Quintin, south of the border town of Tijuana, sleeps with his family on the bare earth in a tiny wooden shack on scrubland. He said after picking between 242 lbs and 440 lbs of strawberries a day he earns from $56 to $79 a week. Strawberries fetched $2.36 a pound on average in the United States in 2013.—By Reuters


    Fruit pickers Genaro Perfecto, 38, and his wife Cecilia Feliciano, 37, pose for a photo with their children in the courtyard of their house. (Edgard Garrido/Reuters)
    #photographie #ouvriers_agricoles

  • « Albako dukeak horrenbeste lur eta hiltzen zarenean bi metrorekin nahikoa izan du » - La Duchesse d’Albe qui avait tellement de terres, une fois morte deux mètres carrés lui suffisent
    Diego Cañamero Valle
    http://www.argia.eus/albistea/horrenbeste-lur-eta-hiltzen-zarenean-bi-metrorekin-nahikoa

    Sur cette terre nous avons un travail à faire. Malgré plus de 30 ans de gouvernement PSOE, nous nous trainons une structure archaïque. 50% des terres d’Andalousie sont entre les mains de 2% de sa population. La Maison d’Albe a onze « cortijos » (sept dans la province de Séville et quatre dans celle de Cordoue). Elle touche 3 millions d’euros de la #Politique_Agricole_Commune (PAC), c’est de l’argent qui va à la maison d’Albe et aux autres maisons de propriétaires fonciers, comme si c’étaient des dépenses courantes. Cela n’a aucun sens. On ne leur exige pas de création d’emplois, ni de transformation de produits agricoles, ni de respecter l’environnement. Rien du tout. Elle ne respecte aucun accord avec les ouvriers, car il n’y a pas de contrat. Aujourd’hui en Andalousie, la plupart des contrats d’ouvriers agricoles sont oraux.


    #accaparement #oligarchie #latifundia #agriculture #droit_du_travail
    Diego Cañamero Valle est un des porte-paroles du syndicat SAT défendant les ouvriers agricoles (la plupart journaliers) aux côtés de Juan Manuel Sanchez Gordillo, maire de la célèbre commune de Marinaleda.
    http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2013/08/HAFFNER/49520
    http://seenthis.net/messages/205656

  • #Pesticides : « Je mets ma #santé en danger pour 1 100 euros par mois »
    http://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2014/07/10/le-combat-contre-les-pesticides-d-une-salariee-de-la-vigne_4453404_3244.html

    Marie-Lys Bibeyran a lancé une pétition qu’elle a adressée au ministre de l’agriculture Stéphane Le Foll. Signée par 3 600 personnes, elle demande l’adoption de douze mesures permettant de mieux protéger les salariés de la vigne.

    Parmi elles : retirer du marché tous les produits phytosanitaires dangereux pour la santé, qu’ils soient cancérigènes, mutagènes, neurotoxiques ou perturbateurs endocriniens ; interdire de pulvériser des pesticides à une distance inférieure à 100 mètres des salariés agricoles ; empêcher l’entrée des salariés dans les parcelles pendant 48 heures après le traitement ; ou encore obliger les employeurs à remettre chaque année aux ouvriers exposés une liste des pesticides utilisés.

    « INFRACTIONS QUOTIDIENNES »

    « Je constate quotidiennement des infractions et des manquements à la protection des salariés », assure Marie-Lys Bibeyran, qui travaille dans les vignes en tant que saisonnière depuis l’âge de 16 ans. Concernant les conditions d’épandage tout d’abord. Un arrêté de 2006 stipule que la pulvérisation de pesticides est interdite quand les vents soufflent à plus de 19 km/h. « Cette réglementation n’est jamais respectée par les domaines viticoles », assure-t-elle. Une réalité confirmée tant par les riverains que certains viticulteurs.

    #ouvriers_agricoles