Guest workers across the Gulf South are organizing against the conditions contractors are subjecting them to in the H2B Visa program, which immigration lawyers and organizers are calling "inherently exploitative". Following an incident last week where Indian guest workers in Pascagoula, Mississippi say they were imprisoned by their employer, Indian and Mexican guest workers met in solidarity this weekend. Following is a series of interviews with Indian and Mexican guest workers, Jennifer Rosenbaum of the Immigration Justice Project of the Southern Poverty Law Center, and Sakhet Soni of the New Orleans Worker Center for Racial Justice.
The first interview is with Joseph Jacob, an Indian guest worker for Signal International in Pascagoula, Mississippi. Mr. Jacob says that he was imprisoned for eleven hours by his boss without food, water or bathroom facilities for his work as an organizer at the Signal facility.
Ms. Rosenbaum, who is a staff attorney for the Immigrant Justice Project of the Southern Poverty Law Center explains that the abuses in the gulf south are part of a national pattern of abuses in the H2B visa program.
Sakhet Soni is the lead organizer at the New Orleans Worker Center for Racial Justice. He explains the problems with the H2B Visa and the exploitation that is currently going in the region.
