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US: Latin American Storm Victims Adrift
By Diego Cevallos
MEXICO CITY, Sep 21 (IPS) - Thousands of Latin American immigrants in the
southeastern United States uprooted by Hurricane Katrina are now fleeing
Hurricane Rita, while activists are demanding that the U.S. government
provide them with special protection, because so many are hesitant to seek
assistance out of fear of deportation.
Katrina left 300,000 Latinos homeless and jobless, and "as far as we know,
at least two immigrants who did seek aid have been arrested because they
were undocumented," said Maricel García, spokeswoman for the National
Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities (NALACC). But she
warned that "there might actually be many more."
Although the George W. Bush administration states that it is providing
humanitarian aid without regard to immigration status, "that is not what is
really happening, which is just terrible," García said in a telephone
interview with IPS from Chicago, Illinois.
Her organisation and around 60 other immigrant advocacy groups are demanding
that the U.S. government grant humanitarian immigration status to migrants
uprooted by Katrina, who either had no papers or have lost them, to allow
them to receive aid and to remain in the United States.
The groups are also considering asking for that status for those who might
be affected by Rita, which had grown into a category 4 hurricane by
Wednesday as it headed towards Texas, a state that is home to an estimated
six million people of Latin American and Caribbean origin.
Rita, expected to make landfall in Texas on Saturday, currently has the same
destructive force as Katrina, which devastated large parts of the states of
Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida on Aug. 29, leaving a death toll
of upwards of 1,000 due to the storm damage and subsequent flooding.
"The evacuation efforts here are intense today, and have included many of
those already uprooted by Katrina, who were still in shelters," Nelson
Reyes, director of the Central American Resource Centre (CARECEN), told IPS
from Houston, Texas.
Authorities in Houston ordered evacuations Wednesday in several parts of the
city, which has a population of around two million, one-third of whom are
Latinos.
"When it rains, it pours, and once again the Latin American immigrants will
be among those bearing the brunt of the suffering," said Reyes, a Salvadoran
immigrant who has been living in the United States for 16 years.
"Katrina confirmed that immigrants are the most vulnerable, because the
losses they suffered from the storm were compounded by their situation as
undocumented migrants," said the activist.
According to official figures, Katrina affected more than 34,000 naturalised
immigrants, nearly 72,000 immigrants with different kinds of visas, and an
undetermined number of undocumented migrants.
García estimated that a total of 300,000 immigrants were among the storm
refugees, most of them Mexicans and Hondurans. "It's hard to know the exact
number, because they hide and become invisible out of fear of being
deported," she said.
Statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau show that the Latino community in the
United States amounts to 39.9 million people, most of whom are Mexican, out
of a total population of 290.8 million. At least five million of the Latin
American immigrants do not have legal documents.
The possibility that humanitarian immigration status will be granted to
those uprooted by Katrina will depend on "to what extent the government and
Congress are willing to leave aside their current hypocrisy" with regard to
migration policy, said Reyes.
"On one hand they say the humanitarian aid is reaching everyone hit by the
storm, regardless of their immigration status, but on the other, Latinos are
being registered and questioned, and there is even evidence that they might
be deported," he said.
Spokespersons for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the
Department of Homeland Security have issued assurances that aid is being
extended to storm victims without taking their immigration status into
account.
But they clarified that immigrants who are not residing legally in the
United States are not entitled to cash assistance, although they can receive
food aid, temporary shelter, and medical and psychological assistance.
However, many immigrants are wary and avoid asking for aid, and they hide or
"travel fearfully around the country looking for relatives or friends who
could help them," said Reyes.
"We Latinos come to this country in search of opportunities that we don't
have in our countries, but we end up suffering a lot and paying high dues,"
he added.
(END/2005)
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