New York, New York May 15, 2007
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants, Dr. Jorge Bustamante, is currently finishing up an official fact-finding visit to the United States. As the UN expert on migration, he is meeting with government officials, NGOs, and migrants to evaluate the state of migrant protections in the United States. He has traveled to California, Arizona, Florida, Atlanta, New York and will finish in Washington, D.C. Although most of the visit has been quite smooth, he was inexcusably denied entry to two immigration detention centers.
As part of the three-week USA tour, the Special Rapporteur attended a public hearing in New York City on May 12. Global Workers and the ACLU organized a workers rights panel during the public hearing. Taxi workers, domestic workers, street vendors, and construction workers testified how they were targeted for exploitation due to their status as migrants. Global Workers used the opportunity to raise awareness about the United States government lack of cooperation to reduce the recruiter exploitation in the sending countries for the Guest Worker program (see prior blog entries for more detail). Global Workers is hopeful that this issue, plus those he learned about in New York City, will be highlighted in the Special Rapporteur’s final report.