Michigan Immigrant Rights Center

Statement in Support of Farmworker Protections

By:

MIRC Immigrant Worker Rights Team

Many farmworkers travel long distances to work in Michigan harvesting, packing, and processing our fruits and vegetables and they are dependent on their employer for both work and housing. The work they do is often dangerous and always physically and mentally demanding. Yet, the men, women, and children, who harvest, pack and process our fruits and vegetables, have been left out of employment protections other workers enjoy. The exclusion of farmworkers from basic employment protections is rooted in the historical legacy of slavery in the agricultural sector and our country’s racial history. To this day, farmworkers are not entitled to overtime pay and are also not entitled to protection from retaliation if they come together to better their work or housing conditions.

On June 1, 2020, Governor Whitmer issued Executive Order 2020-111 “Protecting the Food Supply and Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Workers from the effects of COVID-19” which creates temporary new protections for Michigan farmworkers living in employer-provided housing. This executive order extends the worker protections in Executive Order 2020-97 “Safeguards to protect Michigan’s workers from COVID-19” to include Michigan’s agricultural workers living in employer-provided housing. Together, these two orders are important proactive and preventative measures that create a clear, uniform, and enforceable standard for the agricultural industry. These standards are critical as current migrant housing and workplace health and safety laws do not account for the unanticipated public health challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The executive order is timely and necessary to protect the occupants at these housing sites, all agricultural workers in the state, and the general public. In Michigan annually, there are over 40,000 farmworkers and their family members who live and work in our communities. About half of those farmworkers will live in employer-provided housing, often near their worksites in remote or rural parts of the state. Currently, there are approximately 840 migrant housing sites that will be occupied with over 26,000 individuals during the peak growing season (April through September). The order ensures the most vulnerable farmworkers are protected from COVID-19 and not overlooked or forgotten during this unprecedented pandemic.

Through her executive order, Governor Whitmer has made it clear that Michigan will do better for our farmworker population and will take into account their particular vulnerabilities while living at employer-provided housing sites in Michigan. The order took effect on June 1, 2020 and will be in place until June 29, 2020, or until further notice. The Michigan Immigrant Rights Center (MIRC) hopes the order will be extended to ensure farmworkers coming to Michigan after June 29th are also protected.

MIRC supports the Governor’s actions and urges those who care about the health and safety of agricultural workers in Michigan to help share news about the Executive Order and its importance. Farmworker health and safety is a public health concern that we should all care about and centering the needs of farmworkers will ensure the stability of Michigan’s food supply.

Farmworkers who have questions about how Executive Order 2020-111 might affect them, are encouraged to call MIRC’s free confidential worker hotline at 800-968-4046.

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MIRC Takes Issue

Understanding Family Separation and MIRC's Response

By:

MIRC UC Team

In May 2018, the Trump administration formally announced a “zero tolerance” immigration policy and began prosecuting nearly all adult immigrants illegally entering the United States on misdemeanor charges. As a result, the U.S. government removed any children from these immigrants’ care and placed the children in shelters or federal foster care. This practice of family separation was also enforced against parents applying for asylum at U.S. ports of entry.

Under this new immigration policy, the U.S. government reported that nearly 3,000 children were forcibly separated from their parents between May and June 2018. Yet, we know that May 2018 was not the beginning of family separation--hundreds of children were separated from their parents at the border before the official announcement. In fact, MIRC saw affected clients before national attention focused on the crisis and began collaborating with class counsel from the ACLU in the Ms. L v. ICE case.

One prominent example of an early family separation case was that of the youngest known separated child, Constantin Mutu, who was four months old when we met him. You can learn more about his family's story in this week's episode of "The Weekly" from the New York Times, available on Hulu. MIRC team members Ana Raquel Devereaux and Camila Trefftz make an appearance in the episode. We are so grateful to our baby client's family for sharing their story and allowing us to share the role we played in it.

MIRC represented every child placed in Michigan who was separated from their parents while the official zero-tolerance policy was in effect. We're relieved to report that all of these children were reunited with their families by October 23, 2018. This was not the end of the family separation crisis, though. Even after the federal judge in the Ms. L case ordered the government to end this practice and President Trump rescinded the policy, family separations have continued. MIRC continues to represent every child brought to Michigan to ensure their legal rights are protected.

In addition to representing unaccompanied children placed in Michigan foster care, MIRC also represents Michigan parents facing other immigration-related legal situations that lead to family separation. For example, when ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) detains an undocumented parent for driving without a license --this is family separation. When a migrant farmworker parent loses his or her child after being charged with neglect for living in substandard, employer-provided housing--this is family separation. And when a parent is detained in a detention facility hundreds of miles away from his or her children, or when that facility doesn't permit in-person visitation--this is family separation. We step into the breach.

With support from our funders and other supporters, MIRC has increased capacity by hiring ten new staff attorneys and six other new staff since November 2016. MIRC is now a program of 30 staff, including attorneys, intake coordinators, legal assistants, policy staff, and an expanded leadership team. This capacity-building allows us to respond not only to the family separation crisis, but also to other significant efforts to restrict the rights of immigrants in this country. For example, MIRC now fields free calls from every detainee and every respondent in immigration court in Detroit. They are each given our intake number and MIRC provides legal information, advice about their rights and options, and/or referrals. This was not possible a year ago.

We are grateful to our funders, supporters, partners, stakeholders and community advocates who make it possible for us to respond to recent attacks on our immigrant communities. Right now, we’re preparing for the next potential crisis (possibly in response to government actions described in President Trump’s tweet on Monday). Whatever comes next, MIRC will be ready to respond to and lead against the administration’s challenges and affronts to rights of Michigan’s immigrants.

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MIRC Takes Issue

Remembering the Welcoming Michigan Launch!

View Facebook album from the launch!

By:

Christine Sauvé

Welcoming Michigan is a statewide immigrant inclusion initiative of the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center that launched on May 7, 2012. Through this program we partner with community-based organizations, local governments, individuals and institutions across the state that are interested in making local communities more welcoming for immigrants, refugees, and all residents. We provide technical assistance and collaborate on projects to create more inclusive policies or foster more positive relationships between residents.

Working with a constellation of amazing community partners, we host events to help U.S.-born and foreign-born Michiganders get to know each other and develop mutual respect and understanding. Over the years we have partnered on projects across the state, including in Kalamazoo and Van Buren County. Here is a snapshot of recent efforts in southeast Michigan:

Engage neighbors across Detroit through the “Detroit Our City” initiative in partnership with the Detroit City Council Immigration Task Force and Detroit Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs
Host the annual “Breakfast of Nations” event with partners in Macomb County, including Executive Mark Hackel’s One Macomb initiative
Host an annual Welcoming Michigan Statewide Convening to build a community of practice around operationalizing welcoming, equity, and belonging. (Note: We’re taking this year off to support MIRC as a co-host of the National Immigrant Integration Conference in Detroit. We hope to see you there!)

We partner with community organizations and institutions to help them create more inclusive environments, policies, and practices to help newcomers feel welcome and fully a part of the community. This includes supporting municipalities that have committed to institutionalizing policies and practices to advance immigrant inclusion. We are proud to say that Michigan is now home to 21 Welcoming Cities and Counties, the most of any state in the country!

In 2012, Welcoming Michigan started as one of 14 original affiliate members of Welcoming America. Welcoming America’s network has grown to include over 100 non-profit and municipal members. Over the years we have partnered with Welcoming America on a number of resource guides to assist communities in their welcoming efforts:

Since launching in 2012, we've held 353 events and reached 19,371 people! Over the years we’ve shared countless laughs and meals with partners and residents, formed incredible friendships, and had some memorable moments. We’ve faced intense anti-immigrant backlash and went to the White House when our staff member was recognized as a Champion of Change. We thank you for being a part of our efforts to make Michigan a more welcoming state and look forward to the next seven years!

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MIRC Moments

Fighting for Farmworker Minimum Wage

Photo Credit: Detroit News

By:

Hillary Scholten

The right to a minimum wage is one of the most basic and fundamental protections a worker can count on in the workplace. Agricultural workers are among the most vulnerable and often-exploited workers, doing one of the most dangerous, and essential jobs, in today's economy. Michigan’s Wage and Hour laws are meant to offer stateside protection to workers where the federal government will not. Until very recently, this included agricultural workers on Michigan’s small farms. However, on December 19, 2017, then-Attorney General Bill Schuette changed that.

AG Opinion #7301, reinterprets a part of Michigan’s minimum wage laws (known as the Workforce Opportunity Wage Act (WOWA)) as excluding workers on Michigan’s small farms from minimum wage protections. In his opinion, the former Attorney General concluded, “This construction of subsection 10(1)(b) has the effect of leaving some employees without a right to a minimum hourly wage under the WOWA (or the FLSA).” The interpretation reversed a decade-long understanding, one confirmed by the legislative history surrounding the section's passage, that this subsection offered minimum wage protection to all workers, including those on small farms.

As soon as AG Opinion #7301 issued, MIRC got to work with our partners at Farmworker Legal Services, and other state government partners to reverse or curb the effects of the opinion. While the former Attorney General did not change his position, there's a new AG in charge. The Michigan Department of Civil Rights, at the direction of the Michigan Civil Rights Commission, has asked Attorney General Dana Nessel to reconsider AG #7301.

Our need to protect workers right to a basic minimum wage for the labor they provide is not only crucial to ensure the entry-level justice for these workers, but it's only essential for the future viability of agricultural labor here in Michigan, which means the future of the food we put on our plates every day. You can speak out by adding your name to this letter (by April 26, 2019) to the Attorney General's Office that states that you want her to rescind AG #7301 and issue new guidance that clarifies that all agricultural workers in Michigan are entitled to Michigan's minimum wage.

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MIRC Takes Issue

"Without Work, What Would You Do?"

By:

Diana Marin

I joined MIRC in January of 2019 to help support MIRC’s expanding farmworker and immigrant workers rights litigation team. MIRC’s focus on equity and belonging for immigrants in Michigan communities is work that resonates with my lived experience. I was born in Honduras and came to the States a couple of months before I turned 4. I grew up in the Bronx in the 1980s and like many first or second generation Latinx immigrants, I learned and spoke English at school and Spanish at home and church. My parents emphasized working hard, following the rules, and keeping close to family and the small Central American community around us. They instilled a deep belief in the value of education as a means to move out of our “working poor” existence.

As most first-generation immigrants may understand, a crucial first step to “arriving” and getting settled is finding and keeping a job. Even if the work leaves you sapped of all physical and mental energy, even if the way you are treated is demoralizing, even if your hours or pay are not quite enough or right, you keep working. The moral value of work was so ingrained in everyone around me growing up that when I began representing workers and bearing witness to the decisions they made or couldn’t make, it all felt very familiar. And it wasn’t just that I saw my mom, dad, cousins, uncles and aunts reflected in the faces of my clients. Some who worked alongside me and did not grow up as I did asked questions like: Why would a day laborer continue to work for a contractor who didn’t pay one week and will likely not pay the next week? Why would a nanny continue working for a family who takes away so much time from her own family and doesn’t pay very much? Why would a farmworker not speak up when pesticide is being sprayed around him? The obvious and straightforward answer is a need for money to provide for oneself and family or a lack of knowledge of one’s rights but I know that is only part of the explanation. Without work, what would you do? How would you define yourself? How would others perceive you?

Since beginning my legal career I have come across countless low-wage immigrant workers who have been harassed at work, shorted hours, exposed to dangerous work conditions, threatened with deportation, or quite simply robbed of their wages by unscrupulous employers who rely on these illegal tactics to maintain a competitive business advantage. Yet every worker I have come across or represented has believed in the dignity of their work and has been proud to do the work so many of us won’t do for the pay or conditions offered or can’t do because we lack the skills. Our clients’ steely resolve to maintain their dignity and humanity is what most motivates me to support our community partners and ensure that the right to “a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work” is extended to all low-wage immigrant workers, regardless of immigration status.

Wage theft¹ and workplace exploitation exists in our immigrant communities because of weak state laws², current attacks on federal workplace protections³, and lack of enforcement by state and federal agencies⁴, but also because of our immigration laws and how those laws are used by employers to control or dispose of workers who assert their rights. At MIRC, we understand deeply the interplay between immigration and workplace rights and in alliance with our community partners, we will continue to represent and support Michigan’s most vulnerable immigrant workers in their fight for dignity and equity. I am proud and excited to be part of the growing network of Michigan immigrant rights groups that MIRC is a part of. Together, we can raise the voices of Michigan’s immigrant workers and take action toward change. If you are interested in learning more about MIRC’s Immigrant Workers’ Rights team, please contact me or our amazing outreach paralegal Eva Alvarez.

¹Wage theft can occur in many different ways: shorting hours, not paying the minimum wage, not paying required overtime, requiring unlawful deductions or kick-backs are some of the most common. In 2017, the Economic Policy Institute surveyed the 10 most populous states, including Michigan, to determine the rates of minimum wage violations in those states. Their findings revealed that Michigan minimum wage earners lost $63 per week or $3,300 per year due to minimum wage violations alone. Michigan low-wage workers experienced more minimum wage violations than workers in North Carolina, Texas, Pennsylvania, and Georgia.
²While Michigan has a higher wage standard than the federal minimum wage, state laws allow a greater number of exemptions than federal laws. In Michigan, farmworkers are excluded from state paid sick leave, overtime pay, and some minimum wage protections. No private right of action exists for workers who experience the most extreme form of wage theft. Meaning, if a worker is not paid for her work, her only option is to file an administrative complaint within one year and she is not entitled to file a lawsuit for her unpaid wages.
³This current administration has sought to diminish workers’ rights by supporting mandatory arbitration, rolling back updates to federal overtime regulations, blocking regulations that protect workers’ pay and safety, and seeking to expand the flawed H-2A program. These anti-worker policies, along with anti-immigrant rhetoric and devastating immigration policies have a disproportionate negative effect on farmworkers and low-wage immigrant workers.
⁴Lack of enforcement is often connected with the underfunding of government agencies tasked with enforcing employment and labor laws and anti-worker interpretations of laws and regulations by agencies. For an example of harmful state agency interpretations, see the lack of minimum wage protections for workers on certain farms in Michigan.

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