Katrina's Undocumented Immigrants Face Deportation If Aid Sought

by Elena Shore

(PNS) -- Univision, the country's largest Spanish-language broadcaster, has had trouble getting accurate information to tell its audiences about the rights of undocumented victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Anchorwoman Maria Elena Salinas says the government hasn't been straightforward about what benefits and protections such victims can and can't receive.

"When asked over and over again by Spanish-language journalists whether or not undocumented immigrants would be excluded from aid, time and time again FEMA's representatives said the aid is for 'all' of the victims," reports Salinas. "But we later learned how relative the terms 'aid' and 'all' can be."

Undocumented survivors of Katrina are being denied federal relief services, and at a time when they most need to come forward to seek assistance still find themselves vulnerable to deportation.

Many immigrants are afraid they'll be arrested and deported if they seek aid, a fear that's no longer hypothetical. Five victims of Katrina were arrested in Texas and West Virginia and are now facing deportation proceedings.

According to Virginia Kice, spokeswoman for Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, three undocumented immigrants were detained in El Paso, Texas after voluntarily presenting themselves to immigration authorities. Two others on a bus of evacuees were detained in West Virginia after one was accused of sexually assaulting a 19-year-old mother who did not press charges. ICE responded to a call from West Virginia State police.

Kice says these are only two cases among the hundreds of thousands of evacuees. ICE's primary role, she stresses, is to save lives and provide security in the recovery effort. "In those situations where we encounter an illegal alien," she says, "we will take that on a case by case basis."

But the cases that have led to arrests have only confirmed the fears of undocumented survivors.

"Now many people are so terrified they won't even come out of their homes," says Jennifer Ng'andu of National Council of La Raza. She says her organization has received reports of people being refused services because they couldn't speak English.

"We're very conflicted on what to tell our constituents about where to seek aid," she says. "We're telling people they're entitled to help, but we have to let them know there have been cases of people being deported."

Univision's Salinas echoes her frustration over authorities' murky answers to inquiries. "The questions and answers went something like this: If I am undocumented, am I eligible for assistance for needs related to the recent storms, tornadoes and flooding?

"The answer was: Yes, you may be eligible under different programs run by state and local agencies and voluntary agencies.

"It doesn't sound like a trick question, but it's a trick answer. What FEMA is basically saying is: No, you don't qualify for federal aid."

According to FEMA undocumented victims are only eligible for short-term, noncash emergency aid, crisis counseling or disaster legal services. They don't qualify for financial aid or disaster unemployment assistance, nor have they been relieved from the threat of deportation.

"There's a deliberate, harsh, anti-immigrant spirit" behind the government's failure to provide equal help to undocumented victims, says Josh Bernstein, director of Federal Policy at the National Immigration Law Center. "They talked about it and decided not to help these people," he claims.

The problem, Bernstein says, is that for the first time in history, the government hasn't been willing to assure undocumented victims that as a policy they won't be deported if they come forward to ask for help.

President Bush has said hurricane victims should not be afraid to seek aid. "It's disingenuous to say that everyone should come forward when they've refused to say that they wouldn't prosecute," says Bernstein.

In the past, the government gave assurances of relief from deportation. After Sept. 11, for example, President Bush announced that immigrants in New York's Chinatown, many of whom had lost their businesses, would not be in danger of being deported.

So why the refusal to adopt the same policy after Hurricane Katrina? Two things have changed since Sept. 11, 2001, says Bernstein. FEMA is now part of the Department of Homeland Security, which is also responsible for immigration enforcement, and the United States is now in the midst of a hot national debate over the future of immigration, in which anti-immigrant forces are much bolder.

Federal authorities are aware of the issue. The Department of Homeland Security, for example, temporarily suspended sanctions against employers that hire workers who can't document their immigration status. Also, the House of Representatives just passed an "Immigration Relief Bill." But Bernstein calls it a "miserly nickel-and-dime bill" that leaves out more people than it includes.

The bill doesn't include people who are on work visas and have lost their jobs. In order to get relief, they must prove their physical worksite was damaged or destroyed -- an impossible task for evacuees who have fled, or workers in the French Quarter, where businesses have closed though they're still standing.

Timber workers who lost their jobs as a result of the hurricane aren't allowed to participate in clean-up efforts either, since they lost their work visas when they lost their jobs.

"We have Byzantine rules that determine who's eligible for what services," says Bernstein. "It's mean," he adds.