JC Fellow Alessandra Stevens and Sur Legal Collaborative, along with NILC win victory toward protecting immigrant workers
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JC Fellow Alessandra Stevens and Sur Legal Collaborative colleagues, along with National Immigrant Law Center (NILC) published an article about their joint effort in winning protection for immigrant workers.
In January 2021, a preventable liquid nitrogen leak at a poultry plant in Gainesville, Georgia killed six workers. After this tragedy, traumatized immigrant workers hesitated to report what they had witnessed, fearing employer retaliation, as well as a call to police or Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Following the nitrogen leak, Sur Legal Collaborative and NILC joined a rapid response coalition led by the poultry workers and local grassroots organizers in Gainesville. Their efforts led to new DHS guidance establishing a process for workers in labor disputes to apply for temporary protection from deportation. This guidance is a critical step to ensuring that immigrant workers can report serious labor violations without fear of adverse immigration consequences. In addition, it enables workers to speak up about workplace abuses and holds exploitative actors accountable.
Read the full article to learn more about this major victory:
Also see Sur Legal’s Press Release on the U.S. Department of Labor expansion of OSHA to protect all immigrant workers:
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