Duped in Texas, came to Florida for cleanup, foiled again

[In It to Win It]

Miami Herald

No paywall

Pedro Escalona endured a grueling journey from Venezuela to Texas, made a brief stopover at a San Antonio migrant center, crossed paths with an operative of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — one who promised a free charter flight to Delaware — then learned the flight had been scuttled and caught a plane to New York City, where he ended up in a homeless shelter.

And now, days later, he sat forlornly on a bench in Doral, Florida, outside a Best Western, contemplating life’s odd twists. The company he had been working for had fired him, kicking him and three others out of the hotel room they had been staying in for a week. He had spent the night before on the grass of the hotel under a palm tree.

Escalona, 24, was angry and mostly broke, save for a check he could not cash — the fruits of an exhausting week of labor on a hurricane-recovery work crew.

How he got to Florida — the state that wanted to dump him and others in Delaware, apparently to embarrass President Joe Biden, who has a home there — and onto a seven-day-a-week Fort Myers work crew is the story of America’s conflicted relationship with migrant workers.

One week they are demonized, the next they are in demand, only to become an expendable part of a workforce hired by companies that profit off vulnerable laborers. The company had promised him three months of work, Escalona said, only to pull the plug after one week for something that, to Escalona, felt arbitrary and personal. When the company fired Escalona, they painted him and his group as troublemakers. There had been some incidents, Escalona admitted.

Although the company called the dispute with Escalona an isolated incident, the Herald spoke to five other migrants in the week since who described similar situations: hard work and long hours on hurricane clean up, followed by allegations of bad behavior, a final paycheck that they couldn’t cash, then abrupt removal from the hotel — sometimes at the hands of police.

[Backseat Driver]

1. I feel ashamed to be an American when this and other unacceptable exploitation

happens to immigrants...DH and I are only 3rd generation Americans by birth...funny, of European heritage too, and we felt fairly well assimilated into that "melting pot." Lady Liberty's plaque, it seems, should more honestly say to those who now come, "Abandon hope, all who enter here" through our southern border states. SHAME! Yeah, yeah, maybe new and better policies after the mid-terms. POTUS has his hands full enough until we learn the new mix of congress critters!

[intheflow]

2. Just as I predicted.

https://democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=17219260

Just awaiting the call to ICE.

[Docreed2003]

3. Dehumanization and exploitation seems to be built into the DNA of this country

Those types of views are reinforced nightly by people like Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity, not to mention their network that spends hours each day demonizing migrants.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

4. The uncashable check is just part of the scheme of exploitation.

The company did not tell him that he would not be able to cash the check without an official ID — which Escalona didn’t have because it was taken from him by U.S. border officials when he entered the country. The papers he was issued in place of his ID can be used to board a flight but not at any of the check-cashing locations in South Florida that he or others could find.

[ ... ]

“I understand that it’s illegal to hire them,” said Matthew Carr, the owner of Oceanside Labor & Demolition, the Plantation-based company that hired Escalona.

But Carr insists that he’s helping people — and that the law doesn’t reflect the reality on the ground.
“Everybody that crosses the border has to eat,” Carr said. “We live in Miami. There are so many people coming over here and trying to make a life. I’m trying to help people. Their life sucks in Venezuela and they can’t survive."