A humanitarian tragedy threatens undocumented human beings in New Orleans as Gustav nears

The Associated Press reported yesterday that undocumented workers and their families are uncertain of whether to leave New Orleans due to previous threats by federal officials to use any hurriance evacuation procedures to screen for deportation.

This threat is indicative of the inhumanity that Immigration and Customs Enforcement(ICE) has unleased the past several years on undocumented human beings in this nation under the Bush administration.

The Associated Press reported the following yesterday:

"Advocates have criticized the decision not to establish a shelter, warning that day laborers and the poorest residents will still fall through the cracks. As lines at bus stations kept building, about two dozen Hispanic men talked under oak trees near Claiborne Avenue, where on better days they would be waiting to be picked up for day labor.

"They'd been listening to Spanish radio and television but none of them knew what to do and were waiting for someone to come by and tell them, said Pictor Soto, 44, of Peru. Told they could take a bus at Union Passenger Terminal, they all shook their heads, fearful that immigration agents would be looking for them.

"'The problem is, there will be immigration people there and we're all undocumented,' Soto said."

Today, advocates for these human beings -- who responded by the hundreds of thousands to the call for laborers to rebuild New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina -- said they had received assurances from ICE that evacuees would not be screened for deportation.

But undocumented workers know from experience that ICE's word is worthless.

So the nation's punitive policy toward undocumented workers and their families has put innocent human beings at risk as Hurricane Gustav prepares to explode upon the United States. It is incredibly sad and reprehensible that more people must suffer and potentially die before this nation and its government opens it eyes and turns if back on treating human beings so inhumanely.

God save these good people -- and this nation's policymakers.