Apr 30, 2020
Alejandro Cartagena : Mexican workers on their way to job sites
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Alejandro Cartagena : Mexican workers on their way to job sites
News from St John's, NL, Canada and beyond—16 May
Mexican workers in St Mary's Bay have found themselves in limbo during the crab fishing dispute that currently grips Newfoundland & Labrador
Communities in St. Mary's Bay are pulling out all the stops to make a group of idle Mexican workers, hired to ...
2. The RCMP and the Canada Border Services Agency recently partnered on an investigation that led to the seizure of weapons and the arrest of at least one person, with charges expected.
RCMP and the Canada Border Services Agency recently partnered on an investigation that led to the seizure of w...
3. A new marine living lab that gives students a near arctic environment to test new technology and train in harsh conditions has opened in Holyrood
The Marine Institute has officially opened its new facility in Holyrood. The Launch is a marine living lab tha...
4. Sports infrastructure in the region is getting a boost with upgrades to public tennis courts in St John's
Upgrades to the Riverdale Tennis courts in St. John's for the 2025 Canada Summer Games will reap far-reaching ...
5. RCMP say the theft of an ATM from the Credit Union in Witless Bay on the weekend used a stolen pickup and excavator.
RCMP say the culprits involved in a bold theft of an ATM from the Credit Union in Witless Bay on the weekend u...
6. On May 11, 2023, which is Canadian Viral Hepatitis Elimination Day, the government of Newfoundland & Labrador announced the creation of a steering committee to combat the disease
ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — By 2030, hepatitis C could join smallpox as the only infectious diseases in humans to be eliminated. “That will be a real
Mexican workers could be enjoying more time off in the future after a proposal to double employee vacation time reached the Senate last week.
In an unprecedented move, Mexico has decided to put an interim halt on sending more temporary foreign workers to Canada amid rising safety concerns from COVID-19 in the country. As per media reports, Mexico’s Ambassador to Canada Juan Jose Gomez Camacho on Monday said that until there is clarity on the death of two workers from the virus, no more seasonal workers will be sent to Canada. Furthermore, a safety review of Canadian health policies and procedures will be carried out by the Mexican administration before permitting other temporary workers to Canada for work, particularly in the agricultural sector for seasonal farming.
Arlo Guthrie & Family Sing Deportees In Tribute To Mary Travers The song, Deportees, is one of Woody Guthrie's most popular. It can be heard in musical sessions across the island of Ireland being made famous by…
Without Visas, Carnival Workers Are Trapped at Home in Mexico
By Paulina Villegas and Victoria Burnett, NY Times, July 22, 2017
TLAPACOYAN, Mexico--Francisco Trujillo heads north each summer to do a job that few Americans want: a four-month stint operating carnival rides, mopping up vomit and sleeping in a cramped trailer with other workers.
His annual journey to the United States was a routine shared by many in the shabby city of Tlapacoyan, about 190 miles east of Mexico City in the hills of Veracruz state, which supplies two-thirds or more of the 7,000 foreign workers hired by America’s amusement sector each year.
This year, however, Mr. Trujillo, 32, is not selling tickets for the Super Shot vertical drop or doling out funnel cakes. Caught in a debate over how many visas the United States government should issue to seasonal workers, he is among thousands of Mexicans who are stuck at home, unable to get permission to work across the border.
“They say we are taking jobs from the Americans,” said Mr. Trujillo, who has worked the last four carnival seasons in New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Carnival work is “really hard,” he said, adding, “Americans don’t want to do it.”
As American politicians and business owners wrangle over the limits on the number of H-2B visas for unskilled, nonagricultural workers, Tlapacoyan (pronounced tla-pa-COY-an), with about 60,000 residents in the town and surrounding area, offers a glimpse of how the impasse has stung in Mexico. Last year, Mexicans received more than 70 percent of the approximately 84,000 H-2B visas issued by the United States to migrant workers worldwide.
The lack of visas has denied hundreds of families in the city an annual income that saves them from living hand-to-mouth and deepened the problems of a town struggling, like much of the state, with high crime rates. Of an estimated 4,600 to 6,000 residents who normally work the carnival season according to city officials and recruiters, about a third have been left behind.
Instead, they are selling tacos and driving taxis, or working for just over $1 an hour in the tangerine and banana fields that surround the town. Some use Google Translate and WhatsApp to check their visa status with their former American employers.
Mr. Trujillo is working as a driver for a construction crew, earning about $85 a week, less than a quarter of his carnival salary.
He used savings from his time in the United States to buy a plot of land and build a one-bedroom house, even splurging on a $350 stroller for his son, now 22 months old. This year, however, “there will be no proper Christmas, no presents, no turkey,” Mr. Trujillo said. He abandoned plans to take his son to a safari park in nearby Puebla state for his birthday. “I can barely make it day to day.”
Martín Peña, 34, who has spent two seasons with an Ohio-based amusement company but has not received a visa this year, said he had put off plans to buy a couch and a washing machine for his mother.
From the United States, Mr. Peña sent home as much as $300 a week from his take-home pay of about $345, eating fried chicken or cooking eggs with chili and tomato to save money. He tore down the wooden shack where he lives with his parents on the edge of Tlapacoyan and built cinder block walls. He also paid for his father’s treatment for typhoid.
As wrenching as it was to work far from his family, he said, managing without extra income was worse. “There is this anxiety that doesn’t go away,” he said.
The visa problems began in March when the summer allotment of H-2Bs ran out, leaving some American businesses scrambling for people to clean hotel rooms, run Ferris wheels and fish for shrimp. Demand for visas was high, said recruiters and experts, and Congress did not renew a provision that had excluded returning H-2B workers from counting against the total quota of 66,000 visas, which is split evenly between summer and winter.
Lawmakers in May then granted the government authority to more or less double the cap on this year’s quota to save “American business from irreparable harm,” and the White House on July 17 authorized an increase of 15,000 visas, bringing the total number available close to the number issued last year.
But business owners who have been waiting to bring seasonal workers said the requirements to apply for visas were onerous and that the extra visas were too few, too late.
Deborah Murray, one of the owners of Murray Brothers, a carnival company based in Cincinnati, said she had scaled back this year because she could not muster 30 reliable workers. She applied months ago for 12 visas for Mexican workers; she received four last week.
“You can never really recover,” said Ms. Murray, who spoke by telephone from a Cincinnati church festival where she said she was running five rides instead of the usual 10. “I’ve been working since April and I’m a week from August,” she said. “The season is gone.”
Despite accusations of underhanded or illegal practices by employers, several carnival workers who were waiting for visas this month said they enjoyed the carnival circuit.
Yes, there were days that stretched into the wee hours, patrons who vomited on the Zipper (a ride that involves being spun upside down in cages) and the occasional racist outburst from a parent whose child was not tall enough to board a ride. But there was also the chance to learn English, pick up some trendy, hand-me-down sneakers and leave the violence of Mexico behind.
Eduardo Torres, 25, who has worked two seasons for Murray Brothers in fairs across Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio, said he had never imagined traveling by airplane or visiting big cities. He marveled at what he called the “cool stuff” everywhere and picked up all sorts of used clothing. “It was a dream come true,” he said.
For Mr. Trujillo, whose favorite job was serving lemonade and hamburgers and learning English in the process--”like a little school”--the carnival became a window onto a more promising existence.
In the United States, said Mr. Trujillo, “if you dream about 15 things, you can buy five.”
In Tlapacoyan, he said, you dream, too. But when you open your eyes, of the things you dreamed about, “not one of them is there.”
Mexican Workers Blame Trump for Ford Closure Many in Mexico's burgeoning auto manufacturing region say President-elect Donald Trump influenced Ford Motor Company to cancel a large assembly plant in that country.