NEWSIMMIGRANT HEALTH

UPDATE 2/10/12: Victory! University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) has agreed to help Jesus Navarro develop a plan for long-term care needed to receive a life-saving kidney transplant, following a national outpouring of support that included more than 130,000 signatures on Jesus' viral petition -- as well as coverage on CNN, ABC, NBC, and more.
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Late last week, Donald Kagan, who received a kidney transplant that saved his life, started a petition on Change.org. It was for another man fighting a battle to live and see his daughter grow up—Jesus Navarro. Navarro is an Oakland father who has waited six years for a transplant, has insurance to cover the cost of the surgery, and has a wife who hopes to donate her kidney. But UCSF Medical Center won’t perform the life-saving transplant for one reason: Jesus is undocumented.

UCSF argues that, as an undocumented immigrant, Navarro will not be able to afford future treatments, but his supporters argue otherwise and have lined up willing donors to aid him in his long-term care. Since Donald started his petition, tens of thousands have signed. His campaign for Jesus has been covered by ABC 7- San Francisco, CBS 5- SF, NBC Latino, and the Huffington Post. Everyone from doctors and nurses to the children of parents who faced kidney failure have expressed outrage that UCSF would let a man die on their watch simply because of his immigration status. Below is a sample of comments from Donald's viral petition:

I am a graduate of UCSF School of Medicine, Class of 1973. I am also a believer in the worth and dignity of every individual, without regard to race, religion, gender, national origin -- or status of documentation! Let's just move the case mentally for a moment to the Jim Crow south and see how the morality of it all plays out. Sometimes institutions need to step forward and do the right thing. UCSF may have just met that moment.

-Charles Torrey, Vashon, WA

On March 21, 2011, Carlos La Madrid, 19 years old and unarmed, was running from U.S. Border Patrol officers and attempting to cross a ladder into Mexico from Arizona. He was shot in the back four times and passed away.

A sudden flurry of media attention on operations between Border Patrol agents and apprehended subjects followed in the days following the tragic incident and seemed to dissipate almost as quickly. But for the ministry group of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Tucson, No More Deaths, documenting abuse on the border since 2006 has been an ongoing, almost daily, and often heart-wrenching fact -- and a new petition by the group on Change.org calls on Border Patrol to address this reality with concrete actions.

The group's new comprehensive report "Culture of Cruelty," produced in collaboration with expert researches who interviewed more than 30,000 migrants who came in contact with Border Patrol, reveals that victims report many of the same patterns of abuse: denial of water and food even when migrants are dangerously dehydrated, denial of access to medical help for severe injuries, verbal abuse and threats of death, separation from family members, denial of due process, no return of personal belongings, intentional funneling of migrants to deadly regions.

This week marks the beginning of African Heritage Month in the US, and as the country embarks upon its annual celebration of African culture, a network of Black immigrants is hoping to use the period as a time to raise awareness about both the unique contributions and dire health disparities African immigrants face in the United States.

Black immigrants make up a significant percentage of the American immigrant population, arriving from countries in every continent. And yet, in many ways, Black immigrants are mostly excluded from the national conversation when it comes to immigration, education, and health. African immigrants are in fact the most highly educated (PDF) population in the country (nearly 90 percent of African-born U.S. residents over the age of 25 are high school graduates and more than 47 percent have completed college—nearly double the national average).

Still, African immigrants face incredible health disparities and are at a disproportionately high risk of HIV/AIDS, cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure, and other diseases. Seeking to amplify knowledge of both the contributions and challenges faced by African-born immigrants (and to begin to correct many of these health disparities), the National African Immigrants and Refugees Health Advocate (AIR Health) Program has launched a petition on Change.org that is already getting the attention of elected officials across the country.

"As African-borns, we are both Black and Immigrant - we are very proud of both legacies and seek to showcase these legacies during the month September with an African Heritage Month celebration," said Sylvie Bello, Founder/CEO of the Cameroon American Council, a national nonprofit based in Washington, D.C.

If CA Gov. Jerry Brown doesn't sign the Fair Treatment for Farm Workers Act by a week from today, the bill will die. But it won't go gentle into that good night -- from the moment the bill landed on the governor's desk last Thursday, farm workers and their allies have been making quite a stir on its behalf.

An estimated 1000 farm workers marched in Sacramento on June 16th to urge Gov. Brown to sign a bill that would protect farm worker safety, chanting "Si Se Puede" ("Yes We Can"). Eighty-one-year-old Taurino Carlos spoke movingly of the harsh conditions he has endured as a farm worker over the decades to the present day -- he hopes that the next generation can enjoy better, safer conditions than he has been subjected to.

Too many farm workers have died because their employers deny them the simplest of needs -- rest, shade, water. Farm workers like 17-year-old Maria Isavel, whose touching story motivated 16,000 Change.org members to take action on her behalf. A United Farm Workers petition on Change.org is asking Gov. Brown to sign the bill, which was introduced to the State Assembly on the anniversary of Maria Isavel's untimely death, and take a stand for farm workers state wide.

Maria Isavel was only 17 when she died -- you can see in the photo to the left just how young the teenage farm worker was. She had her whole life ahead of her. She was engaged, pregnant, beloved. And she died due to an inhumane employer who forced her to work without rest, shade, or water. She died due to the failure of the California government to enforce its own safety regulations.

She died, and the employer and safety coordinator who caused her death -- who had been fined previously for the same dangerous work conditions that killed Maria Isavel -- got away with a bit community service. She died, and the government agency that fined Merced Farm Labor yet never bothered to collect the fine or check that conditions had improved faced no consequences. She died unnecessarily, and too many other farm workers have also died preventable deaths.

There has been no hint of justice for the severing of Maria Isabel's young life. But California Governor Jerry Brown has the opportunity to change things, to protect future farm workers like Maria Isavel. He can sign SB 104, the Fair Treatment for Farm Workers Act, which would give these mistreated workers the right to organize for their own protection.

Maria Isavel's uncle, Doroteo, has been fighting for the passage of this bill -- even losing his job in an act of retaliation -- along with his fellow laborers and United Farm Workers. The bill was brought up for a vote in the California Assembly on May 16, the anniversary of Maria Isavel's death. With its passage through both branches of the CA legislature, it now rests on Gov. Jerry Brown to do the right thing and sign the Fair Treatment for Farm Workers Act into law.

Three years ago this coming Monday, 17-year-old farm worker Maria Isavel died of heat exhaustion. Her death was preventable. It resulted from cruel and inhumane work conditions -- hard labor under the hot California sun without water, shade, or rest -- and a severe failure of oversight by the state, which had already fined her employer for these dangerous practices, but then never bothered to check that safety improvements had been made.

Maria Isavel was not the first CA farm worker to perish unnecessarily, due to negligence and a lack of adequate safeguards. But she should be the last.

Her uncle, Doroteo Jimenez, is calling for the passage of the Fair Treatment for Farm Workers Act, "to ensure that no more farm workers die and that no more family members of farm workers like myself have to go thru this type of situation." The Act will be voted on in the CA Assembly this Monday, on the anniversary of Maria Isavel's tragic young death, and Doroteo and five buses of farm workers sent by United Farm Workers will descend on the state capitol to rally behind the bill.

"I will go again not just because it is the right thing to do; I will go because it is the only legislation that will ensure that we farm workers will have the tools to secure dignity and respect in the fields" says Doroteo. "I hope many supporters and farm workers will join us."

The Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) has a simple request for CEO Daniel Delen: sit down and talk with farmworkers about human rights abuses in North Carolina tobacco fields. So far, he's ignored them.

This month, Delen became CEO of Reynolds American, the nation's second-largest tobacco company, for a cool $1 million a year. Reynolds rakes in around $2 billion in profits each year buying tobacco from local growers in North Carolina and other states. The growers, in turn, employ mostly Latino farmworkers to harvest and dry tobacco.

While Reynolds executives like Delen and local tobacco growers enjoy yearly lucrative profits, life is drastically different for the people that actually harvest the crop.

Tobacco is notoriously difficult work among migrant workers; working and living conditions border on the inhuman. The average North Carolina farmworker works long hours stooped over harvesting tobacco leaves and earns around $7,000 a year. About half the state's farmworkers don't earn enough to feed their families, according to the North Carolina Farmworker Institute. Growers aren't required to pay farmworkers the federal minimum wage for other workers or overtime pay, while farmworkers are frequently cheated out of even their sub-par wages.

In the next few days, thousands of supporters will make a final push to prevent a plea deal that would allow those responsible for the heat death of a 17-year-old farmworker to get off with community service.

The nation was shocked when 17-year-old farmworker Maria Isabel Vasquez died from heat exhaustion while she pruned grapes in a field run by California's Merced Farm Labor.

Maria succumbed after working nine hours in the heat, collapsing into her fiance Florentino Bautisa's arms. Florentino says that a farm labor contractor balked before taking Maria to the hospital, telling workers to dab her with rubbing alcohol. When she didn't wake up, the contractor sent her to a local clinic instead of the hospital, with instructions that workers tell the clinic Maria fainted while exercising. When the clinic saw Maria, they sent her to a hospital. She arrived at the hospital comatose, her body temperature reaching 108 degrees.

She died two days later. While examining Maria's body, doctors discovered she was two months pregnant.

Basic science was ignored when California approved the use of methyl iodide, a cancer-causing pesticide, said scientist John Friones at an environmental safety hearing last week.

California berry growers are hoping to use methyl iodide, a registered carcinogen, to kill weeds and eliminate soil disease in their fields. It was developed as a replacement for another chemical that had a damaging effect on ozone levels. Activists, however, have fought methyl iodide for years, pointing to its danger for farmworkers and the general public.

In 2007, fifty-four scientists, including Nobel prize winners, famously intervened as the EPA prepared to approve the chemical, calling methyl iodide one of the most toxic chemicals used in industry.

Imagine you've been in the hospital for six days. You are suffering from a growing tumor in your spine, a cancerous growth that, with each passing hour, is taking away more and more of your normal bodily functions. You've stopped being able to control your right hand. Soon, you may lose the power to walk. Luckily, you live in a country housing the finest hospitals in the entire world. You're safe. You'll be cared for. Unless of course, you're undocumented.

Surgical patient Maria Sanchez of Texas faced this disheartening truth last month during her painfully abrupt stay at the University of Texas Medical Branch's John Sealy Hospital. Sanchez was admitted as a patient on January 5th, seeking treatment from an advanced tumor that was causing an incredible amount of discomfort. Sanchez had already received some treatment and minor surgery during her stay, but as she was preparing to undergo extensive surgery, she was approached by a Spanish-speaking doctor.