Berkeley Journal of Employment & Labor Law Volume 28|Issue 1 Article 3 March 2007 Latino Workers and Human Rights in the Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina Laurel E. Fletcher Phuong Pham Eric Stover Patrick Vinck Follow this and additional works at:https://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/bjell Recommended Citation Laurel E. Fletcher, Phuong Pham, Eric Stover, and Patrick Vinck,Latino Workers and Human Rights in the Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, 28 BerkeleyJ. Emp. & Lab. L. 107 (2007). Link to publisher version (DOI) https://doi.org/10.15779/Z38JD03 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Journals and Related Materials at Berkeley Law Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Berkeley Journal of Employment & Labor Law by an authorized administrator of Berkeley Law Scholarship Repository. For more information, please [email protected]. Latino Workers and Human Rights in the Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina Laurel E. Fletcher,t Phuong Pham,tt Eric Stover,ttt and Patrick Vincktttt This Article describes a research project designed to assess the vulnerabilities of Latino workers employed in rebuilding New Orleans during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Professors Fletcher, Pham, Stover and Vinck analyze the results, examining legal and human rights issues includingj ob security, safety, fair pay, discrimination,a nd access to adequate housing and health care. To assess the problems that these t Clinical Professor of Law and Director of the International Human Rights Law Clinic, Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California, Berkeley. tt Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Payson Center for International Development, Tulane University, and Senior Research Fellow at the Human Rights Center of the University of California, Berkeley. ttt Adjunct Professor at Boalt Hall School of Law and School of Public Health, and Faculty Director of the Human Rights Center at the University of California, Berkeley. tttt Project Director, Human Rights Center at the University of California, Berkeley, Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Payson Center for International Development, Tulane University. An earlier version of this study was released in June, 2006 with the title: Rebuilding After Katrina: A Population-BasedS tudy of Labor and Human Rights in New Orleans. The authors wish to thank the following individuals and institutions for their help in designing and implementing this study: University of California, Berkeley. Roxanna Altholz, Clinical Lecturer and Associate Director at the International Human Rights Law Clinic provided indispensable advice and consultation to the project, and participated in the research, data collection, and analysis. International Human Rights Law Clinic interns Aziza Ahmed and Girish Agrawal assisted in the survey design and data collection of the study; Jennifer Landsidle, Matthew Schwoebel, and Teresa Wang helped with the data collection. Further research assistance was provided by clinic intems Azmina Jasani and Emily Proskine, and Jamie Rowen, a student in Boalt Hall's Jurisprudence and Social Policy Program. Rohan Radhakrishna, a student in the School of Public Health, assisted with the survey. Kimberly Madigan provided research support and assisted in preparing the manuscript. Rachel Shigekane of the Human Rights Center and Joseph Blotner copyedited the text. Tulane University. Bethany Gaddis, Deborah Even, Nanette Svenson, Emily Schweninger, Olivia Almendares, and Serena Fuller of the Latino Outreach Committee at the Payson Center and the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine assisted in the survey design, translation, and data collection of the study. Other students at Tulane University who assisted in the research were Neil Hendrick, Olga Quinonez Eames, Rita Golikeri, Tweabech Alemayehu Aychiluhem, and Zenira Marques. Timothy Grant, Gregory Stone, and Nathaniel Weaver, representing both Tulane University and the City of New Orleans' Emergency Operations Center, helped with the recruitment of the survey team and the sampling database. Professors Eamon Kelly and William E. Bertrand of the Payson Center offered invaluable advice and consultation. Thanks are also due to the Koret Foundation and The Sandier Family Supporting Foundation. 108 BERKELEY JOURNAL OF EMPLOYMENT & LABOR LAW Vol. 28:1 workers faced, researchers surveyed key informants (legal advocates, health care providers, and other groups and organizations involved in rebuilding New Orleans) in the community and randomly interviewed documented and undocumented workers throughout the affected areas. The study found that undocumented workers arrived in New Orleans after Katrina to work at jobs that pay them less than their documented co- workers, expose them to hazardous worksites and dangerous conditions, andf ail to provide for adequate health care. Though documented workers fare better, they too experienced problems relating to health care and wages. To combat the compounding problems that these workers face, the authors suggest that the federal government take measures to make immigration laws consistent with workplace regulations, as well as create an expedited process of issuing work authorizations in federally-declared disaster zones. By doing so, the government would be able to respond to the need for rebuilding while still protecting the legal and human rights of all documented and undocumented workers. I. INTRO D UCTION .............................................................................. 109 II. B ACK GRO UN D ................................................................................ 112 A. New Orleans Demographics. .................................................. 113 B. Emerging Tensions and Community Debates. ........................ 114 III. T HE STUD Y .................................................................................... 116 A. Research Design and Instruments .......................................... 116 1. Key Inform ant Interviews. ................................................ 117 2. Random Sampling of Workers. ......................................... 117 B . Study L im itations. ................................................................... 118 IV . F IND I N G S ........................................................................................ 120 A. New Orleans Construction Workforce Composition .............. 120 B. Currenta nd PlannedL ength of Stay ...................................... 122 C. H ousing Co nditions ................................................................ 125 D. Labor Co nditions. ................................................................... 125 1. Type of Work Performed. ................................................. 125 2. Wa ges and H ours ............................................................. 126 3. Availability and Use of Protective Equipment ................. 129 E. H ealth Co ncerns ..................................................................... 13 1 1. H ealth P roblems .............................................................. 131 2. Access to M edical Care. ................................................... 132 F. Human Rights and Legal Issues ............................................. 135 G . Cu rrent Co ncerns ................................................................... 137 V . LEGAL STANDARD S ....................................................................... 138 A. InternationalL egal Standards. ............................................... 138 2007 HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE AFTERMATH OF KA TRINA B. D omestic Legal Standards. ..................................................... 141 1. Wa ge and H our Laws ....................................................... 141 2. Immigration Regulations. ................................................. 143 3. Health and Safety Regulations ......................................... 143 4. Injuries and Access to Healthcare. .................................. 145 VI . D ISCU SSION .................................................................................... 147 V II. RECOMM ENDATIONS ...................................................................... 150 A PPEN DIX A ............................................................................................. 153 "But for Latino workers, who are willing to live where others are not, we'd be in much worse shape. "-Business leader, New Orleans I. INTRODUCTION Hurricane Katrina made landfall just east of New Orleans, Louisiana early in the morning of August 29, 2005.' For the next five hours, the Category 3 storm ravaged the city and its neighboring communities. A twenty-foot storm surge broke through the city's three levees flooding entire neighborhoods. High winds and rising waters ripped down power lines and destroyed buildings. By late morning, Katrina had moved northward displacing hundreds of thousands of people.2 In the weeks that followed, over a thousand bodies were recovered from the floodwaters.' Local and out-of-state contractors, aware that federal reconstruction grants would be forthcoming, soon moved into areas affected by the hurricane to begin the massive clean up operation.' But labor was scarce. The number of workers employed in construction and related industries had 1. RICHARD D. KNABB, ET AL., NAT'L HURRICANE CTR., TROPICAL CYCLONE REPORT: HURRICANE KATRINA, 23-30 AUGUST 2005 1-2 (2005), http://www.disastersrus.org/katrina/TCR- AL 122005_Katrina.pdf. Hurricane Katrina grew from a tropical depression near the Bahamas on August 23, and touched down as a Category I storm in Florida on August 25. Id. 2. THOMAS GABE, ET AL., CONGR. RESEARCH SERV., HURRICANE KATRINA: SOCIAL- DEMOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS OF IMPACTED AREAS (2005), http://www.gnocdc.org/reports/ crsrept.pdf. 3. Id. Over 1300 residents of Louisiana have died, and 597 are still missing as a result of the hurricane. See Bruce Alpert, White House Accused of Gag Order, TIMES-PICAYUNE (New Orleans, La.), Jan. 25, 2006, at 1; Death Toll from Katrina Likely Higher than 1,300, MSNBC, Feb. 10, 2006, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/Il 1281267 (last visited Feb. 13, 2007); LA. DEP'T OF HEALTH, REPORTS OF MISSING AND DECEASED (April 26, 2006) (on file with authors). 4. See, e.g., Kristen Gelineau, Civil Rights Leaders Say Hispanic Immigrants Going Unpaidf or Katrina Work, ASSOCIATED PRESS, Nov. 19, 2005; Joshua Norman, All Work and No Pay Is Plight of Some- Latino Workers Face Fight to Receive Their Due, SUN HERALD (Biloxi, Miss.), Nov. 19, 2005, at A1; Justin Pritchard, Immigrants Often Unpaidf or Katrina Work, ASSOCIATED PRESS, Nov. 6, 2005; Darryl Fears, Firms in Gulf Coast Allege Nonpayment: 150 Immigrants' Cases Sent to Labor Dept., WASH. POST, Nov. 4, 2005, at A4; Robin Pogrebin, Lured to U.S. by the Work but Strugglingf or Fair Pay, N.Y. TIMES, Oct. 17, 2005, at At5. 110 BERKELEY JOURNAL OF EMPLOYMENT & LABOR LAW Vol. 28:1 dropped by nearly half5. On September 6, the Department of Homeland Security announced that it was suspending certain labor regulations for a forty-five day period to accommodate survivors who had lost identity documents in the storm.6 During that time, employers would not be required to confirm employee identity and eligibility documents to federal authorities. Two days later, the Department of Labor lifted wage restrictions for a period of two months, allowing contractors working on federally-funded construction projects to pay their employees below prevailing federal wage standards.7 Word of the need for labor in New Orleans spread quickly throughout the United States and the city soon flooded again, this time with thousands of men and women eager to find work.8 As clean-up efforts got underway, the media reported that some employers in the Gulf Coast area had failed to pay their workers or to provide them with adequate safety equipment and housing.9 The Southern Poverty Law Center filed lawsuits against two large contractors for failure to pay wages to migrant workers who were removing toxic mold from hospitals and schools in order to restore public services to New Orleans. Workers alleged their employers paid them so poorly that they could not afford to buy food.l" Reports of abuse--coupled with the easing of labor 5. The number of workers employed in construction and related industries in the New Orleans metropolitan area dropped from 40,100 to 22,500 from August to September 2005. THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION, KATRINA INDEX: TRACKING VARIABLES OF POST-KATRINA RECONSTRUCTION (2005), http://www.brookings.edu/metro/pubs/200604_Katrinalndex.pdf. These figures of workers employed in the "Natural Resources, Mining & Construction" are based on data from the Louisiana Occupational Information System (LOIS), Louisiana Department of Labor, Current Employment Statistics (CES) Survey, 2005, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, 2005. 6. Press Release, U.S. Dep't of Homeland Sec., Notice Regarding 1-9 Documentation Requirements for Hiring Hurricane Victims (Sept. 6, 2005), available at http://www.dhs.gov/xnews/ releases/press release_0735.shtm. 7. The suspension of the Act operated in affected areas of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, and Mississippi. U.S. DEP'T OF LABOR, GUIDANCE ON THE REINSTATEMENT OF THE DAVIS-BACON ACT PROVISIONS IN AREAS IMPACTED BY HURRICANE KATRINA (2005), http://www.dol.gov/esa/whd/aam/ DBAReinstal.PDF. 8. Penny Brown Roberts, Nueva Orleans: Hispanics Rebuilding Crescent City Likely to Stay- AndAffect Culture, BATON ROUGE ADVOCATE, May 7, 2006, at Al. 9. See Leslie Eaton, Storm and Crisis: The Recovery; After Hurricanes Come Tempests Over Cleanups, N.Y. TIMES, Feb. 24, 2006, at Al; Pritchard, supra note 4; Fears, supra note 4; Pogrebin, supra note 4. 10. Press Release, Southern Poverty Law Center, Center Seeks Justice for Katrina's Migrant Workers (Feb. 2, 2006), available at http://www.splcenter.org/legal/news/article.jsp?aid=160&site_ area= l&printable=l. One suit, against Belfore USA Group, settled in September 2006, paying workers approximately 145% of wages owed. Order Approving Settlement, Rodrigues v. BelforUSA Group, Inc., No. 06-041, (E.D. La. Sept. 7, 2006), available at http://www.splcenter.org/pdf/dynamic/legal/Belfor OrderStlmtAprvl.pdf. The second suit, against LVI Environmental Services of New Orleans, is still pending. See Complaint, Navarrete-Cruz v. LVI Environmental Servs. of New Orleans, No. 06-0489 (E.D. La. Feb. 1, 2006), available at http://www.splcenter.org/legal/docket/files.jsp?cdrlD=54. Another group operating in Mississippi, the Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance, also sought to hold egregious employers accountable. The group filed complaints against five subcontractors who the organization alleged had failed to pay 2007 HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE AFTERMATH OF KA TRINA regulations, virtually no monitoring of construction sites, and the city's lack of adequate housing and healthcare-suggested that unscrupulous contractors could easily be exploiting their workers. The storm-affected areas are still in great need of construction workers. Flooding or storm damage has affected more than a third of the region's 1.7 million residents." The total cost of the storm's damage is estimated at $96 billion;. 250,000 housing units in New Orleans alone were damaged or destroyed.12 And only a fraction of these units have been rebuilt. At the time of this study, 38.1 million cubic yards of debris (60% of the total) had been removed from the city.3 Electricity and gas services are now restored in most areas of the city, but streets remain largely unlit.4 Public services such as schools, public transit, and refuse collection and critical economic sectors like tourism continue to operate at substantially diminished levels." In June 2006, the U.S. Congress enacted a $19.8 billion hurricane recovery package that contains funds to finance residential rebuilding through a community development fund.'6 However, homeowners have yet to access this assistance and reconstruction is progressing slowly. hundreds of workers. The Rights Alliance also reported finding a group of thirty workers that had been abandoned by a contractor in a remote trailer park. The workers were living in three trailers with no electricity or furniture and had not eaten in three days. Interview by Democracy Now with Bill Chandler, President of the Miss. Immigrant Rights Alliance (December 16, 2005) (on file with authors). 11. JOHN LOGAN, THE IMPACT OF KATRINA: RACE AND CLASS IN STORM-DAMAGED NEIGHBORHOODS 6 (2005), www.s4.brown.edu/Katrina/report.pdf (last visited Feb. 13, 2007). The majority of people living in damaged areas were in the city of New Orleans (over 350,000), with additional concentrations in suburban Jefferson Parish (175,000) and St. Bernard Parish (53,000) and along the Mississippi Coast (54,000). Id. 12. AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTS, ECONOMIC AND CONSTRUCTION OUTLOOK IN THE GULF STATES AFTER HURRICANE KATRINA 3 (2005), http://www.aia.org/SiteObjects/files/ AIA katrinaecon report.pdf. 13. LOUISIANA RECOVERY AUTHORITY, FACTS & FIGURES: DATA BY THE NUMBERS (2006), http://rememberrebirth.org/documents/LouisianaKatrinaAnniversaryDataO82106.pdf. 14. Entergy, the electricity provider for 190,000 customers in Orleans parish and natural gas for 147,000 customers in Orleans parish, provides updates on power in New Orleans. Entergy New Orleans, Electric and Gas Service in New Orleans, http://www.entergy-neworleans.com/your-home/ storm_center/storms katrina.aspx. 15. AMY LIU, ET AL., BROOKINGS INSTITUTE, KATRINA INDEX: TRACKING VARIABLES OF POST CONFLICT RECONSTRUCTION (2006), http://www.gnocdc.org/KI/Katrinalndex.pdf. 16. Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for Defense, The Global War on Terror and Hurricane Recovery, H.R. 4939, 109th Cong. (2006); L. Higa, Emergency Supplemental Bill Cleared with Some Dissension, CQ WEEKLY, June 16, 2006. There is $5.2 billion appropriated for the "Community Development Fund" (increased from $4.2 billion) to be used separate from funding for Federal Emergency Management Agency or the Army Corp of Engineers. Making Emergency Supplemental Appropriations for the Fiscal Year Ending September 30, 2006, and for Other Purposes, H.R. REP. No. 109-49, at § 131-32 (2006). No less than $1 billion of this funding is designated for rehabilitation, repair and reconstruction of homes, and affordable rental housing stock in public or Department of Housing and Urban Developoment (HUD) housing. H.R. 4939 at 474. 112 BERKELEY JOURNAL OF EMPLOYMENT & LABOR LAW Vol. 28:1 II. BACKGROUND History teaches us that those most affected by natural disasters tend to be the poor and socially marginalized. Natural disasters, like armed conflicts, disrupt local economies and place vulnerable groups at risk of exploitation. Women and children, especially if they are widowed or orphaned, may suffer higher rates of morbidity and mortality. Natural disasters can also exacerbate systemic weaknesses and abuses in government bureaucracies, especially if such systems are poorly managed or lack accountability mechanisms. Over time, natural disasters can radically alter the physical geography, demographic profile, and power relations of the impacted area.17 While a growing body of literature examines the long-term impact of natural disasters on survivors, there is little information about the vulnerabilities of groups of workers that migrate to post-disaster areas. Even less information exists regarding how the presence of migrant laborers in these settings can affect the social and economic dynamics of post- disaster communities. U.S. history provides at least two examples where large numbers of migrants have faced widespread discrimination after rapidly populating new areas of the country. First, between 1916 and 1919, hundreds of thousands of African-Americans left the southern United States in search of greater social and economic opportunities in the North. Known as "The Great Migration," a substantial number of these internal migrants settled in the south side of Chicago where employers hoped their presence would solve labor shortages and diminish union demands. Yet, many city residents, particularly recently-arrived white immigrants, feared their new neighbors would drive down property values, increase competition for jobs, and threaten their political power.8 Racial tensions increased, culminating in a spate of bombings and a race riot that lasted for several days and left twenty-three blacks and fifteen whites dead.19 Second, in the 1930s, poor "Dust Bowl" farmers faced similar problems when they left their drought ravaged farms on the southern plains in search of work in the Central Valley of California.2" While large growers 17. Anthony Oliver-Smith & Susanna M. Hoffman, Introduction, in CATASTROPHE & CULTURE: THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF DISASTER 9 (Anthony Oliver-Smith & Susanna M. Hoffman eds., 2002). 18. JAMES R. GROSSMAN, LAND OF HOPE: CHICAGO, BLACK SOUTHERNERS, AND THE GREAT MIGRATION 164 (1989). Approximately one million African-Americans moved north during the 1920s. From 1920 to 1930, the African-American population in Chicago more than doubled, increasing from 109,458 to 233,903. Id. (There were only 30,150 African-Americans living in Chicago in the 1890s.) Id. 19. Id. at 163, 178-79. For more information regarding the race riot, see HOLLIS LYNCH, THE BLACK URBAN CONDITION: A DOCUMENTARY HISTORY, 1866-1971 (1973). 20. DONALD WORSTER, DUST BOWL: THE SOUTHERN PLAINS IN THE 1930S 150 (1979). See also James N. Gregory, Dust Bowl Legacies: The Okie Impact on California, 1939-1989, CAL. HISTORY, 2007 HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE AFTERMATH OF KA TRINA generally welcomed the new workers, they often paid them wages well below subsistence level. Thousands of migrants failed to find work and lived by the side of the road in camps called "Little Oklahomas.''21 Locals derogatorily called the migrants "Okies," and a sign in at least one theater read: "Negroes and Okies Upstairs. 22 These historic examples alert us to the possibility that rapid changes in workforce demographics in hurricane-affected areas may lead to social tension within these areas. To appreciate the potential impact in New Orleans, this section examines the historic composition and evolution of the community. A. New OrleansD emographics The population of the New Orleans Metropolitan Area23 reflects the diversity of multiple migrations since the arrival of the Spanish colonizers in 1500.24 French trappers also settled in the area, as did Acadians (French colonists) after the British forced them out of Canada beginning in 1764.25 By 1785, 16,500 slaves had been brought to Louisiana.26 German immigrants began arriving in the mid-1800s and were later joined by Irish refugees fleeing the potato famine. 7 Jewish migrants, though officially excluded from the area in 1724, also settled in New Orleans.2 At the end ' of the nineteenth century, Italian labor was recruited to the Gulf Coast to replace newly-emancipated slaves.29 During most of the last century, migration into the Gulf Coast remained relatively low due to lack of economic growth in the South3. However, beginning in the 1990s, foreign-born migrants from Mexico, Fall 1989, at 74-85. Gregory argues that, contrary to popular conceptions, the largest influx of people actually came following World War II. Id. at 76. He also argues that the majority of people came from the Southwest (Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri, and Arkansas), as opposed to from the southern plains that make up the Dust Bowl. Id. 21. WORSTER, supra note 20, at 52-53. 22. Id. 23. The New Orleans Metropolitan Area includes seven parishes and one of these parishes (i.e., Orleans) coextends with the City of New Orleans. We will refer to the New Orleans Metropolitan Area as "New Orleans." 24. KATHARINE DONATO & SHIRIN HAKIMZADEH, MIGRATION POLICY INSTITUTE, THE CHANGING FACE OF THE GULF COAST: IMMIGRATION TO LOUISIANA, MISSISSIPPI, ALABAMA (2006), http://www.migrationinformation.org/Feature/print.cfm?ID=368. 25. Id. 26. Daphne Spain, Race Relations and Residential Segregation in New Orleans: Two Centuries of Paradox, 441 ANNALS AM. ACAD. POL. & SOC. SCi., 82, 84 (1979) (citing John S. Kendall, New Orleans' "PeculiarI nstitution, "'23 LA. HIST. Q., 888 (1940)). 27. JAMES GILL, LORDS OF MISRULE: MARDI GRAS AND THE POLITICS OF RACE IN NEW ORLEANS 38 (1997) (noting that between 1850 and 1855, 67,000 Irish immigrants landed in the area). 28. A.P. Nasatir& Leo Shpall, The Texel Affair, 53 AM. JEWISH HIST. Q., 1, 5 (1963). 29. DONATO & HAKIMZADEH, supra note 24. 30. Id. 114 BERKELEY JOURNAL OF EMPLOYMENT & LABOR LAW Vol. 28:1 Vietnam, China, and India began to settle in cities and towns along the coast.3' Yet the absolute number of foreign-born residents remains small. In the three Gulf Coast states of Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana, the 2000 census reflects less than a total of 200,000 foreign-born residents in the region.32 Despite the proximity of the Gulf Coast to Mexico and Central America, prior to Hurricane Katrina, Louisiana had a relatively small Latino population, 2.4% (compared to 12.5% nationally).33 Latinos and Caribbean migrants comprise less than 40% of foreign-born residents of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama compared with 64% throughout the South. In New Orleans, the largest foreign-born Latino population is Honduran, most of whom have legal status.34 By 2000, Latinos comprised approximately 4% of the greater New Orleans population.35 B. Emerging Tensions and Community Debates So far, there have been no reports of targeted violence or systematic exclusion aimed at Latinos in New Orleans. Yet many key informants told us that tensions could easily surface between residents and the new Latino arrivals as reconstruction begins and the character of the "new" New Orleans becomes visible. Our key informants pointed to three factors that could increase tensions between residents and the Latino population: uncertainty,p ersonall oss and deprivation, and race and reconstruction. Virtually every key informant told us that the ability of individuals to invest in rebuilding New Orleans was contingent on decisions by public authorities-local, state, and federal-that were not forthcoming. At the time of the interviews in early spring 2006, the Federal Emergency Management Agency had not issued new flood maps to designate the required elevation level for rebuilt homes.36 Although the City of New 31. Id. 32. James R. Elliot & Marcel lonescu, Post-War Immigration to the Deep South, 23 SOC. SPECTRUM 167 (2003) (reporting that in Louisiana, 2.6% of the population is foreign born compared to 7.1% in Georgia and 5.3% in North Carolina. Within the tri-state region of the "Deep South" (Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama) 22% of those foreign born live outside urban centers, triple the percentage in other Southern states. Asians and Pacific Islanders make up 34% of the foreign born population in the Deep South compared with 30.4% in the West). 33. U.S. Census Bureau, State & Country QuickFacts, http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/ states/22000.html (figures based on Census 2000 data) (last visited Feb. 13, 2007). 34. Elliot & lonescu, supra note 32, at 167 (a 2000 study revealed that 61% of the Honduran population has lived in United States for over fifteen years and two-thirds are naturalized citizens). 35. U.S. CENSUS BUREAU, DEMOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS FOR LOUISIANA PARISHES, ALABAMA AND MISSISSIPPI COUNTIES (2006), http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/2005/d emographics katrinal .xls (calculated by adding the reported number of Latinos living in the parishes that make up New Orleans metropolitan area and determining the percentage of the total population (1,316,850) reflected by this number (58,415)). 36. Adam Nossiter & John Schartz, Lenient Rule Set for Rebuilding in New Orleans, N.Y. TIMES, Apr. 13, 2006, at Al (reporting that the Federal Emergency Management Agency set the new elevation 2007 HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE AFTERMATH OF KA TRINA Orleans had announced that homeowners were allowed to rebuild, the municipal authorities had not committed to providing city services to all areas. Homeowners face the prospect of rebuilding in areas where there may be no police protection, sewage, or sanitation services. The result was a sense of protracted uncertainty about fundamental conditions of public and private life. Public officials, private service providers, and business leaders we interviewed said that the lack of certainty regarding the rules that would govern reconstruction colored virtually every aspect of their work and prevented progress toward rebuilding. Against this background, it is not surprising that there is no coordinated public planning effort to identify and address the needs of the Latino population that has migrated to the region in search of work. Hurricane Katrina affected virtually everyone in New Orleans. The vast majority of the key informants told us they had suffered damage to or complete loss of their homes. Almost all had experienced displacement for some period of time or had close friends or relatives who had lost homes or suffered damage to property. As a result, expectations and standards regarding acceptable housing, hospital care, and employment opportunities have diminished. In a climate of deprivation, residents who have remained in the city express a sense of entitlement to have their needs attended to before those of "outsiders." Indeed, several key informants who work with Latino workers told us they consciously temper their advocacy efforts for fear that they will anger permanent residents. The subject of race and rebuilding is an extremely sensitive topic and most key informants declined to address the issue directly. Rather, the subject emerged in discussions about the potential impact of a permanent increase in the number of Latino residents or in response to questions about who would supply the labor necessary to rebuild. At a meeting with business leaders a month after the hurricane, Mayor Ray Nagin reportedly asked: "How do I ensure that New Orleans is not overrun by Mexican workers?"37 He quickly disavowed the remark after pressure from civil rights groups, but the comment and reactions to it highlight the tensions between residents and newcomers. Many key informants told us that employers had a bias in favor of hiring Latino immigrants over African-Americans. Some employers reportedly express the opinion that Latinos have a reputation for industriousness and a willingness to tolerate the difficult and uncomfortable working conditions involved in debris removal and demolition work. Several key informants expressed concern that, in the absence of state interventions to promote job opportunities for African-Americans, level to rebuild homes at three feet, making rebuilding costs far less than if, as some had expected, the elevation requirement was set at ten feet). 37. Arian Campo-Flores, A New Spice in the Gumbo: Will Latino Day Laborers Locating in New Orleans Change Its Complexion? NEWSWEEK, Dec. 5, 2005, at 46.