¿Cuál es la situación actual de los inmigrantes en Los Ángeles, EUA? ¿Qué aportan económicamente a la región? Paola Rojas conversó con Karen Bass, alcaldesa de esa ciudad:
00:00Terminó el viernes este paro, esta huelga por la dignidad, 72 horas, convocada por el sector agrícola o una parte del sector agrícola en California.
00:12Estas acciones que, bueno, pues buscaban visibilizar el trabajo agrícola por parte de los migrantes,
00:20los organizadores reconocieron que pues algunos trabajadores no pudieron sumarse al paro porque viven al día,
00:26no se pueden quedar sin el ingreso siquiera tres días.
00:30La iniciativa surgió como protesta justamente al operativo Enventura, en donde más de 100 personas fueron detenidas,
00:37donde hubo enfrentamientos con los agentes federales y donde pues un mexicano murió al tratar de correr y caer de un techo.
00:48Justamente en torno a la forma en que se están dando estas redadas y lo que está ocurriendo específicamente
00:56en la ciudad de Los Ángeles con los migrantes, hablé con la alcaldesa de esa ciudad, Karen Bass.
01:04Esta es la conversación.
01:06Agradezco muchísimo la posibilidad de conversar el día de hoy con la alcaldesa de Los Ángeles.
01:17Mayor Bass, thank you very much for being here today.
01:21You are very welcome.
01:22Thank you for the invitation.
01:24Please describe the situation that immigrants are living right now in Los Ángeles.
01:31You've been standing for them.
01:34What is the current situation and what worries you the most in this moment?
01:40Well, the current situation is on Friday.
01:43We had a positive court decision and that court decision called for a temporary restraining order
01:50on the type of raids that have been happening around Los Ángeles.
01:55So you asked, what is the state of things?
01:57I think the city is still very much afraid because we don't know where ICE is going to be.
02:05But the temporary restraining order prohibits ICE from randomly capturing people or snatching
02:12people off the streets, being masked, not having ID, not having warrants and racially targeting
02:20people.
02:21Los Ángeles is 3.8 million people, about 50% Latino.
02:27And the head of the Homeland Security Department said that physical appearance is one of the
02:33reasons that people would be stopped.
02:35I cannot understand Los Ángeles without immigrants.
02:39Would you please?
02:40You are correct.
02:41Would you help us understand the importance of immigrants?
02:45Well, let me just say there is no Los Ángeles without immigrants.
02:50There just isn't.
02:53But help us understand their economical importance, cultural importance.
02:57Okay.
02:58Okay.
02:59There are entire sectors of our economy that will not function without immigrant labor.
03:05Now, we've just experienced terrible tragedy with wildfires.
03:10Well, we can't rebuild from the wildfires if there is not immigrant labor.
03:15They say that 40% of the construction industry is Latino.
03:20I don't believe that.
03:22I think it's more like 70% or 80%.
03:24So we will not be able to rebuild the 5,000 homes that were destroyed in the fires in January.
03:33What do you think about ICE's access to data on millions of people without Medicaid?
03:40I think it's frightening.
03:40I think it's absolutely frightening.
03:44Why?
03:44Why do they have access like that?
03:46What are they going to do with that access?
03:49So is there any way to protect people's information, at least in Los Ángeles?
03:57No, because that's federal information.
04:01Mayor Bass, it's been especially against all this federal strength has been special, especially concentrated in Los Ángeles.
04:11It seems to me that it is one mayor, of course, a very strong, brave and smart one, but a mayor against the federal government.
04:23Who supports you?
04:24Oh, the city of Los Ángeles.
04:28One thing that I think it's important for your listeners to know is that our city is standing strong.
04:34The city is not divided.
04:36There's nobody that supports this here.
04:38Some cities in the country, you might have people that support this.
04:42Let me just tell you, I'm sure there's Angelenos that support it, but they sure wouldn't say anything because the city is united.
04:49What about the state of California?
04:51The state of California is united.
04:53Mayor Bass, I thank you very much for your time, for your strength and for your solidarity without immigrants.
04:59Is there anything else that you would like to say?
05:02No, except for that this is an issue that's been important to me for about 40 years and it will continue to be.
