Congressman, faith and labor leaders urge release of 23 jailed workers held in the Fargo, N.D.

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.workdayminnesota.org/index.php?news_6_3881

By Barb Kucera, Workday editor
18 December 2008
MINNEAPOLIS - Imagine you sell your home, even borrow money, to move to another community where you are promised a good job. But when you get there, you're forced to live in near-slavery conditions.

When you report the situation to the authorities, you're arrested and put in jail. The employer, meanwhile, faces no penalties and continues to reap profits from your work.


The Rev. Grant Stevenson of ISAIAH addressed the group gathered in front of the Federal Building in downtown Minneapolis.


That – in a nutshell – is the situation faced by 23 workers from India currently held in the Fargo, N.D., jail by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement. On Thursday, community leaders in Minnesota – including Congressman Keith Ellison and the Rev. Craig Johnson, bishop of the Minneapolis Area Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America – issued a call for the workers' release.

"It is important that people of faith stand in solidarity with those among us who have been wrongly accused," Johnson told a group gathered in front of the U.S. Federal Building in downtown Minneapolis.

"We have a perverse situation," said Ellison. "It's unjust, it's wrong and we're not going to stand silent while it goes on."


FULL story at link.