Donald Trump likes to talk about the terrible threat that Latino immigrants pose to Americans. But in Texas, a Republican state with a lot of border wall enthusiasts, plenty of people have immigrants working in their homes—and too many of those people are using their domestic workers’ immigration status and vulnerability to exploit them. A new report by the National Domestic Workers Alliance draws on a survey of more than 500 domestic workers near the Texas-Mexico border conducted in 2016 and finds widespread wage theft and abuse.
Just over half of the workers surveyed were undocumented or didn’t have work authorization, and those workers faced some of the worst abuses:
Thirty-five percent of workers with an insecure immigration status reported being paid less than initially agreed to, or not being paid at all. They were also three times more likely to be paid late, or be pressured to work longer than their scheduled hours. Thirty-two percent of undocumented workers said their employers had threatened to report them to immigration officials.
Overall, workers are underpaid, with more than 40 percent having trouble paying their rent and 37 percent going hungry at some point in the past year. Few of them have contracts, making them more vulnerable to wage theft (which 24 percent had experienced) or being forced to work longer hours than scheduled (60 percent). More than a quarter had been yelled at by their employers and 12 percent had been physically assaulted on the job.
The United States does poorly by its workers, poorly by its immigrants, poorly by its women, poorly by its people of color—and a majority of these workers encompass all of those categories. Consider, too, that this survey was done in 2016. Do you think things have gotten better since Donald Trump’s been in the White House sending clear signals that immigrants are safe targets for abuse?