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Creating workplaces free from sexual harassment and violence should never be a controversial issue. Yet, the Department of Labor recently terminated all “Fostering Access, Rights and Equity” (FARE) grants awarded by the Women’s Bureau during the Biden administration — including two that funded our critical work building power with workers in Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida and Oregon.

Through our work supported by these grants, migrant women leaders learned about their rights, built confidence, and supported one another. They gained tools to advocate for themselves and became leaders in their own communities.

Here’s what they told us:

“This space helped me feel empowered.”

“This workshop gave me the confidence to speak up when things aren’t right.”

“With every workshop, I learn more — and I share this information with my community.”

“I didn’t think I had options in the face of injustice. Now I know better.”

“You helped me ask for decent treatment. I will always speak up.”

Workshop in Florida with Alianza Nacional de Campesinas

I’m incredibly proud of every person we met, our team who made this work possible, and the community we’ve built together. And I know these workers will continue to spread that power and knowledge wherever they go.

I founded CDM nearly 20 years ago to support migrant workers in building power, dignity, and justice in their workplaces. That mission hasn’t changed—and it won’t.

The grants may be gone. But the work is not over. Will you help us sustain this vital work?

Your donation today helps us continue building power with workers—providing them with the knowledge, tools, and solidarity they need to fight for safe and fair workplaces.

“I could not stand the conditions all of us —myself and my fellow co-workers— had to endure. We worked so much and got nothing in return. I knew I had to speak out and organize others to do so as well. I could never have imagined that we would achieve so much together. Now I feel like my chest is about to burst with joy”. — Ángel, chicken catcher in Delaware, Maryland and Virginia.

Last year, a group of people working as chicken catchers decided enough was enough. Angel was one of them. They contacted us and we supported them in filing a complaint with the Department of Labor (DOL) to seek justice for the inhumane working conditions their employer put them through. And they won. 

In honor of International Workers’ Day I’m thrilled to share with you their incredible story of resistance.

Happy CDM and CATA staff members after a productive clinic with chicken catchers in Maryland

Catching chickens is a grueling job. The hardest job they ever had by far, according to Angel. But workers endured the work because there’s nothing they wouldn’t do for their families and a chance of a better future. All they expected were decent working conditions and fair wages—apparently, even that was too much to ask.

More often than not, the employer didn’t pay workers for all the hours worked. They didn’t provide vital protective gear and equipment like gloves and masks, which could be life-saving if poultry is infected with bird flu. 

Newly recruited workers had it worse. The employer forced them to work as apprentices doing the same back-breaking work as everyone else, but without any pay at all. And they had to remain apprentices —or palomeros— until another worker left the company, which meant many workers went without pay for months. While their employer refused to pay the apprentices a fair wage—or any wage at all—it was the fellow workers who stepped up. In a powerful act of solidarity, they pooled portions of their own earnings each week to ensure the apprentices had enough to put food on the table for themselves and their families.

The abuse ran deep in the poultry operation. But luckily, Angel contacted us and, with the help of El Comité de Apoyo a Los Trabajadores Agrícolas (CATA), Cohen Milstein, FarmSTAND and Public Justice Center, we were able to support him and his coworkers in filing a DOL complaint. After an exhaustive investigation, the company will pay over $650,000 in unpaid wages to 56 people who worked as chicken catchers. 

Angel and his co-workers have much to teach us about courage in uncertain times. Confronted with unimaginable abuse, they knew they had to take a stand—even when so much was stacked against them and there was no guarantee their actions would make a difference. In doing so, they discovered the true power of collective action in the fight for justice and fairness.

This International Workers’ Day, let’s honor the courage of workers who dared to stand up for what’s right. Will you join them in the fight for fair wages, safe working conditions, and the right of every worker to speak out without fear?

For the last almost 20 years, we’ve had the privilege of working with thousands of migrant worker women who migrate to the United States, leaving family and friends behind in search of a better future. This International Women’s Day, we celebrate them – for their strength, their courage and their leadership.

• We celebrate the courage of Rosalinda, who is currently fighting for justice for herself and all migrant worker women who have faced employer retaliation for advocating for themselves during a pregnancy.
• We honor Maritza and Adarely, two migrant worker women who spoke out against discrimination in guestworker programs and continue seeking justice, in representation of thousands of women who still face discrimination during recruitment and in their places of work.
• We praise Tatiana and Sandra, two au pairs who have fought for the past five years against the families who exploited them and the recruitment agency who turned a blind eye to the abusive working conditions they were forced to endure.

We want to support more women who are eager to learn about their rights and how to defend them, just like these women did. That’s why I’m so proud of all the work we’ve done to ensure migrant worker women build their power and access justice. 

In the past year our team has traveled to Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia to meet with migrant worker women to educate them about their workplace rights, with special focus on discrimination and gender–based violence and harassment. In all, We’ve conducted 11 in-person “know your rights” workshops and reached 350 women.

We’ve also held 7 virtual “train the trainer” workshops where we’ve equipped 18 migrant worker women with relevant information and tools to help them effectively share their knowledge with co-workers and other women. This work is all about women supporting women and fostering cooperation and solidarity among migrant worker women who face similar challenges. 

Combatting discrimination and gender-based violence and harassment has been at the heart of CDM’s mission since 2005. This International Women’s Day we renew our commitment to support migrant worker women’s fight for fairness and justice. 

Will you commit to stand alongside migrant worker women this International Women’s Day?

Oscar Onadia, an immigrant from Burkina Faso, courageously filed a class-action lawsuit against the City of New York, eventually obtaining a settlement of $92.5 million dollars for more than 20,000 people. The class members —immigrants and US citizens alike— were unjustly detained between 1997 and 2012 by the New York City Department of Corrections beyond their scheduled release dates.

Now CDM is helping to ensure that every person whose rights were violated gets justice.

Read on to learn more about Oscar’s incredible story and CDM’s role in the search for class members…

In December 2008, Oscar received a five-day sentence for driving without a driver’s license. But once he completed his sentence, he was not allowed to leave. ICE, he would later learn, had requested he be detained an additional two days while they investigated his immigration status. The New York Department of Corrections complied. But instead of holding him for the requested two days, they unjustly held him for 41 additional days, upending his life.

After his release, Oscar challenged this severe violation of his civil rights. He filed a class action lawsuit against the City of New York, with the support of class counsel Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel, LLP and Benno & Associates, seeking justice for himself and others who, like him, had been and continued to be unjustly detained beyond their scheduled release dates.

His heroic actions led the City of New York to settle the case for up to $92.5 million. The City of New York later ended its overdetention practices and stopped complying with ICE’s detainer requests after the lawsuit was filed. And even though Oscar passed away before he could witness justice being served in court, thanks to his bravery, his family, along with tens of thousands of individuals, who served a total of 166,000 days past their expected release dates, will now receive compensation from the City.

Now, the search has begun for people who can claim part of this $92.5 million dollar settlement. And I’m proud to share that CDM is helping Oscar’s attorneys, Atticus Administration LLC, and other organizations to ensure that impacted people can get what they’re owed, no matter where they live or their immigration status.

If you know someone who was held in a NYC jail on the basis of an immigration detainer issued by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) between April 1, 1997 and December 21, 2012, tell them to visit www.NYCICESettlement.com, or call 1-800-479-0810 (US) or 800-099-0791(MX) to learn more on how to file a claim and claim part of the $92.5 million dollar settlement.

While CDM is not class counsel in this lawsuit, litigation support services have always been at the heart of CDM’s mission and deeply aligned with our goal of removing borders as barriers to justice.

We’re excited to leverage our almost 20 years of outreach and litigation support experience to support the search for class members in this case so that they can receive meaningful compensation.

At a time when uncertainty and threats loom over the migrant and immigrant communities in the United States, Oscar Onadia’s legacy serves as a reminder of the power of those who stand together for fairness and justice. Now and always CDM stands with them.

Qatar 2022 is over, now on to North America 2026

Now that this year’s FIFA World Cup is behind us (Congratulations, Argentina!), all eyes are on Mexico, United States and Canada who will co-host the mega-event in 2026. And after the infamous treatment of migrant workers in Qatar, we must ensure that next time human rights will be protected.

Today, as we celebrate International Migrant’s Day, CDM’s Campaigns Director, Evy Peña published an op-ed in Reforma, a leading newspaper in Mexico, to call on FIFA, host cities and nations, to make human rights a priority and to implement sound human rights plans that take into account the voices of civil society and low-wage workers who work in World Cup related industries.

We have a unique opportunity to work together in raising global labor standards across sectors and across nations. But we have our work cut out for us. If we hope to succeed, the work can’t start four years from now. It has to start today.

Will you join us in ensuring migrant worker rights are protected in the 2026 World Cup?

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Today, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced an immigration relief policy for migrant and immigrant workers who face abuse and defend their workplace rights.

This policy will empower workers to speak out and take action against exploitative employers by providing them temporary immigration protections and permission to work in the US when raising their voice against unsafe and unfair working conditions.

This is a victory worth celebrating! Migrant and immigrant workers have long demanded these protections and CDM has supported those demands since its foundation in 2005. We applaud the agency for taking a step forward in strengthening protections for migrant and immigrant workers.

This policy is one key step towards empowering workers to hold abusive employers accountable. Our government can do so much more to ensure migrant workers can leave abusive employers and take action to improve their working conditions.

At CDM, we will continue to advocate for those changes, but today we celebrate with migrant and immigrant workers, allied organizations, and with you, who have supported us and encouraged us throughout the last 17 years. You are a huge part of this success.

This is a watershed moment.

On Tuesday,  Mexico and the United States signed a historic agreement (MOU) on protections for migrant workers. Thanks to our relentless advocacy, the agreement includes unprecedented provisions to strengthen workers’ rights across the region!

For the past 17 years, CDM has led cross-border campaigns to advance migrant justice and gender equity in labor migration. You may remember Adareli Ponce and Maritza Perez, two migrant worker women who submitted the first petition against the U.S. government under the USMCA in March 2021. Together with a coalition of allies from across the region, we argued that the U.S. government failed to live up to its obligations under the trade agreement by facilitating systemic sex discrimination in temporary work programs. Since filing our petition, we’ve spent 664 days mobilizing allies and workers, meeting with dozens of government officials from Mexico and the US and submitting supplementary evidence.

Now, our efforts are paying off. For the first time ever, migrant women’s demands are answered in the agreement between the US and Mexico. The memorandum directly reflects many of our recommendations. Some key provisions include:

• Prohibiting discrimination in recruitment
• Making gender-related data publicly available
• Increasing access to justice for migrant workers and ensuring they receive their compensation.
• Providing pre-departure rights education to migrant workers

This is a tremendous step forward in our fight to end  discrimination against migrant women. We’re so honored to celebrate this win alongside our allies, Maritza, Adareli and all the courageous women who have shared their stories.

This agreement comes less than a week after the U.S. government announced a process to offer immigration protections and work authorization to migrant and immigrant workers who are defending their rights. Through these victories, we’re building community power and supporting workers to hold abusive employers accountable without fear of retaliation.

What’s next? Solidifying worker protections in the implementation of the agreement. Our team will continue to advocate to expand access to legal services, providing workers with the possibility to use these groundbreaking policies to exercise their rights!

I am honored to share that CDM was just awarded the Presidential Award for Extraordinary Efforts to Combat Trafficking in Persons.

The award ceremony happened a few moments ago during the annual meeting of the President’s Interagency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (PITF). The ceremony included Senior White House officials and principals from 20 participating PITF agencies, including Merrick Garland, Alejando Mayorkas and Xavier Becerra. I was honored to attend the White House ceremony with CDM Board President Cori Alonso-Yoder to receive the award from Secretary of State Antony Blinken on behalf of CDM.

The award, signed by President Biden, states that CDM was selected “for its outstanding record of assisting thousands of migrant workers to defend their rights and its years of tireless advocacy and organizing to advance a more just and humane migration process free of forced labor and other forms of exploitation.” This great honor is a testament to the commitment, heart, and creativity of our staff, Board of Directors, alumni and volunteers; the strength of the Migrant Defense Committee members and the constant encouragement of our incredible supporters. This recognition belongs to us all.

Each and every one of us has a part to play in combating human exploitation and abuse. And CDM is determined to keep doing its part by empowering migrant workers and supporting them in their fight for justice by holding human traffickers accountable.

This award, along with several recent wins for migrant workers, has truly energized all of us at CDM! With your help, we are building a world where migrant worker rights are respected and laws and policies reflect their voices and experiences.

On Workers Memorial Day 2020, as the pandemic was rapidly spreading, we announced our Protein Processing Worker Project (PPP), a collective effort to ensure that workers with limited knowledge of English had access to accurate information about COVID-19, their rights, and how to protect themselves from communicable diseases.

Today, we are proud to share with you our second year impact report which details our partnership-based model and the incredible results we achieved alongside our 13 partner organizations.

Both in-person and online, we helped workers defend their rights, protect their health and access vaccines, testing, and vital information about their right to a healthy and safe workplace. In the project’s second year alone we reached 271,800+ workers and community members across North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia.

Leveraging the knowledge and resources of our partner organizations and expertise of processing workers, our efforts supported more than 500 community events and activities, delivered information and resources to 110,500+ workers and their communities in person, and reached 161,000+ more through digital and online multimedia resources and programs in Spanish, English, Haitian Creole, Mixtec and other indigenous languages.

You can read more about the project’s incredible impact in our Year Two Impact Report here.

Fighting for all workers’ right to a healthy and safe workplace has been a priority for CDM since its foundation in 2005. The PPP project has allowed us to further this effort through a targeted campaign for protein processing industry workers and their communities. Now, as the Biden administration prepares to end the COVID-19 emergency declarations next month, it is more important than ever to continue to prioritize frontline workers’ health and strengthen occupational health and safety for migrant workers through the next phase of the pandemic and beyond.

One of the most important lessons we learned from the COVID pandemic is that workers’ health IS public health. As such, we must keep working together to ensure that workers not only know their rights, but also feel protected when exercising those rights to health and safety, without a fear of retaliation. Will you join us in defending whistleblowers and workers standing up for their rights and seeking fair working conditions?

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Yesterday, following a week of activities, we officially celebrated Labor Day and CDM’s 18th anniversary. Today, our vision remains the same as it did when we opened the doors to our first office in Zacatecas back in 2005: a world where borders aren’t barriers to justice and the rights of migrant workers are respected and laws and policies reflect their voices and experiences.

To launch the week of activities, Daria Hernandez, a leader in our Migrant Defense Committee, and CDM staff joined the U.S. Department of Labor, the Mexican government and other governments for the kick-off of Labor Rights Week. As a keynote speaker, Daria spoke passionately, advocating for the rights of her fellow migrant workers, challenging discrimination and retaliation, and championing better access to healthcare. She inspired us with her courage, clarity and call to action.

Daria’s journey hasn’t been a solitary one. She has drawn strength from the collective efforts of the Migrant Defense Committee, made possible by the unwavering support of people like you—migrant worker leaders, our supporters, allies, former staff and volunteers, and donors. You’ve stood by us, believed in our mission, and made a real impact in the lives of migrant workers.

As we celebrate this 18th anniversary, our commitment remains steadfast: We will continue building power with migrant workers, fighting for justice in the courts and advocating for fair labor migration policies. And now, I invite you to heed Daria’s courageous call: “Every one of you has the power in your hands to do something to improve the lives of workers like me, and we’re counting on you to act.”

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Thank you for being a part of our story for 18 extraordinary years. Together, let’s keep advancing migrant justice!