Dear Friends,
Please find below a request for action sent out by the Campaign for Labor Rights (CLR) in the United States regarding the case of Guatemalan union activist Maria Mejia. Mejia, now detained for over two months in the US, was a leader in the struggles for better working conditions and respect for union rights at the Cimatextiles and Choi Shin factories (Taiwanese-owned, Liz Claiborne suppliers) and more recently at Nobland (Korean-owned, Target, JC Penney and Gap supplier) in Guatemala, which some of you might have done solidarity work on (more information on those cases is available at http://www.usleap.org and http://www.clrlabor.org/).

The action alert below includes a sample letter that can be adapted and faxed. If you have any questions on this case please contact the Campaign for Labor Rights: clr@clrlabor.org.

source: CLR, Sept. 12, 2005

Guatemalan maquila union organizer, filing for asylum, is detained in Houston

Fax Houston immigration today to request parole for threatened labor organizer MARY MEJIA!

[Information in this alert comes from the Mexico/Central America Office of the Solidarity Center, AFL-CIO.]

Below please find:

1) Details of Maria Mejía's detention
2) Sample letter to Houston immigration office
3) Brief background on Mejía's history and the labor rights situation in Guatemala

1) Details of Maria Mejía's detention

Mary Mejia is a former maquila worker and union activist who was detained by US immigration at the Houston International Airport on July 5. Mejía has filed for political asylum in the US and is currently being held in an immigration prison next to the airport. Mejía has asked for parole in order to make her case from outside of prison, a process that could take more than a year. Since September 11, US immigration generally does not parole immigrants detained at airports (called "arriving aliens").

Your help is needed to push the immigration office to parole Mary Mejía.

Please fax or mail the letter below as soon as possible. (Please do not add any information to the letter to immigration or include this background.)
If possible, please also send a copy to Mejía directly (whether or not you know her personally): Mary Mejia Perez, Alien # 96043644
c/o ICE Immigration and Custom Enforcement Facility
15850 Export Plaza Drive
Houston, TX 77032.

2) Sample letter to Houston immigration office

PLEASE SEND IMMEDIATELY

Charles Arendale
Field Office Director-Detention and Removal
United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement
5520 Greens Rd.
Houston, TX 77032
Fax: 281-985-8465 Attn: Officer DeMary

Re: Mary Mejía Perez, A96043644

Dear Mr. Arendale:

I am aware that Mary Mejia Perez has been held in your facility in Houston, TX since July 5th and has made a request for parole while her petition for asylum is considered.

Ms. Mejia Perez is a tenacious defender of the rights of sweatshop workers in her country. While working as a machine operator she was a leader in the organizing campaign at her plant, went on to become an organizer, led workers in seeking justice in workplaces controlled through fear and intimidation, and raised awareness of sweatshop conditions in her own country and in the U.S. She has been extensively interviewed during international delegations, including during visits by members of the U.S. Congress who visited Guatemala to gain deeper understanding of the labor rights situation in that country.

I understand that parole is at your discretion. As one of Ms. Mejía's supporters in the U.S, I respectfully request that you grant Ms. Mejía parole.

Sincerely,
[your name and address]

3) Brief background on Mejía's history and the labor rights situation in Guatemala

Mejía was the lead organizer on two major campaigns in the maquila sector in Guatemala: Cimatextiles/Choishin and Nobland. Both campaigns faced serious threats and violence. During the course of the campaigns, Mejía was specifically identified and targeted because of her role in contacting workers, building the union, helping workers to organize collective actions inside the plants, holding worker demonstrations outside the plants, and advising workers before the labor authorities in cases where they were mistreated or dismissed. Her role as an organizer was central to the formation of the unions and she was viewed as the principal "motor" behind the campaigns.

Between the years of 2000-2005 five trade union leaders were assassinated in the course of carrying out their trade union activities in Guatemala. In all of the cases, no one has been brought to justice for the crimes. In the history of brutal repression against trade unionists in the country, from 1979 to the present, no individual has ever been convicted or sentenced in a single case of assassination of a union activist.

More Background information:

Union offices raided in Guatemala
http://www.clrlabor.org/alerts/2005/aug08-union.htm