The Spark

the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist

“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx

ICE Detains Worker Injured in Hotel Collapse

Oct 28, 2019

Delmer Joel Ramirez Palma was seriously injured when the Hard Rock Hotel under construction in New Orleans pancaked upon itself. Three workers were killed in the collapse and at least seventeen others were injured.

Six of the injured, including Palma, filed suit against the developers, architects, engineers and others they say are liable for the disaster.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents picked up and detained Palma, an undocumented Honduran worker, just a few days after the lawsuit was filed. They are planning to deport him.

ICE publicly claims it is not going after just any undocumented immigrants, only those guilty of a crime. The excuse they’re using for detaining Palma? He once was arrested—for fishing illegally!

This is a man who was working and was seriously injured. He is lucky to be alive. An Internet video purports to show a concrete floor barely held up by temporary supports just before the collapse, yet those in charge failed to warn workers at the site.

Who with any sense of morality whatsoever could defend Palma’s deportation under the pretext that he once fished illegally? His true crime, in the eyes of ICE and the profiteers behind them, is that he dared to demand compensation for their criminal negligence.