02/10/23 02/10/ [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from new york, this is democracy now! pres. biden: i know a lot of republicans, their dream is to cut social security and medicare. let me say this. if that is your dream, i am your nightmare. amy: inflow to, president biden's last republican -- in florida, president biden blast republican senator rick scott for proposing to put medicare and social security on the

chopping block. we will speak to legendary consumer advocate ralph nader about efforts to privatize medicare and social security, as well as fighting corporate crime, and the launching of his new newspaper "the capitol hill citizen," and more. then "the great escape: a true story of forced labor and immigrant dreams in america." >> the person who called me was, most of the workers who called, he was not from louisiana, he was an indian man flown in from india callingrom the mississippi gulf coast. i thought, what is anndian man doing coming here to clean up after hurricane katrina? amy: we will speak to longtime immigrant labor organizer saket soni about how immigrant workers have been lured to the united states and trapped in forced labor to help rebuild communities after climate disasters. all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and

peace report. i'm amy goodman. the death toll from monday's massive earthquakes in turkiye and sya has passed ,000, with the numbers exponentially increasing as pressure mounts on the united nations to provide urgent aid to northwestern syria, which was already in dire need of meta-turn assistance to to 12 years of war and sanctions. to man's have been escalated on turkiye's to allow in more cross-border eight and are warning of a secondary disaster amidst worsening conditions and rebel held areas of northern syria. those of the hardest hit regions of turkiye have begun burying the dead in mass graves. this is one of the survivors. >> the gravity of the event is very deplorable.

doomsday itself. there are thousands of injured and dead. these are graves that are being newly opened. we have already started to bury people. believe me, there is no family left without paying. most people don't even know what to do. we don't know what happened. amy: former vice president mike pence has received a legal summons from jack smith, the special counsel overseeing criminal investigations into former president trump. the subpoena reportedly seeks documents and testimony related to trump's bid to overturn his -- the 2020 presidential election, culminating in the january 6 attack on the capitol. it's not clear whether pence will comply with the subpoena, or if he'll invoke claims of executive privilege. in mississippi, a supermajority of white republicans in the state house of representatives has approved a bill to establish a separate court system and an expanded police force within the city of ckson, which is 80% african american.

if the legislation becomes law, it will place mississippi's public safety commissioner, who is currely white, in charge of an expanded capitol police force in jackson. local judges wou be hand-picd by mississippi's supreme court chief justice, who is white. and prosecutors and public defenders would be selected by the state attorney general, who also is white. voters in every other county court systemn mississippi elect judges and prosecutors. after viewing tuesday's debate in the mississippi house gallery, jackson mayor chokwe antar lumumba reportedly said, "it reminds me of apartheid." meanwhile, black lawmakers in missouri are accusing republicans of racism after house speaker dean plocher, who is white, silenced african-american state representative kevin windham during a floor debate on thursday. windham was debating a bill that would allow the governor to appoint a special prosecutor in regions with high homicide rates. he was interrupted while reading from a mississippi today article

about the disenfranchisement of black voters in jackson, mississippi. mississippi, thoroughly controlled by white republicans, who have redrawn districts -- >> john and, state your point of order. >> the judgment is talking about state issues and we are talking about house bill, if you could stay on topic. amy: after kevin windham continued discussing the mississippi legislation, house speaker cut his microphone and ended debate on the bill. that prompted an angry response from black lawmakers, including missouri legislative black caucus chair marlene terry. >> there is a lot of racism going on here. it is racist to not allow him to speak. we have to have permission to ask questions on the floor. there is a list that has to go around. we are trying to work with them and it is not working out.

amy: this comes after missouri republicans rently approved bills limiting public educion about race, criminalizing drag shows, adopting a stricter dress code for women lawmakers, and blocked a proposed ban on children carrying guns in public without adult supervision. the republican-controlled house of representatives voted thursday to overturn two washington, d.c., bills. one would allow non-u.s. citizens to vote in local d.c. elections and the other, overhauling the city's criminal code. 42 democrats joined republicans in their vote. eleanor holmes norton, d.c.'s nonvoting representative, said there is "never justification for congress nullifying legislation enacted by the district." >> i can only conclud tt the republican leadership believes that d.c. residence, a majority of whom are black and brown, are either unworthy or incapable of

governing themselves. amy: in other news from washington, d.c., police arrested and charged a suspect after the assault of minnesota congressmember angie craig, in the elevator of her apartment building on thursday morning. her office said she is physically ok after the assault, in which she defended herself by throwing hot coffee on the assailant. brazilian president luiz inácio lula da silva is meeting with president biden at the white house today in lula's first official visit to the united state since his election new year's day. the two leaders are expected to discuss threats to democracy, human rights, the environment, and brazil's efforts to protect the amazon. reuters reported the u.s. government is considering joining the amazon fund, which fights deforestation of the brazilian amazon. lula is also scheduled to meet with democratic members of congress, senator bernie sanders, and representatives of the afl-cio union. lula's joined by several of his cabinet members, including environment minister marina silva, who is expected to meet with biden's climate envoy john

kerry, and brazil's new minister of racial equality anielle franco, the sister of murdered rio de janeiro council member and racial justice activist marielle franco. this comes as brazil's federal police announced friday they're -- they have launched an operation targeting illegal mining in the yanomami indigenous territory where communities are facing a humanitarian catastrophe, largely due to the disastrous effects of illegal gold mining, which have displaced people, devastated the land, and contaminated rivers and whole communities with mercury. the nicaraguan government on thursday released over 200 political prisoners, including student and human rights activists, and political opponents critical of president dael ortega. they neatly went into exile after the u.s. government chartered a plane from the capital to buy them to washington, d.c. two of them declined to leave nicaragua, including a roman catholic bishop who reportedly said he preferred to remain a

prisoner rather than go into exile. among those released was evelyn pinto, a human rights defender who was sentenced to eight years in prison last year after she was arrested in 2021 during our take on dissent ahead of that year's presidential election when he was re-elected for a fifth term. this is pinto's daughter speaking from the airport as she awaited for her mother's arrival. >> my mother is someone who has fought for democracy in nicaragua, for the rights of children, teenagers, and indigenous people. she was unjustly detained by the dictatorship, just like the other political prisoners in 2021. amy: in uganda, five activists were arrested thursday as they protested the government's decision to close the country's u.n. human rights office. the activists were from the group torture survivors movement uganda, and said without the u.n. agency's presence, they felt helpless in the world against actions by the government of yoweri museveni. this comes just months after a u.n. committee said ugandan

forces regularly committed human rights abuses, including torture, excessive use of force, and arbitrary detention. longtime activist, writer, and beloved baker jen angel has died at the age of 48. she owned the popular community-based angel cakes in oakland, california. she was a pioneering force in independent media, co-founding clamor magazine and agency, an anarchist media organization. she also was a longtime organizer of the bay area anarchist book fair. jen was actively involved in anti-war and anti-capitalist struggles through the years, including occupy wall street. she died after she was critically injured in a violent robbery in oakland earlier this week. in a statement, angel's family and friends wrote -- "we know jen would not want to continue the cycle of harm by bringing state-sanctioned violence to those involved in her death or to other members of oakland's rich community.

as a long-time social movement activist and anarchist, jen did not believe in state violence, carceral punishment, or incarceration as an effective or just solution to social violence and inequity." jen's family has asked that traditional prosecution be avoided in her case and alternatives such restorative justice be employed instead. and david harris has died at the age of 76. a key leader of the draft resistance movement of the 1960's, harris actively encouraged young people to resist being conscripted into the vietnam war answered 20 months behind bars for his own draft refusal. he spent four of those months in solitary confinement for organizing prisoner protests demanding humane conditions. joan baez, his wife at the time, wrote "a song for david" while he was in prison. david harris died of lung cancer on monday in his home in mill valley, california. and those are some of the

headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. when we come back, we speak with longtime consumer advocate and presidential candidate ralph nader. the first, "song for david." ♪♪ [music break]

amy: "song for david" by joan baez. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. president biden traveled to florida thursday where he blasted a proposal by republican senator rick scott of florida to require medicare and social security be reauthorized every five years, which would put the future of the programs in doubt. he spoke in tampa. pres. biden: i know a lot of republicans, their dream is to cut medicare and social security. let me say this. if that is your dream, i am your nightmare. amy: biden also focused on the future of medicare and social security during his state of the union on tuesday night.

pres. biden: instead of making the wealthy pay their fair share, some republicans what medicare and social security to sunset. i'm not saying it is the majority. anybody who doubts it, contact my office. i will give you a copy of the proposal. amy: as congressmember marjorie taylor greene and other republicans shouted "liar," president biden continued to speak. to talk about this and many other issues, we are joined by the legendary consumer advocate and for 10 presidential candidate ralph nader, who recently launched a new newspaper called "the capitol hill citizen." welcome back to democracy now! it is great to have you with us. if you can talk about medicare and social security. the republicans were going about it in a deep way led by

senator scott, and you can tell us his connections to for-profit industry in this country, but it was not always just republicans. >> republicans oppose social security and medicare from the get-go go and they have always been praying on it, kind of corporatized it, trying to get its funds invested in the stock market and wall street. so it is nothing new. senator scott, in his prior work headed a giant hospital corporation that was criminally fined by the federal government, has no shame about that. he has proposed social security and medicare b sunsetted every five years, among other health and safety laws. in the chairman of the sent republican reelection committee last year. there's no ambiguity about it. but the workers are defensive.

for example, the real problem with medicare is been corporatized with the assistance of the afl at aarp, called medicare advantage. we call it medicare disadvantage. so over half now of the elderly beneficiaries under medicare are under corporations, health plans like unitedhealth care a,etna, cigna, and others. that is the problem. there corporatized and what the democrats are accusing republicans of going after medicare. the same social security. congressman john larson proposed last year and increase in benefits. there has not been an increase in benefits in 40 years. the democrats send make the republicans filibuster. make them get on the senate floor. show the american people what they're up to.

the democrats did not do it. it is always unfinished business by the democrats. it is easy to go after republicans on this but then they go after the big health care industry, the drug industry. amy: that is interesting and i just want to say as you are speaking to us, we're showing an image of page nine of capitol hill citizen, medicare for all is but bernie sanders backs away , the staffights, and is has afl-cio aarp push medicare disadvantage. explain. >> yes. this is the program supported, i might add, by both republicans and democrats in recent years in congress, under the alleged claim of greater efficiency to that contracts be given by medicare to the large health insurance companies. as i mentioned, united health care, aetna.

they take control. they put ads all over. saturation ads to elderly people in every medium possible, basically saying, come into medicare advantage, you can get gym privileges, etc.. but they don't say they get trapped in a network of doctors and hospitals, they lose their free choice of hospital and doctor. claims have to be approved by bureaucracy, established by these insurance companies. it is called prior authorization. it takes away their ability to administer to their patients. that a higher denial of benefits. that is what we called medicare disadvantage. you cannot get a hearing in commerce. bernie denounced it. others in the house denounced it. they don't go any further. they are into the asian game.

they are watching the destruction of medicare as we know it. amy: i want to go back to biden state of the union where he talks about taxes. pres. biden: pay fair share. i think a lot of you at home agree with me and many people that you know the tax system is not fair. it is not fair. [applause] the idea that in 2020, 55 of the largest corporations in america made $40 billion in profits and paid zero in federal income taxes? zero? folks, that is simply not fair.

amy: can you talk about these proposals from taxing corporations and billionaires two, oh, those that make like $400,000? >> how many times to have to hear that from democratic presidents? ditto, ditto, ditto. they don't do anything. what he should have said is the democrats are going to repeal the trump tax cuts of 2017, which are costing the treasury over a 20 and dollars because most of them are tax cuts for the super wealthy and global corporations. he never even mentioned it. he never goes to the next step. he talked about bipartisanship most what he should have said, directly to the american people, u see all of ese good things i mentioned the democratic party are for? polls show most show support for like paid sick leave, childcare, consumer protection, etc.? you

see why aren't we getting this to congress? take a loo at republicans. they say no to all of these things. he would have drawn the line. instead, he plays pellsy-wellsy with the republicans who say no to social safety net, no peace movements, known to wall street, and no to renewable energy, no to the right to vote without being repressed. he doesn't go into that. it was a very disappointing speech. it was a laundry list without new ways on how to get it through congress. he never appeals to the mecca people to come back on congress. that is what we started the capital citizen. the reporting is -- the capital

citizen digs in and shows how congress is addicted to war, how they have given up constitutional powers such as declaring power to presidents who can start wars on their own, to whatever they want to advance the empire. they did not really move to protect the irs, so they have a decent budget to go after these gigantic tax escapes and avoidance. so people can get a copy or more of the capitol hill citizen by going to capitolhillcitizen.com and donate five dollars or more. you can get your issue or get issues for your friends and relatives and workers and you will get a first-class. 40 pages -- the most recent addition of the capitol hill citizen. it does not have ads by big pharma. he does not have ads by the offensive weapons industry. it has book ads that are

progressive. amy: ralph, i'm looking at the front page of the capitol hill citizen. i wanted to start with the tagline, democracy dies in broad daylight. an obvious mocking of the washington post that says democracy dies in darkness. talk about democracy dies in broad daylight. >> all these things congress is not doing is quite important. if you make a list of all the justice causes you have had on your program, amy, over half either have to go through congress or are going to be blocked by congress. we have spend much more time on the 535 members of congress. because the way our constitution is set up, most national progress under law, whether it is health care or tax reform or cutting the military budget or waging peace or public works or

the social safety net, the answer is it has got to go through congress. that there 70 protests -- so many protests that go up in the either without it been laid back on congress. that is why we have this capitol hill citizen is to show it is all about congress. and congress has to be captured by the people instead of being controlled by 1500 corporations who swarmed the corridors -- there are more full-time lobbyists by the drug industry on congress than all the full-time lobbyists for all the national citizen groups by far. in washington, d.c. amy: ralph nader, i wanted to talk about their front-page article in your january addition , white a criminal investigation of caterpillar after workers deaths most of the headline, the thermal annihilation of steven dierkes, written by russell mciver, photograph of steven on

the cover, and he begins by saying, on june 2 2022, 39-year-old stephen dirk us checked in for work at the caterpillar foundry in mapleton, illinois. he was taking a sample of the 2600 degree molten iron when he tripped and fell into the vat. there was no guardrail. there was no protection to keep him from falling in. cause of death, thermal annihilation according to the coroner's report. can you talk about this and worker deaths in the country? >> worker deaths are up, according to osha. slated at most 6000 traumatic debts, but well over 50,000 work-related deaths do to

diseases on the premises, such as respiratory diseases, particulate matter exposure to all kinds of silent forms of violence in these industrial workplaces. and stephen dirk's was not protected by guardrails. imagine, he was taking a sample with a pole and a cup at the end of the fall of molten iron, 2600 degrees fahrenheit, a vat. somehow he stumbled, nothing kept him from falling in and he was annihilated. osha gave the maximum fine of $145,000 to the giant caterpillar company whose boundaries in mapleton, illinois. there is no full onus provision -- felonious provision. it is only a misdemeanor. you have a willful situation, the results in death, corporate

homicide, and it is only a misdemeanor. instead of taking this tragedy of steven dierkes as a george floyd moment, corporate homicide is far more prevalent in numbers than police homicides -- that is they are -- the afl-cio stayed silent, united auto workers which has the workers organized in that plant has not done anything, congress -- members of congress from the district and the senate have not said anything. it is very difficult of occupational deaths by trauma and disease. these are silent deaths. the silent funerals. the silent burials. over 400,000 homeowners have died for their company under the last 100 years took coal miners pneumoconiosis, not to mention

shaft collapses at the mines. so the capitol hill citizen highlighted this and it is nothing but silence from congress. amy: and in the article, it says that steven dierkes was a second person to die at the mapleton caterpillar foundry in just six months. no criminal investigation, as you said the civil fine $145,000. what can congress do to turn this around, to do with the rise of workers deaths on the job and a lack of accountability of corporations? >> well, there is a bill the democrats have proposed led by congressman joe courtney from connecticut. it is the same old story. they put the bill in, the press release, and their finger to the congressional wind and then they do nothing. it is called press release legislative proposals. the democrats are very good about that. what they should do is generate

rallies outside congress, they should go to the floor of the senate with powerful speeches, they should go back home and talk about it. but they don't do that. but there is a bill protect american workers bill it is called an people might be interested in reading about it in the capitol hill citizen. there all kinds of things that democracy died in broad daylight, she said is the motto of it. there are a lot of taboos. the corporate control of the congressional black caucus is staggering. that is why we have very few investigations of the inner city and what is going on in terms of the exportation of african-americans. we have the confessions of a starbucks wage slave from west virginia, that she called herself, in an interview. i've never read anything like this. she said, i'm not talking about the workplace, i'm talking about

the stuff we have to put in our concoctions and feed to people who don't know there are concoctions that have 16 teaspoons of sugar in one glass. amy: this is the last page of the capitol hill citizen come the last word, confessions of a west virginia starbucks wage slave post 62% of americans, isla paycheck-to-paycheck but the pullout quote is a large peppermint mocha has 10 tablespoons of syrup, just under half the cup is filled with syrup, then there are espresso shots and sweet whipping cream. it is the equivalent of 16 teaspoons of sugar in each cup. >> and congress has done very little on junk food regulation that has created so much harm, especially to youngsters. youth diabetes, overweight.

high blood pressure. these food companies have been documenting and they know what they're doing over the last decades, bypassing parental authority and guidance, undermining their parents, direct marketing to these kids. it is a half a year, amy. and they don't do anything. we want this -- go get some copies of the capitol hill citizen. spread the word. amy: ralph, can you talk about the role of local media and why you decided to launch this newspaper and also the sort of kind of let in nature of it? >> we are doing a print only newspaper because too much clutter, too much interference, distraction. we have tried putting out our reports in other materials --

and other materials on the internet. it is like a massive void, no matter how many people have access to it. it is too much clutter, too much noise. people write back and say, i can't believe i'm holding a newspaper in my hands of a no clutter, no destruction, thank you. we think there's a steady coming out in about three months, very scientific study showing people, including students, retain more when they read something in print then when they see it on the screen. among other interferences, which my sister pointed out in her new book "you are your best teacher ." this is a real crisis here of the internet wardens, the internet gulag abducting our children five to six hours a day into the worst kind of experiences, increasing teenage

depression, and many other things. and we have to wake up to it and we have to wait congress up to it. whether we like it or not, congress is the linchpin for democracy or autocracy. they are giving up their power to the executive branch to generate war and express their fealty to wall street. amy: we just have 30 seconds but not exactly death, but the absolute to munition of local media and this country? >> local media is dying because a lack of imagination and community organizing. there's no reason why communities can't have a weekly with nonprofit community newspaper, three streams of revenue subscriptions, advertisements, and charitable contributions. we are trying to prove it by launching this month the winston citizen. i was a paperboy for the winston evening citizen. it had six issues a week come

every day but sunday. and now the towns don't even have a weekly. we are launching the winston citizen. amy: ralph, we will link to the winston citizen and also the capitol hill citizen. again, it is a paper newspaper. it's motto, democracy dies in broad daylight. ralph nader, longtime consumer advocate, corporate critic and former presidential candidate. founder of this new newspaper capitol hill citizen. when we come back, longtime labor organizer saket soni and "the great escape: a true story of forced labor and immigrant dreams in america." ♪♪ [music break]

amy: this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. as we turn now to the issue of labor coming to this country and

being trapped here. we spend the rest of the hour looking at the immigrant workers lured into forced labor by corporations who hire them to clean up after natural disasters. this is what saket soni writes about in his new book "the great escape: a true story of forced labor and immigrant dreams in america." saket soni as a director of resilience force in first joined us in 2007 when the story was still unfolding with that man named sabu lal. there were protesting a shipyard they were hired to clean up after hurricane katrina. >> when i stepped into the man camp, provided in the yard -- in my 20 years of experience, 24 people in a room. amy: the men were fired when

they complained about their living and working conditions. but they didn't stop there. saket soni recently joined us from new orleans to share more about "the great escape" he documents in his new book. i asked him to take us back to 2006, when he received a mysterious call from inside a heavily guarded work camp in pascagoula, mississippi, where hundreds of welders and pipe fitters had been recruited from india to come to the gulf coast to repair oil rigs after hurricane katrina. >>, amy. that's right. it started with a mysterious midnight phone call after hurricane katrina. i was a labor organizer running a scrappy, small workers rights nonprofit. this was a time when the post-katrina flooding had turned the was gulf coast into the world's largest construction site. i was protecting the workers who were doing the cleanup and rebuilding. most of these were black and brown workers who would stand in the morning under a giant 60

foot tall statue of robert e. lee, when contractors would pick them up and take tm out to do the rebuilding of e distant dark corners of the gulf coast. that is what i was doing -- those were the workers i was talking to when i got the mysterious phone cal the person who called me was, unlike most of the workers who called, he was not from mississippi or louisiana, he was not white, black, or lino. he was an indian man flown in from india calling from the mississippi gulf coast. i thought, what was an indian man doing ce here to clean up after hurricane katrina all the way from north india? i discovered that he was one of 500 workers who have been recruited to come to mississippi and texas to work for a large oil rig builder to clean up rebuild shipyards and oil rigs. when he arrived in the gulf

coast, he found himself in atrocious conditions. these men had been promised green cards and good jobs and had been told they would get those if they paid $20,000 apiece. $20,000. that is generations of savings. workers sold incest role land. they took on extraordinary loans from violent loan sharks to come but when they arrived, they found themselves not on green cards but on tempering workpieces in labor camps on company property. amy: talk about the security on the company property, not exactly security for them but for the company signal that still exists, right? >> the company signal international decided to build a labor camp on company property.

this was a series of trailers that were placed on a toxic waste dump. the workers were living there 24 people to a trailer. the labor camp, which the company itself called a man camp facility, was surrounded by a barbed wire fence. workers were working around the clock and a 12 hour shifts. they were building these oil rigs for the company. this was a private equity-owned thriving company in the gulf coast, signal international. they were getting these workers, the most skilled workers in the world, and a fraction of the cost of u.s. workers. there were security guards. the men were only allowed out of the labor camp chaperoned by an american security guard and the places they were allowed to go were walmarts where they would

buy provisions to come back. that is how the workers lived. those were the living conditions. amy: what about the food? >> the food was atrocious. atrocious. the workers were given most mornings stale bread and frozen rice. there were no microwaves, amy, on the worksite so the way the men would eat the frozen rice would be to suck on it. the men would suck on frozen rice in order to gain the sustenance to do their really difficult and dangerous work. in fact, the whole great escape, the escape out of a heist film at the center of the book was actually imagined and engineered over a secretive -- over a series of clandestine meetings that feature food. i started partnering with a man deep inside the labor camp,

worker named raj,'s a labor organizer's dream. he talked to me about the pressures on the men. he taught me about the conditions at the labor camp. but he also taug me to cook and over a series of months, i would smuggle into him spices and ingredients to create indian food. through a series of magical means, he brought them in the afterlife from their catatic state. he convinced them to undertake the great escape at the center of the book. i don't want to give too much away -- amy: you have to. you have to tell us the story of what happened. >> you know, it involved bribes for the guards involving wild turkey whiskey, flavored cigars, and raj and i created a

fictitious indian wedding to ferry the men out of the labor cap five at a time under the noses of the guards to put them on a path of the freedom turning. the mint escaped overnight. they came back in protest, back at the company's gapes saying they were leaving the company. then they set off on a march to washington. what we did not know then was there was an agent deep in the government who was unraveling our plans but we set off that morning for washington thinking that justice was at hand. amy: and take it from there. can you tell us the journey that they took? >> sure. well, when the men escaped from the labor camp, they filed a civil lawsuit against the

company. but the path to legal status for them was a department of justice human trafficking complaint. human trafficking is a crime and the men were alleging that this company and the recruiters had trafficked them from india to mississippi and texas and held them in forced labor. the men were counting on the department of justice opening an investigation. we now had -- i personally now had the problem of hiding 500 brown men in louisiana. so we hid out in a hotel in new orleans that had been ruined by hurricane katrina, flooded by hurricane katrina. we hid for over a week, but there was radio silence from the doj. so we set out, like many people in social movements passed, we decided to come out of hiding and come out as undocumented to

the government and we proceeded on a march to washington. usong the way we met strength and although the men had it hard -- we were walking on the sides of roads through alabama, mississippi, and georgia, passing cars who were jeering us, bottles were being peed at the workers from passing cars. but nonetheless, the men's spirits were high because they believed when they got to washington, they would get justice. in the english, they called it the department for justice. they believe they would get to washington and they would get the status that they deserved, the special humanitarian visas designated for trafficking victims. what we did not know was the fight would take three years.

because deep inside the government, there was a federal agent, any immigration cop with his own corrupt ties to the company. and with his own secret motivations to unravel our plan. on our way to washington, we uncovered surveillance and we uncovered a whole federal dragnet that was working its own can nations to jail and deport these men even before they got to washington. amy: you have to stop there because what are you talking about? there is someone in the justice department who has a tie to signal corporation? >> not in the justice department, but at the federal immigration agency called immigration and customs enforcement. amy: ice. >> ice. there is any immigrations and customs enforcement officer who

has his own motivations for colluding with the company. now that the workers are headed to washington, he appoints himself as the investigator for the doj. when the department of justice launches an investigation, they bring in a law enforcement official to investigate most up we have been waiting at this point in the story for ice to bring in the fbi. we did get a call from the fbi but after that, they were nowhere to be found. when the investigation actually did start and an ice agent came for to tell us he was in chae of the investigation. again, i don't to give a lot away for this very ice agent had his own ties to the company, had been working with the company years and years and now was in charge of the investigation. what he was doing was, we would find out later, was not investigating the workers. he was turning the investigation into a weapon against the workers.

he was trying to frame them in we were representing. the 500 indian workers. and working to jail and deport them. amy: this is not just a story of a corporation that is exploiting, that is, to say the least, not just terrorizing but deeply abusing these workers, but is a story of corporate government complicity. talk more about what the government knew, what the government did and did not know along the way. >> well, in the middle of the story, there is the smoking gun that we find. it is the astonishing revelation of a long-standing collusion between immigration and customs enforcement, ice, police, and the company. and it really gets at, amy, what

we see all the time. i have seen this for years and years in my work as a labor organizer after disasters and also across the south, which is that companies have atheir behest cops who moonlight as private security. immigration agents who work deeply with the company to keep workers feeling like they can't come forward and report abuse because they might be deported. they mht be punished. in this story, when a few brave workers came forward to meet with a clandestinely and after that these brave workers demanded things from the company -- not anything major. their demands were hot tea in the morning because they would get up in the cold and needed to warm themselves to go to work. they demanded microwaves on site so they could warm up there frozen rice.

these were their collective demands. it is a sad day in the 21st century america when workers have to press collective demands not for union rights, but for microwaves on site in their labor camp on company property to warm up their rice. those were their demands. and for making those demands, the company worked with law enforcement agencies to punish the workers. that was the details of that revelation that were ultimately what blew all this up in washington. i tell that story in "the great escape." amy: talk about what happened when the workers -- we are about hundreds of workers who escaped from the mississippi labor camp, there to clean up after hurricane katrina, and then they make their way to washington.

what happens there? >> one of the things that happens is we are coming out a civil rights memorial on the way to washington. we look up and we see a man surveilling us. we see a man recording this. there is a chase scene recounted in the book up to the top of the building, around the block, and all the way to a parked what looks like a parked construction van, a contractor's vein. i thought it was some kind of self-appointed what vigilante operation and flung open the doors of the van and inside was the alabama director of ice conducting a surveillance operation. that is when it came to light that the ice dragnet was surveilling as. as we got to washington, we realized that the conspiracy between the government and the

company went deeper and deeper. it was not one or two ice but a whole network of law enforcement officials that surveilled us all over again in falls church, virginia, right as we were going into washington. what we were clear about coming into washington was washington would not be easy. d.c. would be a fight. when the campaign hit the rocks in d.c., my partner raj and i over an elaborate meal came up with the next escalation. raj -- we have become. every french of has its own rituals. we never solved problems over a whiteboard. we solved problems over extraordinary meals. and one night raj cooked an elaborate mysteries that would issue -- bedouin disch with

rice, meat, and 22 sces. we came up with a plan for a hunger strike in washington, d.c. that was the next step. i recount the story about a long hunger strike over the course of which all of washington is talking about these workers. at the ice agent blocking our plans hold steadfast. even in d.c., even with the world watching, even with the department of justice investigating, the company and its allies in law enforcement were still strong enough to hold back our justice march and keep the workers undocumented and on a pathway to being deported. amy: saket soni, in this remarkable story you tell, "the great escape," you bring us back

to 2005 hurricane katrina, the cleanup. 2000 and five is a few years after the 9/11 attacks, 2001. can you talk about what happened with ice, dhs, the anti-immigrant fervor in this country? and then what these guestworker programs are all about. >> 9/11 was a very pivotal moment for america. it was a tragic event but followed after that by multiple other tragedies. one of the impacts of 9/11 was that immigrants lost their foothold in normal american life was to grids like me. i came to the united states as a foreign student before 9/1 i was actually in chicago -- i write from delhi to chicago to study at the university of chicago. i was getting a theater degree.

probably the only parents of history of indian civilization who said it was ok for there's had to go to america to become a theater director. that is what happened. i missed any immigration deadline. that was before 9/11. i took it as a routine thing, something i could fix i did not think it was anything a series as an unreturned ivory book, and had a lot of those. then 9/11 happened. i lost my foothold in america. we were underground, working without papers, doing our best through a string of low-wage service sector jobs. 9/11 was also a pivotal moment for immigration policy posted immigrant rights activists were really close to immigration reform and a large-scale

lelization before 9/11. those plans were guided after 9/11 -- gutted after 9/11 because of the anti-immigrant backlash that was not connected to the perpetrators and motivations but came from an opportunism in american politics to congeal an anti-immigrant sentiment in america. a sentiment that only grew after that. so 9/11 was a really big turning point. amy: as you publish this book now, we are right on the end of the catastrophes that california is experiencing. your book takes place in the aftermath of hurricane katrina, which many see as the dawn of the era of climate disasters. it can you talk about the connection between what happened then right through now and what

you're looking at, to say the least, with the knowledge and organizing you have behind you? >> absolutely. what i did not know then, amy, was these workers who came from india were among the first workers that would be arriving workforce, workers we now call the resilience workforce -- the workers who largely immigrant, largely a document, mostly vulnerable, the workers who rebuild after climate disasters. the workers who continue to clean up, repair, heal, and rebuild after hurricanes, floods, d fires. the workers who i represented after hurricane katrina, the worker who would gather under the statue of robert e. lee in new orleans, workers like the ones in this book who were in

labor camps were among the first resilience workers. katrina was supposed to have been a once in a 100 year flood. that is what it was called, an event that would not happen for another 100 years. since katrina, as a result of climate change, disasters have become more frequent and more destructive. there have been since katrina over $200 billion disasters. as disasters have grown, this workforce has grown. and these workers to all this without legal protection, without legal status, and they often have to fight to be paid. and if they follow roofs, there often left at the doorstep of hospitals for dead. this is how we are doing recovery in america. and that is what we at resilience force are trying to change. amy: saket soni, director of resilience force, author of the

new book "the great escape: a true story of forced labor and immigrant dreams in america," that does it for our show. happy birthday to messiah rhodes! democracy now! is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. e-mail your comm

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