USA: Migrants subjected to hazardous conditions rebuilding "wildfire-stricken" LA amid rush to recover ahead of FIFA World Cup 2026 & other mega-events
"‘Exploitative’ contracts and hazardous conditions: life for some of the immigrants cleaning up wildfire-stricken LA"
…In the US, after climate disasters such as fires, floods and hurricanes, it is often immigrant workers who clean up and rebuild communities. In Los Angeles, it’s no different. In the burn zones of Altadena and the Palisades, many of the thousands of workers involved in clearing the debris from the megafires that killed 30 people and destroyed about 16,000 are from an immigrant background…
On several visits to the Altadena burn zone in past months, it was clear that some workers involved in the cleanup had received training and PPE, but many others had not. Advocates say workers are not only risking their health, but they fear speaking out about conditions over concerns of wage theft and potential deportation amid stepped up immigration enforcement by the Trump administration…
…The city is also in a hurry to recover before hosting a series of mega-events: the World Cup in 2026, the Super Bowl in 2027 and the Olympics in 2028…
…there is also a secondary industry that is bypassing the formal process; contractors are picking up immigrant day laborers from the corner near Home Depot and taking them to burn zones. They are less likely to receive training and PPE, she said…