June 26, 2019

Wayfair Corporate Boston Workers Walkout In Protest Of Sales To Texas Detention Camps

June 26, 2019/ Anne Enke

As promised, employees at Wayfair’s corporate headquarters in Boston staged a walkout Wednesday over the company’s sale of about $200,000 worth of bedroom furniture to the global nonprofit BCFS (Baptist Children and Family Services), headquartered in San Antonio.

About 550 employees out of about 6000 working at the Boston offices signed a protest letter sent to the company’s leadership team last week, asking them to abort the sale The furniture is destined for a detention camp in Carrizo Springs, Texas that is expected to have capacity for 3,000 children writes The Daily Beast.

The employees took issue with a 2018 New York Times report that BCFS “has received at least $179 million in federal contracts since 2015 under the government’s so-called unaccompanied alien children program, designed to handle migrant youths who arrive in the country without a parent or other family member.”

Another facility operated by BCFS, in Tornillo, Texas, open from June 2018 to January 2019, housing nearly 3,000 migrant children. The facility became the focus of protests, detailed in The Texas Tribune.

Moving forward, employees have asked Wayfair to establish a code of ethics that "empowers Wayfair and its employees to act in accordance with our core values."

Wayfair walkout Wednesday, June 26 at Boston’s Copley Plaza via **@wayfairwalkout**

"The United States government and its contractors are responsible for the detention and mistreatment of hundreds of thousands of migrants seeking asylum in our country — we want that to end," the employees said in the letter. "We also want to be sure that Wayfair has no part in enabling, supporting, or profiting from this practice."

The Wayfair leadership team responded saying: "As a retailer, it is standard practice to fulfill orders for all customers and we believe it is our business to sell to any customer who is acting within the laws of the countries within which we operate," then adding “This does not indicate support for the opinions or actions of the groups or individuals who purchase from us."

Corporate employees set up a Twitter account @wayfairwalkout, pledging “no aid to juvenile incarceration”. One worker communicated to CNN in advance of Wednesday’s action that the walkout is "not meant as a censure on Wayfair," but as a way to show workers' continued concern.

Employees asked Wayfair to donate all profits made on the sale to BCFS — estimated about $86.000 — to RAICES, probably the most prominent and active nonprofit reuniting families at the border. Leadership refused but has announced donating $100,000 to the Red Cross.

Wayfair employees acknowledged the $100,000 donation to the Red Cross, but insist that the corporation also support RAICES Texas, for specifically pushing back on the U.S. migrant detention policy, writes Boston Magazine. “I think it’s a good start,” says Kayla Smith, who says she’s been at the company for a year, “but we can do more.”

Non-employees and associates from Square, a mobile payment company, also turned out to greet the workers when they arrived at Copley. “We cannot allow people to suffer in concentration camps that are for profit. It’s inhumane” says Eli Albert, who showed up carrying a cardboard sign reading, “End Business with Concentration Camps.” Boston Magazine cited some protesters bringing their children with them to participate. “My mom told me about concentration camps,” says Ezra Beck, 7. “Kids shouldn’t be held in them.”

The walkout drew widespread media attention, giving Wayfair employees a wide range to express themselves. Engineer Tom Brown expressed gratitude that “the outcry of support from everyone, from people to politicians to organizations has been overwhelming.” He continued: “We hire the best people. We’re looking for the best and the brightest, and those just so happen to be the people that care the most. These are the people that we know will fight for what’s right even if it’s a difficult conversation right now.”

Wayfair product manager Madeline Howard led an hour-long rally that included speeches by union members, ACLU advocates and immigrants’ rights groups. The Daily Beast quotes an unnamed consultant from India working at Wayfair for five years who fears reprisals but said: “It only seems ethical not to support these detention camps,” he said. “We don’t want the detention camps in any way and endorsing them is against our values.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat from New York, called the walkout "what solidarity looks like."

Baptist Children and Family Services responded to the walkout with a statement that said: “We believe youth should sleep in beds with mattresses.”

The New York Times weighed in Wednesday night, saying that Wayfair isn’t the focus of a national boycott at this point, unlike Bank of America, After being targeted for providing financing to Caliburn International, the parent company of the Homestead facility for minors in Florida as “the only big bank profiting from family separation”, Bank America announced Wednesday that it would sever its relationship with all private prison companies.

“The private sector is attempting to respond to public policy and government needs and demands in the absence of longstanding and widely recognized reforms needed in criminal justice and immigration policies,” Jessica Oppenheim, a spokeswoman for Bank of America, said in an email to The New York Times. “We have been discussing this topic for some time.”

Two other banks, Wells Fargo and JPMorgan, said they would end their relationships with the private prison industry in March.

“As we’re learning more about the horrific conditions in the Trump-era detention centers, things are ratcheting up, and people are looking for more ways to express that frustration,” said Shannon Coulter, a founder of the #GrabYourWallet campaign.

February 12, 2019

Donald Trump and Beto O'Rourke Duke It Out In El Paso As Congress Works Against A New Shutdown

February 12, 2019/ Anne Enke

President Donald Trump held the first rally of his 2020 re-election campaign Monday at the El Paso County Coliseum while possible Democratic challenger Beto O'Rourke hosted a competing rally across the street. Image REUTERS/Leah Mills

By Julián Aguilar and Patrick Svitek for The Texas Tribune

EL PASO — President Donald Trump kicked off his first major rally of the year here the same way he campaigned during his successful 2016 bid: by unleashing a torrent of criticism on the media, pushing back against allegations of collusion with Russia, and promising once more to end illegal immigration and build a wall on the southern border.

Across the street, one of his potential 2020 rivals — former Texas Congressman and El Paso native Beto O'Rourke — held a competing rally that drew thousands of people.

Standing beneath an American flag flanked by red signs that read “finish the wall,” the president tossed plenty of fresh red meat to the capacity crowd, which periodically interrupted him with chants of “build the wall!”

The rally came as members of Congress reportedly agreed to the terms of a funding deal that would avert another partial government shutdown. Although last year’s breakdown was over funding for Trump's border wall, the impasse this week concerned bed space for detained undocumented immigrants.

Shortly after taking the stage at the El Paso County Coliseum, the president said he was told about a reported deal but that he preferred to address his roughly 6,500 supporters before learning about the details of the agreement. Regardless of what's in the compromise, Trump said, “Just so you know, we’re building the wall anyway.”

Trump also repeated dubious claims about the impact that the fencing that runs through several miles of El Paso County has had on violent crime.

“You know where it made a big difference, right here in El Paso,” he said to raucous applause. “I spoke to people that have been here a long time. They said when that wall went up, it’s a whole different ball game.”

Local and state lawmakers have pushed back against those claims, citing federal statistics to back them up.

From 1993 to 2004, El Paso’s overall violent crime rate per 100,000 residents was higher than the country’s average, according to FBI and El Paso Police Department statistics. From 2005-08 — before fencing was built along the banks of the Rio Grande — El Paso’s violent crime rate fell below the country’s average. It began to rise again over the next four years.

Trump supporter Michael Lightbourn said the wall has helped deter crime and that he supported the president’s quest to build more.

“Between 2003 and 2005, three of my trucks were stolen,” said Lightbourn, who owns a high-end classic car restoration business. He added that it was ridiculous to label the president a racist for his immigration agenda.

“He’s not racist,” he said. “Just look at all the people that are here. And they are black, white and Hispanic."

Trump supporters gathered Monday in El Paso for President Donald Trump's rally. Image: Jesus Rosales for The Texas Tribune

As Trump spoke, O’Rourke led a march to a park just steps away from the coliseum. There, the former congressman and U.S. Senate candidate pressed his case — to raucous cheers — that El Paso is “safe not because of walls but in spite of walls.”

Across the street, one of his potential 2020 rivals — former Texas Congressman and El Paso native Beto O'Rourke — held a competing rally that drew thousands of people.

Trump also repeated dubious claims about the impact that the fencing that runs through several miles of El Paso County has had on violent crime.

Local and state lawmakers have pushed back against those claims, citing federal statistics to back them up.

Trump supporter Michael Lightbourn said the wall has helped deter crime and that he supported the president’s quest to build more.

“He’s not racist,” he said. “Just look at all the people that are here. And they are black, white and Hispanic."

Former congressman and possible presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke marched in his own rally Monday. Image: Ivan Pierre Aguirre for The Texas Tribune

“We can show the rest of the country ... that walls do not make us safer,” O’Rourke said, arguing such barriers force immigrants to cross in more remote, dangerous stretches of the border.

“We know that walls do not save lives,” he added. “Walls end lives.”

Trump loomed large at the O'Rourke rally — both figuratively and literally. As O'Rourke spoke, the president could be seen taking the stage at his own rally on a monitor set up in the parking lot of the coliseum — right behind the park.

O’Rourke received a rock star reception during the march, which seemed to include just as many chants urging him to run for president as those against Trump and the border wall. About 7,000 people went to see O'Rourke speak at the park, according to an aide, who cited law enforcement.

Fielding reporters’ questions about 2020 along the way, O’Rourke kept the focus on the unity of El Paso in the face of Trump.

"I'm gonna follow the community’s lead, and that’s what for me tonight is all about, nothing less and nothing more," O'Rourke told reporters on a conference call hours before the march.

Inside the coliseum, Trump rarely referred to O'Rourke by name but repeatedly mentioned his close loss last year to incumbent U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.

"They’ll say Beto O’Rourke had a wonderful rally of about 15 people [tonight]," he said.

At one point, Trump said the El Paso Fire Department allowed 10,000 people into the arena although the capacity is several thousand fewer. The El Paso Times reached out to the fire department, and officials there confirmed the president's statement wasn't true.

The president was also consistent in his treatment of the media, which he called “fake” and “dishonest” several times.

“We have suffered a totally dishonest media, and we’ve won and it’s driving them crazy,” he said, later adding that the media was complicit in covering up for his former rival, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and her fellow Democrats.

Before Trump took the stage, Cruz spoke to the crowd and repeated the line about the success of El Paso’s barrier before retelling the immigration story of his Cuban father.

“There is a right way to come to this country, which is you stand in line, you follow the rules and you come here seeking the American dream,” he said.

The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.