Ky Couple Holds Immigrant as Slave

The danger is not from immigrants, but to them.

Andrew Wolfson:

An Elizabethtown cardiologist and his former wife have pleaded guilty in connection with charges of harboring their maid, a Bolivian undocumented worker, for 12 years and using her for their financial gain.


Dr. Javier Arce, 59, pleaded guilty Monday to failing to report knowledge of a felony to the proper authorities. His former wife, Cristina Mier Arce, 56, of Hardin County, pleaded guilty to harboring for financial gain.

Her indictment alleged that the defendants recruited the undocumented Bolivian woman to work as their domestic servant and harbored her unlawfully from 1994 to 2006.

There's a shit-ton of euphemisms and plea-bargain weaseling in the story, but here's the bottom line: they used the threat of deportation to keep this woman doing their scut-work for 12 years, paying her a grand total of $20,000. That's about a buck and a quarter an hour even if she worked only 40 hours a week, which is doubtful.

This is the future the plutocracy wants for workers in this country: no escape from starvation wages.