Since 2000, the family has been among 110 Mexican American farmers nationwide suing the Agriculture Department and its Farm Service Agency, alleging systematic discrimination in farm credit loan programs, disaster relief loans and noncredit benefit programs.
Though the farmers were denied a class-action designation, their lawyers hope to reverse that decision and negotiate a settlement on their behalf that will erase their debt and allow them to rebuild their family farms.
Next week, a court in Washington, D.C., will review the status of the case.
Garcia vs. Vilsack, of which the Rodriguezes are a part of, mirrors Pigford vs. Glickman, which was waged and won by African American farmers. It was settled in the late 1990s for $2.2 billion, and this year the Obama administration allocated an additional $1.2 billion to its fund.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has said he’s committed to eradicating discrimination in his department, once described in a government report as “the last plantation” and perceived as part of “a conspiracy to force minority and socially disadvantaged farmers off their land through discriminatory loan practices.”
The Rodriguez Brothers’ lawyers — Stephen Hill of Howrey LLP, former FBI Director Louis Freeh and former federal Judge Eugene Sullivan — describe the treatment their clients faced as “institutional racism.” They use words such as blatant, insidious and deep-seeded.
“When President Obama said he was allocating an additional $1.2 billion to resolve the claims of black farmers who missed the filing deadline, he said he was closing a chapter on the ugly history of the USDA,” Hill said. “I submit the USDA needs to close the entire book, and the only way to do that is to resolve the claims of victims that suffered the same discrimination at the hands of USDA.”
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So it was settled but Obama decided to give them more and now the hispanics need theirs. So whites are never discriminated against in this “colored blind” world called America. What a load of crap.
Yeah, the whites are in on it, too.
*Even black caucus leader Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., in comments about the white farmer lawsuit against USDA, has said, “I can see little difference in the way black farmers were treated in Pigford and what has happened to the farmers in this suit… I believe (the white farmers’ lawsuit) has the potential to be larger than the black farmers’ suit once word gets out.”*
http://deltafarmpress.com/mag/farming_usdas_settlement_black/index.html?imw=Y
It was a scam. (there were claims and I’m sure some were valid, some were not)
The politicians and the lawyers, they used *discrimination* to open this barn door WIDE for themselves.
This was their tool to rip off the tax payer.
For any to speak against it, they would have been racist, cold, thoughtless. Guilt.
Now look at it, it’s obvious it’s not about color.
Though black people were used, as the key... to turn a lock, making lawyers and politicians richer.
The farmers make some money but nothing like the lawyers get from this deal.