Protest Targets Migrant Worker Eviction

“We have human rights,” Edgar Becerra called into a bullhorn, speaking in Spanish. ​“We have a heart.”

He was surrounded by over 25 immigrant rights activists outside the Branford headquarters of his Fair Haven landlord and former employer — who brought him to the U.S. as a temporary worker, allegedly fired him for work-related injuries, and is now trying to evict him a second time.

Becerra, along with his housemate and former co-worker Josue Mauricio Arana, are continuing to fight for workers’ compensation and for the right to stay in their housing. They are facing opposition from Mark DeFrancesco and his family, who own the house where Becerra and Arana live as well as the painting company that once employed them.

Arana, Becerra, and a small crowd of activists from the immigrant rights organization Unidad Latina en Acción (ULA) gathered outside that company — MDF Painting and Power Washing — at 100 North Branford Rd. on Thursday evening.

“Shame on MDF!” the group chanted as cars roared by. The occasional driver slowed down to read their signs decrying ​“retaliation” and calling for ​“workers’ rights.”

Becerra and Arana each held a sign declaring that ​“MDF Exploits His Workers.”

MDF had originally recruited the pair from Guatemala in the summer of 2023, sponsoring their temporary H‑2B visas so they could work as painters for $16 an hour. 

The company provided them with lodging in a Fair Haven house at 200 Peck St. co-owned by MDF founder Mark DeFrancesco. Up to 19 other MDF employees from Guatemala also lived in that house. Becerra alleged that after receiving no training from the company, he sustained multiple serious injuries on the job in August and September, and was subsequently fired. 

After DeFrancesco initiated an eviction case against the two men, the judge sided with the tenants and allowed them to stay. Now, the landlord is trying to kick them out again, citing a new legal cause: that the tenants’ ​“right or privilege” to occupy the apartment ​“has been terminated.” Becerra and Arana received a joint eviction notice on Feb. 11.

Both Becerra and Arana have ongoing workers’ compensation cases against the company as well. They have argued that MDF is trying to evict them as a way of dodging the workers’ compensation case. DeFrancesco denied this argument, and the claims that he mistreated his workers, in housing court last month. He has repeatedly declined to comment otherwise and could not be reached for this article.

At Thursday’s protest, ULA founder John Jairo Lugo called on MDF to ​“provide for the medical care that [Becerra] deserves as a worker” and to ​“stop the eviction process against Edgar and Josue.” 

Lugo called the company’s actions ​“inhumane.” He called for a boycott of MDF and said the group plans to return to the headquarters every week to call attention to Becerra and Arana’s stories.