SACRAMENTO, Calif .— Last December, hundreds of racist skinheads across the country received the very same Christmas card. It depicted a half-eaten cookie on a plate next to a bottle of Rebel Yell bourbon, a shot glass etched with a death's head, and stockings hung by the chimney with care.

Migrant workers who flocked to New Orleans to rebuild the city after Hurricane Katrina were routinely cheated out of wages and faced other abuses while the U.S. Department of Labor made little effort to police the contractors employing them, a Southern Poverty Law Center attorney told a House subcommittee today.