Hundreds of Workers Held in Immigration Raid

[babylonsister]

Hundreds of Workers Held in Immigration Raid

Jeff Haller for The New York Times

Federal agents and handcuffed workers at the Howard Industries plant on Monday in Laurel, Miss. Officials said at least 350 workers were in the country illegally.

By ADAM NOSSITER
Published: August 25, 2008


LAUREL, Miss. — In another large-scale workplace immigration crackdown, federal officials raided a factory here on Monday, detaining at least 350 workers they said were in the country illegally.

Howard Industries, one of the largest employers in the region, manufactures electrical transformers, among other products.

Numerous agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement descended on a factory belonging to Howard Industries Inc., which manufactures electrical transformers, among other products.

As of late Monday afternoon, no criminal charges had been filed, said Barbara Gonzalez, an agency spokeswoman, but she said that dozens of workers had been “identified, fingerprinted, interviewed, photographed and processed for removal from the U.S.”

The raid follows a similar large-scale immigration operation at a meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa, in May when nearly 400 workers were detained. That raid was a significant escalation of the Bush administration’s enforcement practices because those detained were not simply deported, as in previous raids, but were imprisoned for months on criminal charges of using false documents.

The mass rapid-fire hearings after the Postville raid took place in a temporary court facility on the grounds of the National Cattle Congress in Waterloo, Iowa. An interpreter was later sharply critical of the proceedings, saying the immigrants did not understand the charges against them.

An immigrant rights group in Jackson, Miss., the state capital, was critical of Monday’s raid, saying families with children were involved.

“It’s horrific what ICE is doing to these families and these communities,” said Shuya Ohno, a spokesman for the Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance. “It’s just hard to imagine that this is the United States of America.”

more...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/26/us/26raid.html?_r=1&ref=us&oref=slogin

[Xipe Totec]

1. That ICE Special Agent looks one jelly donut away from a heart attack nt

[riverdeep]

2. There are American citizens that could be working at those jobs right now.

I feel far more sympathy for them than I do for border jumpers who got caught. We need more raids, not less. Then massive fines and legal procedures need to take place against the people that hired them, including jail time.

Maybe then when companies can't get away with paying rock bottom wages, working American families don't have to have three jobs to keep themselves afloat.

[NeedleCast]

3. That's the Root of the Problem

Then massive fines and legal procedures need to take place against the people that hired them, including jail time.


Because we don't enforce penalties against companies that hire illegally, we set ourselves up for failure. Our immigration policy can't work unless we enforce laws against companies that hire illegal/undocumented workers.

[babylonsister]

4. Give me a break. 'Border jumpers who got caught'? How the hell

do you know that? The employers need to be punished, not people who are working to put food on the table. And do you have any idea if Americans were turned away from these jobs? You're spouting nonsense.

[riverdeep]

5. Why not both?

Why not punish both the employers and the people who are in this country illegally? If they had the ability to show legal residence, I'm sure they would have produced it, hence they were here illegally. And since they wouldn't have been able to offer jobs to illegals, that leaves Americans the only game in town.

This isn't the nineteenth century when the nation was wide open and cheap labor was what was needed. This is a highly developed nation that is bursting at the seams from its infrastructure woes. We simply can't absorb other nation's populations anymore. Far better to work on making Mexico and Central America a place that can support its own citizens.

[babylonsister]

6. Do you watch Lou Dobbs much?

Do you realize how inhumane these raids are? Nah, let's just kick these people out. And the stories? How long they've been here, whether they have kids who are Americans, that's of no concern. Well, it is to me. We're acting like nazis. I agree, we need a well thought-out policy to deal with people here illegally, but this ain't it.

http://www.alternet.org/immigration/93194/the_postville_ice_raid:_an_enormous_abuse_of_power/

Even some 'officials' are having second thoughts:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3852103&mesg_id=3852103

[NeedleCast]

7. So We Should Ignore the Law?

The raids may indeed be inhumane in that they can and do separate family units...but ultimately, who's responsible for that? Should we show leniency to people who violate other laws because they have a family?

I worked in the federal immigration court for three years and had a lot of mixed feelings on some of the things that are going on. As long as we have a failed immigration policy, things aren't going to improve and we'll see an ever increasing cycle.

Yeah, it sucks to see a family torn apart but at the same time when you're seeing people deported on the tax-payers dime for the 6th, 8th, 10th time...it gets a little frustrating. I've sat in thousands of immigration hearings over the last three years and some of the cases are heart-wrenchingly sad. Then again, there's the guys who are getting picked up for the 5th time, detained at our expense while awaiting their hearing, and then asking for deportation because they'll be back in a week. Especially in the south, there have been cases where we've deported the same person twice inside of one week.

I don't blame illegals for coming here. If I were in their shoes I'd probably do the same. But I also don't pretend that many of them, especially the repeat offenders don't know how to game the system because they know it's broken. A deportation is not a threat, it's a minor inconvenience in most cases (unless you have to cross an ocean).

[babylonsister]

8. No, we need new laws to allow many of these people who have been

here for so long a 'path to citizenship'. I think these raids are gross, and they're being done with our dollars and in our name. There has got to be a better way.

[riverdeep]

10. So if you break the law for long enough, it's okay?

That's exactly the wrong message to send. And what would you do about the flow of illegals coming across today? Would you send them back or not?

You're working under the assumption that there's a never-ending bounty of opportunity for everyone outside of our borders. There's not. There's a finite number of jobs, of housing opportunities, of land developments, etc. I side with American citizens and legal residents first and foremost. However well intentioned, allowing illegals access to those opportunities comes at the expense of Americans somewhere and somehow. As it happens, it's the poorest of Americans that feel the crunch the hardest. This is why, unfortunately, there is animus between poor Blacks and Hispanics.

[NeedleCast]

11. I guess I just feel like your reaction is...well, reactionary

The raids are gross? In what way? I'm sure that some of the people picked up have been here awhile and some haven't but again, you seem to be saying that the law should be applied differently to people who have been here illegaly a long time or have families vs people that haven't been and/or don't.

Immigration judges face this pretty much every day. They are bound by law - they can't make decisions based on whether a story is "sad" or not - and that's the way it should be.

There should be a better way and I'd love to see immigration made easier because, IMO, it's always better to have an easy proccess than a complicated one. However, there does have to be some form of limitation or you end up with what we have now...a broken system that generally rewards bad decisions (that is, the decsision to come to the US illegally). Under the current system, illegals not only face deportion, they also have no police protection and no protection from explotation from employers.

[babylonsister]

12. I guess I am reactionary, and I'm reacting to this:

and why not target the plant who hired these 400 people? Who is really at fault?


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=3811612

U.S. town turned into an open-air prison

Charles Lewis, National Post Published: Friday, August 15, 2008



The town of Postville, Iowa, population 2,000, has been turned into an open-air prison. Jerry Johnson, who works at nearby Luther College, called it something out of a bad science-fiction movie or the kind of thing a 1930s totalitarian regime might have cooked up.

"This was not only a grievous injustice but a shame on the state of Iowa and the federal government," said Mr. Johnson. "These were good, decent people who were also the most defenseless."

On May 12, immigration officials swooped in to arrest 400 undocumented workers from Mexico and Guatemala at the local meat-packing plant, a raid described as the biggest such action at a single site in U.S. history. The raid left 43 women, wives of the men who were taken away, and their 150 children without status or a means of support. The women cannot leave the town, and to make sure they do not they have been outfitted with leg monitoring bracelets.

"The women are effectively prisoners," said Father Paul Ouderkirk at St. Bridget's Roman Catholic Church. "The difference between them and anybody who is in jail is that in jail the government pays for them, but if they're on the streets we pay for them.

"What kind of a government makes prisoners of 43 mothers who all have children and then says, ‘You can't work, you can't leave and can't stay?' That boggles the imagination."

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/world/story.html?id=726632

[riverdeep]

9. If we had followed the law in the first place, we wouldn't be having raids.

It's not that raids are occurring, it's how these particular raids are occurring. But that's the Bush administration. They've ruined every single agency they've touched. Why would this be any different? But that doesn't mean raids shouldn't be taking place at all. If it's the particular nature of these raids you're arguing against, that they're particularly egregious, I concur. But if it's the general 'look the other way' attitude you're in favor of, then I'm not on board.

America has one of the most lenient immigrations policies of any nation on earth. Try going into Canada without documentation and walk down the street with an American flag saying you won't get kicked out and Canada isn't treating you right, see how long you last.