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Some of you may be aware of the recent immigration sweep by the federal government at meatpacking plants around the country over the last week. The ICE surrounded places of work, corralled the adults and took people into custody, reportedly including any number of legal immigrants who made the mistake of working while speaking primarily Spanish. Others reportedly were singled out according to their skin color. Now, according to Latina Lista, a number of children who are legal US citizens have been left by the federal government. . . orphaned by the raids, with both their parents having been taken into custody. So much for "family values," eh?
Here's what one student emailed Latina Lista to say:
I just have a question. The town I live in just had a raid today and when we were going home from school on the bus, they took us straight to an elementary school in the town and kept us there until a parent or legal guardian went to sign us out. I just want to know if they can do that. Can they take students from one school to another and keep us there until our parents go and sign us out? I don't think they can but I just wanted to ask someone that knew. I have been trying to find information on the people's rights during an immigration raid but I can't seem to find anything useful. Please contact me as soon as possible. Thank you so much for your time.
Latina Lista did some research and has some answers for this young woman, but I thought some legal eagles around here might be able to help a bit more. The raids reportedly were targeted at a complex identity theft operation, which provided any number of undocumented people with false papers so they could work. The exploitation of immigrant labor is a continuing abuse in this country driving the wages and working conditions of all American labor down, and the health and safety conditions under which these people work are typically abysmal.
I hope the AFL or some other labor union is getting involved here, but in the meantime, please help get the word out about the sundering of families by our government. These kids are very scared and very confused. We often use this as a joke line, by way of satire of the pearl clutching hypocrisy of the right wing, but this time it's no joke:
Who's taking care of the children?
Update: From the Des Moines Register: "Marshalltown, Ia. — A priest's and nun’s mission to find the mother of a nursing baby was thwarted today after they said officials from Camp Dodge would not let them inside to tell their story." (hat tip to OldCoastie in the comments)
Update II: From the Denver Post: "Inside the meatpacking plant, 'there was a lady crying because she didn't have anybody else here,' Silva said. 'She asked my wife if she wanted to adopt her child. Then she was taken away.'" Why is this reminding me of the story about the DC radio host who punked his audience and got calls in support of armbands, tattoos and concentration camps for Muslims? If anyone has the link for that one, please post it in the comments. I recall C&L had it, but I can't find it. (hat tip to Peterr for the Denver Post link, and to angie and RBG for the links about the radio show)
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whoo!
Fitz!
close but no cigar :-(
these people are bizarre…
FYI - Democracy Now this morning, 12/14, had a long piece about the raids & the effects on families. www.democracynow.org
Harry Reid coming up live on CNN’s Newsroom - good bet he’ll have update on Senator Nelson whom he visited this morning.
Halliburton’s $385,000,000 government-funded ICE prison/detention centers can hold a lot of people. For illegal immigrants “and other programs.”
What. Other. Programs.
Another question I have yet to see answered in the media:
Where did the people they rounded up go?
They apparently have not been deported (though some of the INS agents reportedly said that was what was going to happen e.g. “You won’t need your jacket in Mexico”), and they don’t seem to be in jail anywhere, or at least that isn’t being reported.
Does anybody know anything about where they went?
–MarkusQ
Prison labor is even cheaper than paying illegal immigrants. Maybe it’s not Work Makes Freedom, so much as the Work is for Free.
I asked my Russian colleagues to explain to me why they put millions of their own people into the camps. (1) Because they can, to show power; (2) Prison labor. Punishing specific people for specific crimes seemed pretty far down the list, as of course a majority were probably innocent of anything.
I guess that explanation works for Iraq too.
newspaperbrat @ 5
Reid will be on CNN @ 11:30 EST
I’d like to know what the good representative who complained that Democrats were against family values by asking him to work more next session, might comment on this.
On the other hand, family values still exist for some. We are three deeply different daughters. My most fundamentalist sister, who catches up by watching fox news in the other room, sat up all night with our mother, instead of calling me for my 3 am shift, since she knew I’ve been having trouble sleeping. It was such a gift to sleep.
I’m also grateful that four members of our family (brother-in-law, 2 nieces, and a nephew) are from the Tshokwe tribe of Congo/Angola, as they are teaching us again, how to be present to each other during our mother’s final days. What riches the world has to teach Americans.
Thanks, Pach — this has been an issue for a long time.
For years and years, during the seventies and eighties, the Police Dept of Santa Ana, California refused to help the INS conduct raids on local factories. The reason (regularly cited by the OC Register) was that whenever the INS raided, the SAPD was swamped with calls reporting babies crying unattended for hours, and then they needed to break down doors to get the babies, and then there was all the paperwork and reports.
The raids reportedly were targeted at a complex identity theft operation, which provided any number of undocumented people with false papers so they could work.
Sounds like legal fiction, a la:
OFFICER: “Your honor, I observed a large protrusion in the defendant’s right pocket, which I feared to be a weapon. I then conducted a search of the defendant’s person”.
JUDGE: And what did that huge bulge turn out to be?”
OFFICER: “A half-gram of cocaine, Your Honor”.
JUDGE: “Sounds reasonable to me.”
Which is a rather silly way of saying that, absent a finding of pretense, these arrests are probably going to stand.
I would happily defer, however, to someone well-versed in immigration law (i.e., I don’t even know for sure that a “bad” arrest, in an immigration situation, constitutes a valid defense.)
Another subject, will Bagda become our Stalingrad, or is it already?
The answer to your last question, from the federal agents, is probably quite simple: “That’s a matter for the local authorities.”
Suddenly, the county and/or state child protective services has a couple dozen more foster kids to deal with. Fortunately, I’m sure they have a long list of people just waiting to take them in. There’s lots of money in the budget to handle the load, too.
And if you buy that, I’ve got a bridge to sell you, too - and I’ll let you have it cheap, since it’s the holiday season and I’m such a nice guy.
I don’t know about Utah, but in Kansas there are a number of churches that have been trying to help out the immigrant (legal or otherwise) hispanic community when it comes to dealing with exploitation by meat packers. Not an easy job, but someone’s got to do it.
Identity fraud is serious crime. Entering the U.S. illegally is serious crime. Employing workers who are in the country illegally is serious crime. Wage earners in this country are seriously hurt by these crimes every day and the scale of the crimes has been accelerating for three decades.
Children are victims, too, when their parents commit crimes. We must be sure the children are safe and properly treated. If law enforcement personnel have abused the children, corrective action should be take.
But we really must do something about the underlying crimes, including those aggressively going after the employers who knowingly let the situation fester and, in my opinion, encourage it.
Peterr….isn’t there a new law that increases penalities for individuals and churches to help? I know that I broke that law in working with Salvadoran refugees in the Sanctuary movement in the early 80’s.
A Blast from Our Tin Foiled Past
hey don’t laugh ! there was an actual ICE doc out there -saved by screen grab (no time right now for link) that layed this out very clearly
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9Ut-t7k_zY
gotta go, lovin’ me some Pachacutec
Have an FDL day!
egregious @ 7
Is there any indication that that’s where they were taken? And what jurisdiction applies? As I understand it the facilities are on US soil so presumably they can’t play Cuba games…
Indeed.
–MarkusQ
This regime only cares for fetuses. Those who are born are on their own.
the nuns in Iowa went looking for a breast feeding mother who was swept up in the raid and were turned away at “Camp Dodge”
The Register
this is really crazy…
jayt @
14
Well, if they really did separate the light-skinned people from the dark-skinned people (some of whom turned out to be citizens), they’re looking at some ugly civil rights charges. I doubt that’ll invalidate the arrests, but it’s going to make a bad story even uglier.
Diverting the buses is also going to raise civil rights issues. I would imagine something like that would have to be properly authorized in order to be legal. Otherwise, it sounds like kidnapping to me.
SusanD @ 21
You know, I used to work with babies at the public hospital here in Houston, and I’d run up against the “illegal immigrant” attitude with hospital administrators. I threw at least one hissy fit about it. A baby born in a Houston hospital is a US citizen by Constitutional definition. The baby is not an “illegal immigrant”.
This is such a mess. And I wonder if the social services employees in these areas were informed that a vast potential influx of minors who would need to be cared for by appropriate relatives, friends or within the social services system would hit them all at once. It is next to impossible to find enough foster parents in the regular course of business. And sorting out whether a relative is an appropriate caregivier — or someone who should have no contact or care of children due to substance abuse issues or past criminal/sexual abuse histories, etc. — takes a LOT of time, because you have to run priors checks and other issues and interviews have to be addressed.
What a nightmare — for the children, for the families, and for the vastly underpaid social safety net workers who had to sort through this mess. Let alone the fact that these kids were held involuntarily and seemingly without any sort of detention hearing or procedure being done — or at least nothing that I have seen. (Has anyone else caught something like that having happened? Most states require a pre-detention hearing or that a judge sign off in emergency circumstances for something like this with a hearing on the detention to be held within a minimal number of hours.)
The Bush Administration’s continued contempt for the rule of law and the following of set procedures that every other law enforcement person has to follow in this country is disgusting. There are reasons those procedures are in place — to protect the rights of children who have little to no voice as it is within our system, to ensure that this is not a vindictive process but a legal and fair one, and to provide important oversight. Arrrrgh…this really pisses me off.
It doesn’t matter if the camps are on U.S. soil, we don’t have habeas corpus for non-citizens anymore. They could stay there forever, with no charges, and no legal recourse.
NZ Expat @ 18
You’re thinking of H.R. 4437 proposed by James Sensenbrenner, which passed the House but never got out of the Senate Judiciary Committee. It raised a huge stink in religious circles, especially with Cardinal Mahoney in LA, and that’s likely what caused it to languish in the Senate.
Still there are older laws around, like the sanctuary law you referred to.
And the law of being decent to other human beings.
OldCoastie @
22
Updated, thanks. Christie told me about this story before I published my post but I couldn’t find it.
OldCoastie @
22
Thanks for posting that, OldCoastie.
I had read it overnight, horrified, and was about to go dig it out of the browser history file — you beat me to it (and in spite of your flu! hope you feel better soon and that your pupsters keep you warm in the meantime).
What a horror this is. Why aren’t they dragging the EMPLOYERS out and shipping THEM off to some camp, eh? (a rhetorical question — we know why, don’t we?)
OT - Harry Reid visited Johnson and said he was in very very good condition. Reid has a presser coming up shortly.
also OT - Gunmen abduct dozens of people in Iraq
Social services impact will be ongoing. They have emergency placement homes, but those usually time out in 2 weeks. I doubt there are a lot of spanish-language foster parents in those areas, so even basic communication is at risk for these children. If you can find bio family for the placement, what if they are illegal as well? That alone would be enough for them not to even volunteer. Do you try to find family in Mexico? This can take years. Trust me, the kids are better off being in an intact illegal family than they are in the foster care system. Not that they have a choice in the matter.
MarkusQ @ 20
These extra-large Halliburtilities will be useful for incarcerating democrats and other ungrateful pinko-commie freedoom haters. Plus, Halliburton needs the money.
Did you say “programs” or “pogroms?”
Whar Mrs. K8 said!
If you really want to slow illegal immigration down, start throwing the bastards that exploit them in the clink!
Christy Hardin Smith @ 25
The Denver Post has a story up about the situation among families in Greeley. It isn’t pretty:
Grrrrr . . .
One point to consider about ICE raids. Why was this company singled out? ICE could conduct 20 - 50 - 100 raids a day and never run out of work.
Raids at this rate are for show.
If they started fining employers $10K per undocumented worker I bet we’d see a change.
Mrs. K8 - left you a reply downstairs.
SusanD @ 38
But, but, that makes to much sense.
SusanD @ 38
Yeah. No one with a spanish surname would get work. So sorry for the naturalized citizens. These working poor need jobs, too.
So, have the visible from space megachurches stepped up to the plate to help the children of parents taken away in the raids?
egregious @
26
Christy –
egregious makes the crucial point here, I think.
Can you tell us a bit about yesterday’s legal ruling by a judge (Robertson, I think) to deny Hamdan the right to question his detention (under the new abomination of a “law” destroying habeas)?
Or did you comment on this earlier and I missed it?
The judge essentially said that Congress intended to strip these suspects of the right to challenge their detention. So there you have it, he said! Too bad.
Wait a minute, here’s a link to an AP article on it –
http://www.bradenton.com/mld/b.....231853.htm
And egregious –
Did you know about Larisa Alexandrovna’s (is that her name? the reporter at Raw Story) relative who got swept up by Immigration? She was held incommunicado originally, forbidden her much-needed heart medication — mocked an mistreated by guards. And I think it was all because of some stupid many-years-old arrest of this now-elderly woman from Ukraine, IIRC, an arrest which was highly disputed in the first place.
The only reason Larisa was able to get her elderly relative out of this black hole of detention was because of a tidal wave of phone calls and letters, growing in number, from hundreds or perhaps even thousands of people who had heard of this case in Florida and were outraged by it.
The woman would never have had the right to fight her detention herself, and the authorities never admitted that she was wrongly detained.
typical bushco and rethuglican tactics– ignore the laws of our country and contravene all civility so that the top tier makes money hand over fist and then use brute force in order that they can appear “strong” and concerned about national security.
No thought, no justice, no long term vision.
More pain and disgrace brought upon us. I will put forth just once more the idea that we are responsible for all the refugees from the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan– what are we going to do about them? So far, nothing at all.
krinstinejoy, you think the employers would just quit hiring anyone with hispanic-sounding names rather than verify their documentation?
Also from that Denver Post article:
Refresh for the updates.
Can anyone help me find the link to that stiry about the DC radio host who punked his audience and got flooded with calls in support of tattoos and concentration camps for US Muslims? I think C&L had it but I can’t find it real quick.
Thanks!
SusanD @ 38
I’m not for exploiting illegal workers, but, there are so many of them doing jobs that nobody wants. If they were gone tomorrow, we’d be in a world of hurt. That’s another part of the equation that’s true.
Its a disgrace to our country, picking on those kids, but with Dubya we’re getting used to being disgraced. Like those kids, none of us have any rights either, really.
All one needs is to be accused and one is gone.
Pachacutec @
47
here’s something from kos on that
http://www.dailykos.com/storyo.....225750/658
Mrs.K8 at 43 — I have something coming up in a bit on the latest decision. Am putting the finishing touches on the post…
NZ Expat @ 12
NZ…….my heart is with you as I write. Your post was so very insightful and touching. When my mother passed, I spent fifteen days by her bedside. Originally, i hesitated, because of a ten year rift with my sisters, but knew making the trip was what i had to do. In the presence of such a sacared passage, the trivial differences fade away.
Blessings to you and yours,
becca
cbl @ 19..here is a link to ICE-Endgame..the doc seems not to be available from ice.gov due to “a site reorganization” done in April ‘06. This document was once available on their web-site.
www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=endgame and ice&btnG=Google Search
kristinejoy @ 41
Disagree with your first point, a person eligible for work can show up with overwhelming proof of their status. BC, DL, ID’s, Passports, SS, resident cards etc.
The people who know most about immigration policy are those who can’t do anything to change it. They don’t have a voice. This isn’t to say that immigrants have the right to dictate a country’s immigration policy, but those who set that policy have an obligation to listen to them as part of their work, and not just to blowhard nativist fuckwits like Lou Dobbs.
I’m a white, English-speaking, college-educated immigrant. Most Americans don’t think ‘immigrant’ when they look at me or speak to me. I find that problematic, and borderline offensive, because I’ve been exposed to a side of the US government that they vote on and opine about, while knowing nothing of its workings.
The reports of ‘pale to the left, brown to the right’ from these raids are atrocious.
Pachacutec @
47
h/t back at you, Pach - great post, and badly in need of wider attention.
In Marshalltown, only one parent of children were taken into custody, according to our local news station. Nothing has been said how they determined which parent would go home to the kids.
Notice that it was only one meatpacking company in this raid?? It was Swift.
Bad and good news from Alaska:
Of the five Airborne US Army soldiers stationed in Alaska killed this past week in Iraq, I knew the last three. I worked with Sgt. Brennon Gibson three times last summer. He was in charge of three memorial service details at the National Cemetary at Fort Richardson at which I played “Taps.” The two other soldiers killed had been on those details, but Sgt, Brennon was pretty outgoing about things, so we talked a lot while waiting around before the ceremonies. Now he’ll have his memorial ceremony- down in Tualatin, Oregon. So fucking sad…. his third tour, I believe.
Gov. Sarah Palin is continuing to pick moderates from both parties who are short on political baggage, but highly regarded for honesty and impartiality for her cabinet. Her appointment for Attorney General, Palmer attorney Talis Colberg, is a friend and colleague (from Matanuska-Susitna College, where he teaches history and I teach band).
Talis is a Republican, but very moderate by any standards. He was the first establishment-type to come forward and encourage me publicly in mid-2004 after I was raked over the coals for writing music about Rachel Corrie.
Eureka Springs,AR @ 37
You can enforce laws selectively depending on who pays bribes and who refuses. Old Soviet trick.
MarkusQ @ 8
The ones picked up in Marshalltown Iowa were sent to Camp Dodge, a nat’l guard base in Des Moines.
SusanD @ 45
In a heartbeat.
Pach—this one?
http://www.crooksandliars.com/.....m-bigotry/
Thanks, angie. Update has been. . . updated to reflect your input.
Ed*ard at 57 — were these folks with the Stryker brigade that was held over and, in some cases, sent back after being home for something like three days from their prior rotation? What a heartbreaking mess, either way, but even worse for families that had them ripped away at a time they thought they would be home for a while…so very painful.
hackworth, but aren’t the jobs nobody wants the ones that pay poverty wages? I’m sure undocumented workers don’t want them either, but don’t have much choice.
This situation allows employers to exploit undocumented workers unmercifully. Every Human Resources department I’ve ever been through has asked to see my ID and in some cases my actual social security card.
It’s up to the employers to make sure that the documents presented to them are the real deal. And if no documents are presented, the employer is as much, or more, at fault when they hire someone not knowing their status.
rufo_firenza @ 46
What law was passed a few years ago that also provided harsh penalties for even helping noncitizens?
egregious @
58
It might be an old Soviet trick, but ask any Latino, Native American or African American in the inner cities how narcotics enfiorcement usually works…
SusanD @ 45
Yes. Much easier, especially for better jobs, the kind you can maybe support a family on.
And prejudice trickles up. Compared to their percentage of population, Hispanics are incredible under-represented in leadership positions. Will this become a red flag on security clearances? It’s personal for me, because my partner is a latina executive in the banking industry, and that glass ceiling is already really thick.
Not that I don’t think the employers bear a large part of the blame. There just aren’t any easy solutions to this.
ET–
Sorry to hear about the deaths of military folks that you know. We need to end this war.
Thanks, RBG. Updated with link and h/t.
BTW –
DHS told the folks at TPMMuckraker that “no legal immigrants got swept up in the raids.”
Here’s the article at TPMM –
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/ar.....0.php#more
Yeah, right. And I’ve got a bridge to sell you, too.
Reid presser on CNN now re: Johnson’s condition
egregious @ 60
That might work in Iowa and North Carolina, but that dog ain’t gonna hunt in New Mexico. We’ve got citizens in this state with Hispanic surnames whose families have been here since the 16th Century.
BC
Christy Hardin Smith @ 63
Almost all the Fairbanks Stryker Brigade soldiers have returned, and those who haven’t were pulled from exposed duty early last week. These five are from an airborne battalion stationed at Ft. Richardson in Anchorage. I believe they’re detached from the 101st Airborne Division, as they all had 101st shoulder patches. They went over to Iraq again this past fall.
Reid - Johnson looks good. The hospital is treating them well.
SusanD at 64 — actually the “nobody wants those jobs” thing is a conservative myth. As an example, black janitors in LA about 10 years ago belonged to a union that had just negotiated a contract with various businesses around town. There was another wave of immigrant influx, mainly from Mexico and central Amereica, and these immigrants were willing to work for wages far below the $7 per hour that the janitors had negotiated. Those black janitors were laid off, and the immigrant janitors were hired — as a means of gaining larger profit for the companies, NOT because there were not folks who would do the jobs. Harold Meyerson of American Prospect was talking about reporting that he did on the subject at the time this all happened at the conference that I was at this week.
What happens is that wage suppression is used to prop up the profit margin for companies who layoff or fire workers who are already living on the margins anyway in terms of income and poverty. And this issue rarely gets discussed — but needs a LOT more exposure. That’s just one of many examples.
thanks, Pach.
ET– so sorry about the losses to the families, you, the great state of Alaska and America.
Good for Sarah Palin!
Reid - will not talk about his medical condition “what ever I say will not be enough for you” - concerning his medical condition
Reid on CNN - presser over
Would be interesting to know this companies history of campaign donations….)
Reid said when asked if Johnson would be able to serve - “Not a thing has changed”
From Christy, above:
The Bush Administration’s continued contempt for the rule of law and the following of set procedures that every other law enforcement person has to follow in this country is disgusting. There are reasons those procedures are in place — to protect the rights of children who have little to no voice as it is within our system, to ensure that this is not a vindictive process but a legal and fair one, and to provide important oversight. Arrrrgh…this really pisses me off.
Yes.
Pach: thanks for pointing the SPOTLIGHT on this situation. (Hint, Hint)
Christy Hardin Smith @ 50
Thanks, Redd!
You’re amazing. I was hoping for just a quick comment, and here you’re going to give us a whole post on it — and so soon after your coming back home from an important bit of hard work for the vulnerable and forgotten in this society.
Bless you!
[Hoping my request didn’t feel like pressure. Still, your take on that ruling will be very welcome to me, whenever you post it.]
Pachacutec @
69
You’re welcome. Excellent post. Atrios has linked to it.
Peterr @
39
Thanks! And I agree with you, wholeheartedly.
Christy Hardin Smith @ 75
I think the issue should be taken out a few more steps in these discussions. What was the greatest demand for increasingly higher profits if it wasn’t the ‘middle class-investor class’ pushing for greater unearned income from their portfolios?
rumi @ 65
Last year, the House passed a draconian measure that proposed just that, but it was stalled and killed in the Senate. What the article refers to are other laws that limit what govt agencies can and cannot do. Still harsh, but not as harsh as what made the news last year. (See my #27 above)
OT, sorry, but this was just too special to pass up. Does everyone remember Mr. Gannon/Guckert?
http://www.generationq.net/Gen.....ticle=1712
Worthington, MN Residents Shaken After Arrests:
And this:
Even the non-Latino residents aren’t real happy with this. The economic impact on the town has already been big, and even those who want undocumented workers should follow the rules think the raids went too far.
This isn’t going to go well for the government, I don’t think. Why weren’t the Swift executives rounded up and arrested? Hard to blame local management when the problem is at the same company in so many states.
Sounds like a re-run of this story
http://campusapps.fullerton.ed.....ciana.html
About the deportation of american citizens of mexican origin during the 30s
Peterr @ 86 re:27
thanks, I believe that’s the same one I had in mind.
ET - I too, am sorry for the loss of your friends.
angie - thanks for helping to try and save lives.
I just heard on Denver radio that long lines of white people are queuing up at the plant in Greeley, hoping to to apply for the jobs that were taken from them by the illegals.
Just Kidding!
NZExpat - Namaste, dear. Blessings on your Foxy sister, too.
Can you imagine the havoc a raid like this in SoCal would have wreaked? I’m not sure the economy would continue to function. California, with all its fields of strawberries, rice paddies, grapes, almonds, you-name-it-we-grow-it, cannot work without exploited labor.
It’s so easy to get papers that look real. I happened to mention to a friend at work once that I needed to get my passport renewed. I was overheard by one of the cooks, who came to me later, mistakenly thinking I needed “papers” and offered to get them for me for $25. Why he thought I needed papers, I still don’t understand.
Wonder if the underground (or, really, right out in the open) Hispanic network that worked so well organizing demonstrations in the spring will have anything to say about this turn of events?
I think this is just the beginning. Look out, folks, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
new thread
REMEMBER THE JAPANESE INTERNMENT CAMPS IN World War II?
In 1942, Americans of Japanese ancestry were forced into internment camps since ‘their country’ (Japan) was at war with the U.S. Americans of German ancestry were not taken to internment camps at all.
Starting in Feb. 1942, 120,000 Japanese (citizens and non-citizens, newcomers and long-time residents, alike), most from California, were imprisioned in ‘camps’ for the duration of the second World War. They were forced to give up their homes, businesses, schooling, and taken by bus to barraks in the desert and to hastily remodeled horse barns, so they would not ‘harm’ U.S. citizens.
If only there was as much attention paid to the provenance and safety of the meat as to the paperwork of the employees of the meat packing plant.
Fresh thread, for everyone.
rumi @
85