Migra raid tears parents from kids

Undocumented immigrant workers contribute billions in profits to the U.S. capitalist economy. But they face what can only be described as state terror, as this news item shows.

La Migra—the despised immigration police—raided a poultry factory in Arka delphia, Ark., on July 28. The agents arrested 119 workers and dragged them off to face deportation.

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid left no time for the parents of about 30 children to call and make arrangements for their care. Kids as young as 3 months old were left behind after the police siege was over.

“A lot of those families had kids in day care in different places, and they didn’t know why Mommy and Daddy didn’t come to pick them up,” Arkadelphia Mayor Charles Hollingshead told report ers. Even the Clark County sheriff expressed anger at the Migra—albeit merely for bad planning and lack of communication between police agencies.

José Luis Vidal explained that his sister and brother-in-law were deported to Laredo, Mexico, while their children aged 10, 5 and 1 were left after the raid without care. “The children are very sad, especially the baby,” Vidal explained in Spanish. “She cries all the time.”

Every worker in the U.S., of every nationality, will benefit from a strong movement that declares: “No worker is ‘illegal.’ There are no borders in the workers’ struggle.”

—Leslie Feinberg