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More terror raids
ICE attacks immigrants in Iowa
Published May 24, 2008 7:50 AM
Following are excerpts from a May 19 press release issued by the
National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. (www.nnirr.org)
The National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights condemns the latest
Department of Homeland Security immigration raid carried out on May 12, by the
Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) against immigrant workers
at a meat-packing plant in Postville, Iowa.
ICE’s actions have left the people of Postville in a state of shock, as
its very social and economic well-being has been called into question,
threatening the future of its residents. After the ICE raid, scores of
immigrant workers and their family members fled to a local church.
Workers at the Postville plant were reported to be in a labor dispute with
employers. Despite policy prohibiting immigration police interference and
ignoring union organizers’ pleas, ICE amassed a small army and proceeded
to carry out a massive operation in the early hours of the day. ICE used two
helicopters and brought in over 200 federal, county and local police agents
including from ICE, the FBI and other federal and local agencies, and dozens of
vehicles and buses to haul off workers.
ICE began unleashing a series of raids in different parts of the country that
started right before and continued after the national May 1 mass mobilizations.
In mid-April, ICE immigration enforcement raids struck Poultry Pride plants in
five different states, another meat-processing company, arresting over 300
workers. Then on May 2 in northern California, ICE took action against a small
family-owned restaurant chain in six cities, arresting over 60 workers. Then
during May 5-6, ICE stationed themselves in front of one elementary public
school and one high school in Oakland and Berkeley, Calif., arresting at least
four persons and scaring the hell out of students, parents and workers. ICE
arrests hundreds of documented and undocumented immigrants every day in border
and non-border regions of the country, incarcerating as many as 30,000
immigrants on any given week, through raids and other means.
Biggest raid to cover up immigrant jail abuses?
ICE’s timing of the Postville raids is also questionable. In the days
leading up to this raid, major newspapers reports were exposing the harsh
conditions ICE subjects persons to in immigration detention, including the
revelation that dozens of immigrants have died in detention over the last few
years from abusive treatment and lack of medical care.
Then ICE delivered a devastating blow to Postville, a small town with 2,273
residents. By calling Postville the largest raid in history, ICE was drawing
attention away from the on-going exposé of the harsh conditions in ICE
jails. While ICE has arrested more workers in previous sweeps, in Postville
some 390 workers were arrested, out of some 900 workers at the plant.
ICE gave the Postville immigrant community no warning of this monstrous
assault. In the weekend before the ICE raid, community members were aghast at
the preparations they were witnessing: Department of Homeland Security began
amassing police agents and the resources to carry out this crushing blow
against workers, including setting up a temporary jail at a nearby
“Cattle Congress” facility, where the men were jailed. Women were
put in the local jail.
After the raid, ICE stifled the immigrant workers’ access to legal
counsel. And, in the days and weeks leading up to the raid, multi-agency
collaboration DHS investigations included getting addresses, social security
numbers and other private information about the workers’ families, youth
and students from the local school district.
Stop the ICE raids, end detentions and deportations
ICE deliberately uses raids to send shock waves through immigrant communities,
to repress rights and suppress organizing efforts, as well as to promote and
showcase new enforcement policies and strategies. The results are devastating:
families are separated, communities are traumatized and the economic losses
caused by immigration enforcement are almost exclusively borne by immigrants
and their communities.
ICE’s actions against Postville were a deliberate attack on the rights
and well-being of immigrants everywhere. ICE raids expose workers to further
exploitation and undermine labor rights and unions; they help perpetuate abuses
and act as a cover-up mechanism for other violations that go unpunished. After
an ICE raid, parents stop sending their children to school, they stop going to
work, to church and avoid shopping and other public spaces out of fear. ICE
makes communities vulnerable to abuse, crime and violence.
Articles copyright 1995-2012 Workers World.
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
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