Immigrant workers organize in Michigan

It was July 17 of this year. Armed men knocked on the doors early that Sunday morning.

Juan Jose Gutierrez, third from left standing, with immigrant community leaders.

Sleepy women, sometimes with children, opened them and were thrown to the floor. Men woke up to guns in their faces. They were dragged outside in their underwear.

It may sound like U.S.-occupied Iraq, but it happened in Southwest Detroit, the heart of the Latino community here. “Homeland Security” and the FBI staged raids throughout the area. Some of the victims are still in jail, nearly three months later, awaiting trial.

At its first public meeting here, held on Oct. 1, a new organization, Latinos United/Unidos of Michigan, exposed this and other examples of heightened attacks on immigrant workers.

The featured speaker, Juan Jose Gutierrez, a Los Angeles attorney and immigrant rights leader, reviewed the rich history of struggle in the Latino communities, particularly in California, ranging from the ballot box to the streets. Gutierrez highlighted the new, illegal and unconstitutional policy instituted by Greyhound Bus Lines. It is refusing to sell bus tickets to people who “appear” to be “illegal” and barring them from boarding buses. The policy extends to forcibly detaining people in order to turn them over to immigration authorities.

In Los Angeles and other cities, demonstrators are challenging Greyhound’s racist policy.

Latinos United/Unidos of Michigan grew out of a campaign against racist anti-Mexican and anti-Arab immigrant cartoons in local newspapers. The announcement for the meeting said, “The U.S. media and right-wing politicians have been intensifying the attacks against undocumented workers by supporting groups like the Minutemen, KKK, neo-Nazis who, with the pretext of protecting the U.S./Mexican border, are able to harass and violate civil and human rights and foment violence against the entire Latino Community.”

In addition to continued support for detainees, the group plans to open an Immigrant Workers Center in early 2006. For more information, contact [email protected].