No to U.S. State Terrorism • Stop the Raids! Defend the Rights of All!
• National Day of Actions Against the Raids & Deportations• 10th Annual Columbus Day Vigil at the Elizabeth Detention Center
• Bring Down the Border Death Wall!
• El Paso: Everybody Against the Wall of Death!
• Cross-Border Activists Escalate Fight Against The Wall of Death • Mississippi Workers Stand Against Raids
• Government Targets Legal Appeals by Immigrants
Stop the Raids! Defend the Rights of All!
The people of Greenville, South Carolina contended with yet another brutal government raid on immigrant workers October 7. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raided the House of Raeford’s chicken processing plant, brutalizing and terrorizing all the workers and detaining 330 of them. Six were juveniles. Many were from Guatemala, much like those detained in an Iowa ICE raid in August. ICE officials and police stormed the plant and demanded that all workers show identification. Anyone without the documentation demanded was detained. ICE also demanded that the workers detained sign deportation orders, using threats of long jail sentences if they refused. This included threats against women with children at home, including those born in the U.S. The women refused and denounced the agents for their anti-people stand. Many of the plant's 900 workers also stood against the raid, defending the right of all to work.
The debate between presidential candidates Senators Barack Obama and John McCain took place the same day, yet not a word was said opposing the raids. In contrast, the peoples are refusing to be silenced and instead are organizing actions across the country October 12 demanding: Stop the Raids and Deportations! No One is Illegal!
The Carolina raid follows large raids in Iowa and more recently in California, where government raids were used to arrest 1,150 people. The raids by ICE served to terrorize communities statewide, including those in San Diego, where 301 were arrested; Los Angeles, where 436 were arrested; and San Francisco where 436 were arrested. According to ICE, the various workers come from 34 different countries.
These government raids are being organized to make such mass terrorism and collective punishment by government acceptable. They are to impose this dictate on communities, while also training the local police, lawyers, and judges to accept police state terrorism while forcing workers to take guilty pleas when no crime has been committed. Mass trials of dozens of workers, all shackled hand and foot, and often without the benefit of immigration lawyers, are being utilized. The level of humiliation imposed all down the line is part of these government attacks, so as to block workers from playing their role to win change that favors the people.
The government is preparing the grounds for yet more fascist repression against immigrants, African Americans and all workers. The silence, or open support for the raids by the politicians of both the Democratic and Republican parties shows that they will not stop this direction. Indeed, the recent bail out of the monopolies and funding of their wars for empire, coupled with massive cuts to social services across the country and these continued raids, all show these business parties are defending fascism and are unfit to rule. As a further indication, neither McCain nor Obama have denounced the decision by President Goerge W. Bush to have a fully armed and trained army combat brigade now dedicated for use inside the country against civilians (see articles on USNorther Command, VOR update October, 6).
To bring about changes that favor the people, it is the workers with their humane and enlightened stand to defend the rights of all who have shown themselves fit to govern. The business parties that only recognize the narrow interests of the rich and act only to deliver what the monopolies are demanding cannot be allowed to maintain their stranglehold. Those who terrorize the people and defend collective punishment, whether against the Iraqis and Afghanistanis, or against immigrants and national minorities at home, have shown that they are not fit to govern. Society needs the workers and the stand they represent that Our Security Lies in Our Fight for the Rights of All in the leading positions. Now is the time to break the strangelhold of the rich and refuse to vote for their war parties, the Democrats and Republicans. Now is the time to unite all concerned with advancing the work for political empowerment of the workers themselves.
No Votes for War Parties and Their Candidates!
Vote Independent and Small Party!
Organize Now to Elect Workers in 2010!
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Sunday, October 12, 2008 Dia De La Raza, Indigenous Peoples Day
National Day of Actions
Against the Raids & Deportations
Actions to be held in New York City, Boston, Chicago, Atlanta, Madison, Detroit, South Bend, Seattle, Phoenix, Tucson, Austin, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and others. In New York City there will be a March and Rally for Worker & Immigrant Rights in front of the Wells Fargo Bank.
Why Wells Fargo?
• Wells Fargo Bank houses and profits from racist, terrorist Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Arizona
• Wells Fargo profits from the sweat of immigrant labor making tons of money from remittances
• The Wall Street Bail Out will be stolen from the people. Wells Fargo will profit from that theft
In May of this year and then again in August, the Department of Homeland Security through the hated ICE (Immigration & Customs Enforcement) carried out some of the biggest anti-worker raids in U.S. history. More raids in California and South Carolina against almost 2,000 workers followed these attacks. The raids are made against workers at the very same time that the super-rich get saved on Wall Street!
The raids in the immigrant community are calculated to not only terrorize immigrant workers but they are meant to break unions, divide working people and send a message to us all: do not fight back or else.
The economy is reeling from rising unemployment, housing foreclosures, price hikes — and the crisis on Wall Street is affecting every one but the super-rich. Yet it was them that made the crisis in the first place, not the people! At the same time, fear mongering such as that by Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Phoenix occurs which is meant to divert us from the real enemy. As one activist put it “Arizona has become for the immigrant rights movement what Mississippi was for the Black Civil Rights movement.”
This is a time to come together.
We call on people from every walk of life, from every nationality, black, Latino, Asian, Arab, Native, and white, U.S. or foreign born, documented or undocumented, in a union or unorganized to come out on October 12.
October 12 is part of a national day of action in more than 30 cities. This day is known in the Latino community as Dia de la Raza and is a day for Indigenous People as a counter to the racist Christopher Columbus day, which is a day of conquest and disaster for the Americas. Join us on October 12 to tell the Bush administration and all the presidential candidates:
Bail Out the People, Not the Banks!
Immediate Legalization for Undocumented Workers!
Moratorium on the ICE Raids!
Moratorium on Home Foreclosures!
Money for Hurricane Victims Not for War in Iraq!
No to ICE & Police Brutality! Justice for Sean Bell & All Victims Of Brutality!
Union Jobs at Union Wages for All!
Solidarity not Racism!
Visit www.may1.info or call 212.633.6646
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10th Annual Columbus Day Vigil at the Elizabeth Detention Center
In the shadow of the Statue of Liberty, 300 asylum seekers, refugees and immigrants are in detention. They include both undocumented and documented immigrants, many who have been in the U.S. for years and are now facing exile. They include survivors of torture, and other vulnerable groups including pregnant women and the seriously ill. They are held without proper medication or medical care. Immigrants detained during this process are in non-criminal custody because being in violation of immigration laws is not a crime. It is a civil violation similar to a traffic ticket.
Join us in solidarity and prayer as we provide a voice for those being held in Elizabeth and in similar facilities throughout the country. FirstFriends/IRATE (the Interfaith Refugee Action Team -Elizabeth), People’s Organization for Progress, the New Sanctuary Movement, New Jersey (NJ) Immigration Policy Network, the Haiti Solidarity Network of the Northeast and Pax Christi NJ in a vigil on Columbus Day, October 12, 1:30 pm. We will march to the detention center operated by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA).
For further information and directions contact First Friends/IRATE 908-965-0455 or firstfriends2@juno.comImmigrants.
IRATE is an alliance of grassroots organizations whose members believe that the current U.S. policy of detaining immigrants in prison-like conditions is contrary to our tradition of welcoming refugees. Currently in New Jersey, the Bureau of Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) has some 300 people detained at the Elizabeth Detention Center and an unknown number of people in county jails throughout the state.
For more information on immigration detention go to www.irateweb.org, www.detentionwatchnetwork.org or www.cliniclegal.org
Contact: Kathy O’Leary, State Council Member-Pax Christi NJ; Chapter Coordinator-Pax Christi Summit (a local chapter of Pax Christi USA, www.paxchristiusa.org); 908-273-0751 • www.paxsummit.blogspot.com
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183 Bodies Recovered In Arizona-Sonora Border Area
Bring Down the Border Death Wall!
The final number of bodies recovered on the Arizona-Sonora border for the fiscal year that began on October 1, 2007 and ended September 30, 2008 is 183, reports Coalición de Derechos Humanos. The data, which are compiled from medical examiner reports from Pima, Yuma, and Cochise counties, are an attempt to give a more accurate reflection of the human cost of failed U.S. border and immigration policies. The final count includes 119 males and 45 females. About 108, or 59 percent of the bodies recovered are of unknown identity. Countries represented in the final count include México, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Peru.
“What we are seeing with these tragic annual figures are the direct effects of border militarization and immigration policies. As more and more of these men, women and children are out there for long periods of time before being found, their families must continue to suffer the pain of not knowing what has become of their loved one,” says Kat Rodriguez, Coordinator of Derechos Humanos. “It is incomprehensible that these deadly policies are continued, and with the current additions to the wall being constructed, we continue to see more of the same, at the cost of human life and dignity,” she added.
While the number of bodies recovered, 183, is lower than last year’s total of 237, factors do not clearly indicate that this is a total decline in the overall deaths on the border, particularly as the numbers of bodies recovered in neighboring states are not available. There is information to suggest that the migration flow patterns are shifting due to the Funnel Effect, which has been documented by the Binational Migration Institute. The high number of skeletal remains recovered this year, 31 (17 percent) support this likely shift in migration flow, and it is possible that the long periods of time before being recovered indicates that people are crossing in more isolated and desolate areas, with less chance of rescue or discovery. It is unknown how many remains are currently near the border but have not yet been discovered.
“What is especially disturbing about this year’s data is the high number of remains that have an unknown gender, which went from 5 last year to 19 this year, approximately 10 percent of the total bodies recovered,” said Rodriguez. She continued, “This means that not enough of the body was recovered to determine the gender, and without DNA, it is impossible to know even this basic information about the individual, making identification and return to their families even more difficult.”
Proportionally, the gender makeup appears to be consistent with what has been seen in the past few years, with women making up approximately 25 percent of recovered bodies; however, without knowing the gender of these 19 individuals, it is unclear if this still holds true. The dramatic increase in these unknown gender cases are a troubling indicator or what might be to come, as people are pushed out into more and more isolated areas, making rescue and detection less likely, and the likelihood of death more certain.
The complete list of recovered bodies is available on the Coalición de Derechos Humanos website: www.derechoshumanosaz.net. This information is available to anyone who requests it from us and is used by our organization to further raise awareness of the human rights crisis we are facing on our borders.
(For more information contact: Kat Rodriguez • 520-770-1373)
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Everybody Against the Wall of Death!
While the Bush regime was rewarding $700 billion to the thieves responsible for the financial pillage, organizers in El Paso completed another week of daily protests against the border death wall.
While Bush was giving away taxpayers’ money to Wall Street, with the enthusiastic support of both Democrats and Republicans and of course Senators Barack Obama and John McCain, we intensified our acts of opposition against the infamous $7.5 million per mile wall being built by the Kiewit Corporation of Omaha, Nebraska. Kiewit is not only one of the largest recipients of juicy government contracts, but the CEO of Kiewit was also one of the most generous contributors to the Bush/Cheney electoral campaigns.
We continue to protest every day, mornings and afternoons, the same way we have been doing since September 12, as a group of El Paso citizens opposed to the wall. The protests at this site were initiated by one individual on August 18. On that day Justo Rivera, a 63 year-old El Paso native and proud Vietnam veteran, just made a simple sign with big letters that read “Honk Honk for No Wall!” and staged a one person protest at the construction site.
Now we gather daily at the entrance of the construction site located at Cesar Chávez Highway (also known as the Border Highway) and Yarbrough, with signs and leaflets. At times there are only three people protesting. Other times our group is composed of ten or more protesters. Overall, the number of people is increasing. Since this a heavy traffic intersection, hundreds of people see our signs and the construction in progress. The majority of people express their opposition to the wall by honking their support and their opposition to the Border Patrol officers.
This week we also held two additional activities. The first was held on Wednesday, October 1, which was a Vigil Against the Wall to begin our campaign: ¡Ya Basta! ¡Todas Contra El Muro! (Enough! Everybody Against the Wall!)
The vigil was held in the evening and attracted more than 60 participants mainly from different religious communities as well as families residing in the vicinity of the construction site. The participants in the vigil carried candles and signs denouncing the wall. The protesters converged at 6:30pm at the park near the construction site to listen to presentations from a Catholic priest and representatives of other religions. Then, participants walked toward the site of the wall. A group of nervous Border Patrol officers were at the entrance of the construction site. When the procession approached the wall, the officers parked their vehicles to block the entrance and rushed outside the entrance to stop the peaceful protesters. Two of the officers pushed people, yelling, “This is federal property!” But the protesters were not intimidated and continued their march chanting, “No Wall! No Wall!” More Border Patrol officers arrived to form a barrier at the entrance of the site although it was very clear that the protesters never had the intention to enter the construction site or to even get close to the entrance. Minutes later some officers from the El Paso Police Department (EPPD) also arrived to assist the Border Patrol agents in protecting the wall. Despite their attempts to intimidate the protesters, the vigil continued very late into the evening. Many people passed by the intersection and saw the vigil. Most of the drivers were honking their horns in support of the protest against the wall.
Then on Friday, October 3, almost 40 students from the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) and El Paso Community College arrived at the site to join the protest. They brought signs and musical instruments. Most of the students were from UTEP’s Students for Reform. Many people and families from the vicinity also came. The group grew to about 70. The protest was militant with a lot of enthusiasm and lasted several hours.
This time the law enforcement officers and Kiewit Corporation were prepared for our protest. To begin with, they released the workers earlier than on other previous days, so by the time we arrived they had stopped working in the area. Then they closed the main gate with chains and locks and put up two big “No Trespassing” signs on each side of the entrance.
The presence of EPPD and Border Patrol officers was also very ostentatious. There were cops all over the construction site and in the surrounding areas. Somebody counted about 30 patrols in the area. There were also many plainclothes officers in unmarked vehicles taking pictures and videos of the protest. The officers of the EPPD did not allow people to park on the edge of the road the way we had been doing for many weeks of protests. When one of the protesters attempted to explain to the police that he was parked in a right of way, he was given a ticket and was warned to move or his car would be towed away. Then a deputy with the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office also arrived at the area to harass the demonstrator who had been given the ticket. The deputy was so out of control that one of the police officers intervened to calm him down.
Anyway, the protest took place and hundreds of people passing by the area saw us and expressed their support to the struggle to stop the construction of the wall. Every day more and more people are realizing the infamy of the federal government against the people of the border communities. We also expect more people to join our daily protests and to participate in the different actions being planned to stop the construction of the wall.
The protests at the construction site will continue during weekdays, mornings, and afternoons. The next action will be held on Sunday, October 12, 2008 at the construction site. October 12 is the International Day of the World’s Indigenous People therefore, this time we are planning an indigenous ceremony against the wall.
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Cross-Border Activists Escalate Fight Against The Wall of Death
A spirit of passion energized a U.S. Labor Day march against the border wall under construction by the administration of President George W. Bush. Organized by human rights, religious, Chicano, student, and other activists from both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, marchers set out from Fort Hancock, Texas, for a four-day trek to the border between Sunland Park, New Mexico, and Anapra, Mexico, on the northwestern edge of Ciudad Juarez. As the marchers passed through small towns, talking to residents, work proceeded on the new border barrier just up the road in El Paso. Marcher Javier Perez, a staff member of the El Paso-based Border Agricultural Workers Center emphasized, “We’ll keep on walking until we meet our objective, which is to destroy the wall before it is built.”
Unknown to Perez and fellow marchers, on August 29 a federal judge in El Paso had quietly turned down a request for a preliminary injunction to temporarily halt the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from building a nearly 700-mile wall along different sections of the border. The county of El Paso and co-plaintiffs from local governments, environmental groups, and the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo tribe had sought the injunction. They are demanding that the DHS waiver of more than 30 federal environmental and other laws to carry out the project be addressed.
In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court last June, the plaintiffs challenged the constitutional authority of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and DHS to issue waivers. But in his ruling, U.S. District Judge Frank Montalvo ruled that the plaintiffs did not show that possible damages from the wall outweighed national security interests. On September 11, Judge Montalvo dismissed the El Paso lawsuit and upheld Secretary Chertoff’s authority to waive the laws in question. Lawyers for El Paso County are working on an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which must be filed within 90 days. It remains to be seen how El Paso will fare in the high court in the event of an appeal.
While the legal issues have yet to be sorted out, the tendency of federal courts in the border wall controversy is to validate the concentration of greater powers in the executive branch of government. This means an appointed official, with the wink of Congress, can sidestep decades of laws approved by elected representatives. The battle over the border wall has huge implications for the nature of governance in the United States.
Jay J. Johnson Castro Sr., who runs a bed-and-breakfast in the Texas border town of Del Rio, was “shocked and appalled” when he heard about the planned walling of his beloved borderlands. He noted that neighbors from Del Rio and Ciudad Acuna get along just fine. A Vietnam-era military veteran, Johnson added that his 84-year-old mother, who worked as a shipyard riveter during World War II, was likewise disturbed by the direction of the political drift in the United States that the wall signifies. [Johnson has also been a major opponent of the border detention centers where families are kept in concentration camp conditions.]
Deciding he could not silently watch the wall go up in his front yard, Johnson helped found Border Ambassadors and began walking along the border to protest the project in 2006. To the outspoken activist, the wall represents an imposed monument to division between North and South. Along the border, and in Mexico and Latin America, the wall is viewed as a symbol of racism, xenophobia, and militarism.
All Against the Wall
If it is finished as laid out in the 2006 Secure Fence Act, a law sponsored by New York Republican Representative Peter King, the border wall will consist of a series of sectional barriers ranging from 18-foot walls to smaller fences, depending on the location. The U.S. Congressional Research Service estimates the fencing could cost upward of $49 billion to build and maintain, but in a letter to Secretary Chertoff earlier this year, Texas State Senator Eliot Shapleigh (D-El Paso), a prominent wall critic, said land buy-outs and other expenses are likely to push the total cost of the project higher.
On the U.S. side of the border, local governments, elected officials, civil society organizations, indigenous communities, and private individuals oppose the wall on multiple grounds. Environmental organizations like the Sierra Club say the wall will interfere with animal habitat, disrupt migratory wildlife patterns, and alter fragile ecosystems. For indigenous peoples like the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo of Texas, the wall is an intrusion on land used for sacred rituals.
Immigrant advocates slam the wall for making it more likely that desperate border crossers from the south will be forced to take more dangerous routes in their bid for a new life in El Norte, pushing up a death count already in the thousands. For this reason, many activists call the DHS project “The Wall of Death.”
The Wall as Symbol of Militarization
The wall adds an aesthetic reminder to border communities that are increasingly squeezed in a vise of checkpoints, database tracking, high-tech surveillance systems, privatized immigrant detention centers, and law enforcement or military patrols. University of Texas at El Paso researchers Guillermina Gina Nunez-Mchiri and Josiah Heyman argue that undocumented migrants living near the border and in the interior of the United States are increasingly “entrapped” and unable to freely move back and forth to their home countries or even within the United States.
Although he is a U.S. citizen not subject to deportation, Sierra Club activist and border wall opponent Bill Guerra Addington -experiences a day-to-day reality unimaginable to many outside the borderlands. Farming alfalfa near Sierra Blanca, a small community south of El Paso, Addington encounters the Border Patrol quite often. “To me, it is like living in what life was described to be in Nazi Germany...” said Addington in a recent interview. “Whenever I come back from El Paso, I have to go through a checkpoint. I am questioned where I have been, where I am going, what is in the car, where I live. They do not even believe I live next door to Sheriff Arvin West. I have lived there all my life, since 1954...”
Nowadays, the process of entrapment is being extended to Mexico. Take, for instance, Rancho Anapra, just across the border from Sunland Park, New Mexico. An underdeveloped community of makeshift homes, Rancho Anapra attracts residents who find work in Ciudad Juarez’s maquiladora plants — when it is available. Prior to the Clinton administration’s fencing program, residents just strolled across the U.S. border to find work when necessary, giving low-income workers some freedom of movement and choice in the globalized economy. Today that option is rapidly disappearing. Anapra resident Brenda Noriel characterized the wall as an assault on human dignity. “We are against the wall, because Mexicans are as equal as Americans. We are all human beings.”
More Actions Say Tear Down the Wall
As wall construction steams ahead near El Paso, opponents are mustering their forces for critical battles in the coming days. Some activists credit citizen opposition for forcing the Bush administration to scale back plans in some areas or slow down the pace of construction, making the original end-of-the-year completion goal unlikely. According to media reports, DHS informed Congress September 10 that an additional $400 million was needed to complete the half-finished fence because of rising material and other costs. While battles continue in the courts, activists plan to take the issue to the streets in the United States and abroad. Organized by labor, human rights, and other groups, two international days of action are set for the month of October. The U.S. border wall will be a topic of discussion at the hemispheric social forum in Guatemala convened for October 7-12. “One of the issues we are raising is a continental campaign against the wall,” said Ruben Solis, an organizer for the San Antonio-based Southwest Workers Union.
In addition to public demonstrations, Solis said activists are taking the border wall issue to the Organization of American States’ Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Washington, DC. A combination of mass action, legal pressure, and legislative activity will be required to not only stop the current wall from going up but tear down existing ones, Solis said. “It is going to take everything to make it happen,” he said. In the short term, border wall opponents must still cope with the fact that the Secure Fence Act is a law on the books funded with billions of dollars, said Border Ambassadors’ Johnson Castro. At least in Texas, Johnson was confident the opposition would prevail. “We do not want to be militarized and converted into a war zone,” Johnson said. “We are tired of this, and we have to stand up and say ‘Ya Basta!’ and do it in a very honorable, non-violent way.”
Kent Paterson is a freelance journalist who covers the southwestern United States, Mexico, and Latin America, and an analyst for the Americas Policy Program at www.americaspolicy.org.
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Counter Company Efforts To Divide And Rule
Mississippi Workers Stand Against Raids
In the August raid of the Howard Industries electrical plant in Laurel, Mississippi, 595 workers were targeted. About 100 women workers were released, about half with ankle-bracelet monitoring devises. Another 481 workers were detained more than two weeks in Jena, Louisiana. The company had their cars towed and denied their families their paychecks. After numerous efforts and protests at the company gates, 283 checks were secured and the rest are still being fought for.
“We don’t know the fate of the people detained or what they may be charged with,” says Patricia Ice, attorney for the Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance (MIRA). “Workers were rounded up and just dumped in a privately run detention center. So far as we know, there is no process for them to get bail. This is an outrage.”
Jena was the site last year of massive protests over racial discrimination in the criminal justice system, after a group of young African-American men faced felony charges in a confrontation with a group of young white men, who were not charged.
Approximately 100 women were released the day of the Laurel raid for “humanitarian reasons,” to care for children or because they are pregnant, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). According to MIRA organizer Victoria Cintra. “People were living paycheck to paycheck and rent is due,” she explains. “They can’t work and provide for their families now, and many others are dependent on husbands and fathers and brothers who were all detained. We need to redefine what humanitarian means.”
Meanwhile, MIRA and other labor and community activists say media coverage of the raid has tried to heighten racial tensions. Newspaper stories have painted a picture of a plant in which African American and white union members were hostile to immigrants. This simplistic picture obscures the real conditions in the plant, activists say, and the role the company itself played in fomenting divisions among workers. It also obscures the stand of the workers to assist each other.
According to Clarence Larkin, African-American president of IBEW Local 1317, the union at the plant, “this employer pits workers against each other by design, and breeds division among them that affects everyone,” he says. Workers at Howard Industries, however, have countered these company efforts. On August 28, MIRA’s Cintra led a group of women fired in the raid to the plant to demand their pay, after the company denied them paychecks. Managers called Laurel police. “They tried to intimidate us with 10 vehicles of police and sheriffs. They tried to arrest me and make us leave.” After workers began chanting, “Let her go!” and news reporters appeared on the scene, the company finally agreed to distribute checks to about 70 people.
The following day, Cintra and the women returned to the plant to get paychecks for other unpaid workers. They sat on the grass across the street from the factory in a silent protest. “When the shift changed, African-American workers started coming out and they went up to these Latina women and began hugging them. They said things like, “We’re with you. Do you need any food for your kids? How can we help? You need to assert your rights. We’re glad you’re here. We’ll support you.’ There’s a lot of support inside the factory for these workers who were caught up in the raid.”
Meanwhile, the union has been in negotiations with the company since its contract expired at the beginning of August. In preparation for those negotiations, the IBEW brought in a Spanish-speaking organizer to recruit immigrant workers into the union. She visited people at home to help explain the benefits of belonging. Larkin says many immigrant workers joined. He added, Howard has always been an anti-employee company, and treats workers with no respect, as though they make no contribution to its success.”
When workers have volunteered to become stewards, Larkin says, or to serve on the negotiations committee, the company “institutes a very aggressive discipline against them, so people fear reprisals. It’s a challenge to get people involved. Keep in mind this is the South. It’s always a tall order to talk about forming a union here.”
In Mississippi fish plants, Jaribu Hill, director of the Mississippi Workers Center, has worked with unions to help workers understand the dynamics of race. “We have to talk about racism,” she says. “The union focuses on the contract, but skin color issues are still on the table. We do not try to be the union, but we do try to keep a focus on human rights.” Organizing a multi-racial workforce means recognizing the problems that exist. “We’re coming together like a marriage,” she says, “working across our divides.”
Hill says it is important to understand the historical price paid for racial division in the South. “Our conditions are the direct result of slavery,” she explains. “Today, Frito Lay wages in Mississippi are still much lower than those in Illinois — $8.75 compared to $13.75 an hour. This is the evolution of an historical oppression.”
Larkin makes the same point. Wages at Howard Industries, the world’s largest manufacturer of electrical transformers, are $2 lower than other companies in the industry, he says. That difference goes into the pocket of the Howard family.
Some state labor leaders, however, have contributed to racial divisions and anti-immigrant hostility. After the Howard Industries workers, many of them union members, were arrested, a state AFL-CIO official told The Associated Press that he doubted that immigrants could join unions if they were not in the country legally. U.S. labor law, however, holds that all workers have union rights, regardless of immigration status. It also says unions have a duty to represent all members fairly and equally.
ICE spokesperson Barbara Gonzalez has also attempted to spread divisions by claiming the raid took place because of a tip by a “union member” two years before. She said ICE waited two years before conducting the raid, because “we took the time needed for our investigation,” but declined to say how that investigation was conducted, or what led ICE to believe the tip had come from a union member.
“It is hard to believe that a two-year-old phone call to ICE led to this raid, but whether or not the call ever took place, that possibility is a product of the poisonous atmosphere fostered by politicians of both parties in Mississippi,” says MIRA director Bill Chandler. “In the last election, Barbour and Republicans campaigned against immigrants to get elected, but so did all the Democratic statewide candidates except Attorney General Jim Hood. The raid will make the climate even worse.”
During the 2007 election campaign, the Ku Klux Klan organized a 500-person rally in Tupelo, targeting immigrants and African Americans. MIRA organizer Erik Fleming urged Republican Governor Haley Barbour to veto a bill making work a felony for the undocumented, was attacked by state anti-immigrant organizations. He, like MIRA, have continued to defend rights.
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Appeals Based On Lawyer Errors To Be Eliminated
Government Targets Legal Appeals by Immigrants
U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey is planning to end the right of immigrants to reopen cases that were lost because of their lawyers’ mistakes or incompetence. Mukasey announced that he was considering the issue late this summer. He then imposed the deadline of October 6 for interested parties to submit briefs, a direct effort to prevent organizations opposing the change, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Immigration Law Foundation and the American Bar Association (ABA), from providing a meaningful response.
“It is remarkable that the attorney general would refuse to give the legal community sufficient time to respond to a change that would so dramatically break from fairness and due process,” said ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project Deputy Director Lee Gelernt. “There is absolutely no reason why the justice system should penalize anyone, including immigrants, for the harm done by incompetent or unscrupulous attorneys.” Many organizations and lawyers protested the fact that the government is acting to change a major legal issue yet provided so little time for briefs and papers to oppose the change. It is also recognized that the government has been using immigration as an arena to attack rights, such as with raids without warrants, mass round-ups, mass trials and more. This action by the attorney general is consistent with efforts to increasingly limit the ability of people to defend their rights.
Mukasey’s orders as well as letters to Mukasey from the ACLU, ABA, the American Immigration Law Foundation and numerous partners at some of the country’s most prestigious law firms opposing the change or objecting to insufficient time allotted for submitting briefs are available online at: www.aclu.org/immigrants/gen/37064res20081007.html.
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