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DANBURY,
Conn.—The U.S. Department of Homeland Security snatched 11 Ecuadorian day
laborers from a public park here in a sting operation on Sept. 19.
An
agent from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), posing as a
construction contractor, lured the day laborers into an unmarked van with
the promise of work. He then drove them instead to the parking
lot of the Danbury police station, where a team of federal agents
awaited to arrest them.
In
order to evade legal challenge and streamline the deportation process,
ICE spirited the day laborers 63 miles away from Danbury to the
state capital of Hartford, and by nightfall had shuttled them another 100
miles to a county lockup in Boston.
The
Danbury 11, as the detainees have become known, have not been charged
with a crime. But federal authorities continue to withhold their right to
contact their families and were refusing even to confirm their identities
until a public pressure campaign took hold and forced this minor
concession.
Danbury’s
Mayor Mark Boughton is responsible for the sting, and has promised that
more raids are to come. Boughton has tried to mute public outcry by
reducing the attack to a simple matter of law enforcement. “It's bad
public policy to have laws on the books that are not enforced,” he
recently asserted.
Boughton
chooses to ignore the fact that U.S. immigration policy exploits the
legal status of workers as a pretext to allow employers to pay them
less and deny them basic rights on the job.
And
Boughton is no passive observer, either. He is the author of a May 2005
proposal to deputize state police as federal immigration agents, which
was later rejected as “impractical” by the state public safety
commissioner. He also issued a citywide ban on volleyball games in
residential areas. The game is a favorite pastime of Ecuadorian workers,
but Boughton, in an appeal to racist sentiment, declared it a public
nuisance.
Boughton
has since founded a national network of politicians from towns that are
“overrun” by undocumented immigrant workers. In the name of political
ambition, he decries the toll that immigrant workers have taken on city
services, while labeling amnesty as a solution that rewards
“lawbreakers.” In short, he belongs to that pantheon of racist American
politicians who kindle hatred to fuel their rise to power.
Raids
on immigrants are part of the frontal assault on the living standards of
U.S. workers. If immigrants are terrorized back into the shadows of the
American workforce, the wheels are greased for the weakening of the
unions and the decline of wages and conditions for all.
The
federal sting met with a courageous response in the streets of Danbury on
Sept. 30, when 200 immigrants and supporters braved the climate of fear
to picket the offices of Mayor Boughton. They demanded freedom for the
Danbury 11, an immediate end to the deportations, and the end to all
collaboration between the Danbury police and federal immigration agents.
As
a result of the protests, four of the 11 were freed on bail. The other
seven, however, were sent to a jail in Texas.
On
Oct. 12, ICE struck again in Danbury, raiding the homes of three
immigrant workers and taking them prisoner. On the same day, a fourth
immigrant was pulled over by Danbury police for improper use of his turn
signal. The police called ICE and he was taken away.
A
national campaign to free the Danbury 11 is underway. We have to put
Homeland Security on notice that the American people will not sit by idly
while tens of thousands of workers are snatched by force from their homes
and workplaces.
We
demand full legalization for all the undocumented, recognition of their
right to work and live in peace, and the freedom to join unions and fight
alongside native-born workers to win higher wages, shorter work-days, and
health care and pensions for all.
Defend
our civil liberties! Stop the deportations! If you would like to join the
campaign to free the Danbury 11, call (203) 417-3590, or e-mail FreeTheDanbury11@yahoo.com.
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