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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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