Socialist Action newspaper

Wave upon wave of Homeland Security raids continue to bludgeon immigrant workers across the United States as the Senate prepares to introduce its corporate overhaul of federal immigration policy.

The federal government has unleashed a counter-insurgency-type campaign against immigrant workers to prevent a repeat of the May Day 2006 upsurge. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE, part of Homeland Security) claims to have arrested more than 18,000 immigrants in "Operation Return to Sender," its nationwide crackdown that began in June 2006.

The Senate had to rescue its earlier reform from the flames of May Day 2006, when millions of immigrant workers stepped into the streets—and into the political debate—in a national work stoppage that was the largest day of protest in U.S. history. American multinationals are not easily discouraged, however.

ICE devastates New Bedford, Mass.

Just minutes into the morning shift on Tuesday, March 6, the 500 workers at the Michael Bianco textile plant heard the payroll manager’s voice on the loudspeaker ordering them to shut off their machines. The factory went silent. Then the lights shut off.

The workers, nearly all women from Central America, sensed what was happening and several

rushed to the exits; hundreds of ICE agents were entering the plant.

A black sea of SWAT officers rushed in, pointing pistols at the women and shoving them to the ground. Women were kicked and beaten. Dozens escaped only to find themselves surrounded by agents, with no way out save for the icy waters of Clarks Cove. An eyewitness saw several women—young mothers, likely—scurry across the rocks and plunge into the icy water.

Coast Guard helicopters hovered overhead to cover the escape routes. Workers leapt from third-story windows into the water below. Rumors of injuries and even two deaths have circulated in the community for days but gone unreported.

Inside the factory, ICE agents physically separated the captured workers. "They told American citizens to stand in one area and the people without papers to stand in another area," recalled a plant supervisor. "It was terrible, they were crying and didn't know what was going to happen."

ICE saved its largest worksite immigration raid to date for the East Coast. In all, its agents snatched 361 workers from a one-time manufacturer of leather handbags that has received $92 million in military contracts to switch over to bullet-proof vests.

ICE shuttled the prisoners to Fort Devens, an abandoned military base in Ayer, Mass., which is 90 miles from New Bedford. Within 48 hours, however, it would fly more than 200 prisoners to detention sites in Texas and New Mexico. The rapid transfer provoked a catastrophe for children of the detained. The Department of Social Services complained that ICE had refused to allow its case managers to interview prisoners about their child-care needs.

Governor Deval Patrick, who admitted to collaborating with the raid ahead of time, nevertheless criticized ICE for breaking their agreement to care for the small children of prisoners. Patrick made headlines by flying 37 social workers to Texas. Not to be outdone, the congressional delegation from Massachusetts ordered an official investigation of the raid.

About 100 children were left with babysitters or caretakers, said Corinn Williams, director of the Community Economic Development Center. A newborn baby who was breast-feeding wound up in the hospital for dehydration because her mother was arrested. A seven-year-old child telephoned a state emergency hotline looking for his mother.

New Bedford is a grim history lesson for the immigrant rights movement. On May Day 2006, the Michael Bianco workers overcame the threat of firing by walking out en masse. "They had a big meeting and called the owner, and they said they would like him to support them in this, and the owner said OK," a manager said. "If it were just five people, that would be one thing. We can't fire all of them."

Ten months of political inertia and the subordination of mass protest to closed-door meetings with legislators have left immigrant militants demobilized and vulnerable to attack.

Kennedy touts guest-worker bill

Four days after the raid, Sen. Edward Kennedy stood before the gloomy backdrop of New Bedford to eulogize the victims and pitch the corporate bill that bears his name. "I am hopeful that we in Congress can work together to find a better solution to the current immigration crisis than raids that rip families apart," Kennedy had written the day before in the Boston Globe.

Early drafts of his "better solution" call for doubling the number of border agents and quadrupling the number of ICE agents, not to mention upholding the plan to construct a 700-mile border wall.

"In the weeks ahead,” he wrote, “I will propose a comprehensive immigration reform bill that seeks to create an earned legalization program for undocumented workers who are already in the United States."

The Globe had reported a week earlier that to qualify for Kennedy’s legalization program, undocumented workers would have to reside in the U.S. for 12 years (up from five in the last version), learn English, pass a criminal background check, and pay thousands in "back taxes," plus a $2000 fine.

Kennedy dared to stand beside victims of the New Bedford raid and mouth ICE’s rationale for it by calling for tougher penalties against employers of the undocumented. It was a display of corporate fealty that explains why the largest employers of immigrant labor in the U.S. support Kennedy-McCain.

Under his pledge to "strengthen the economy," Kennedy giftwraps a virtual wage freeze for all productive industry in the U.S. He proposes to bind the legal status of immigrant workers to a single employer and thus prohibit them from selling their labor on the open market. The "guest-worker program," as it is known, creates a relationship between worker and employer that is reminiscent of indentured servitude.

The liberal shine of the Kennedy-McCain bill should blind no one to its ugly resemblance to the House proposal that millions of immigrants rejected last year. Its purpose is to squeeze more and cheaper labor from the most oppressed members of society. Its method is the club and the faraway promise of legalization.

ICE hits across the country

Federal agents launched a shot across the bow of the fastest-growing union in the country, the Service Employees International Union, in late February when they rounded up 193 janitors at corporate-chain restaurants in 17 states and the District of Columbia.

The cleaning company that employed the workers, Rosenbaum-Cunningham International Inc., was non-union. But the message of the raid could hardly be lost on SEIU, which has won recent strikes of 500 and 5300 immigrant janitors in Miami and Houston, respectively.

The United Food and Commercial Workers, meanwhile, suffered the departure of 300 workers from a union election drive at Smithfield Packing in Tar Heel, NC. Smithfield is collaborating with ICE to smash the union effort.

ICE agents raided the plant last month and arrested 21 workers. It also handed over to ICE 500 of its employees’ I-9 tax forms and gave them a deadline to establish their legal residency.

Among other recent ICE attacks, on March 6, ICE rounded up 36 immigrant workers at a Fiber-glas producer in Mishawaka, Ind., and swept through Latino neighborhoods in Marin County, Calif., making 30 arrests. Some people were dragged out into the cold wearing only boxer shorts and not given a chance to put clothes on.

On March 9, ICE arrested 10 immigrant workers at a construction site in Tuscon, Ariz., and 11 immigrants working at a party rental company in San Diego.

"Stop the Raids" forum in Danbury

More than 300 immigrants and supporters from around the Northeast gathered in Danbury, Conn., at a Feb. 25 East Coast forum to address the federal crackdown on immigrants. The forum was initiated by the Campaign to Stop the ICE Raids in Danbury, an ad hoc group of churches, immigrant clubs, and student and activist organizations in the area.

Swift & Co. meatpacking workers Anabel Pimentel and Rosa Lopez revealed the barbarity of the ICE raid in Hyurm, Utah, which resulted in 147 arrests. They brought the crowd to its feet with their fiery denunciations of the raids.

Eddie Acosta, the AFL-CIO’s liaison to the national day laborers’ network, voiced the federation’s opposition to the guest-worker program and emphasized the need for unions to organize the undocumented.

Other panelists were John Garcia, a lawyer for the immigrant communities of Hazelton, Pa.; Carola Braco, director of a day laborer’s center in Mt. Kisco, NY; and Leonel Villavicencio, a leader of the Campaign to Stop the ICE Raids in Danbury.

Days before the forum, ICE posted agents in the state probation office in Danbury and arrested 12 immigrants assigned there by the court for driving under the influence. ICE has made 35 arrests in Danbury since September, thanks to political cover lent by Mayor Mark Boughton, a national advocate for more punitive immigration policy.

The forum was the largest immigrant rights event in Connecticut since May Day. Participants said they felt invigorated and confident by the large turnout. The regional scope of the audience gave concrete shape to hopes that a Northeast Regional Coalition can emerge from the unrelenting sequence of ICE assaults.