On Aug. 8, Centro Presente, an immigrant organization in Boston put out the following press release:
Communities of faith and community organizations publicly denounce operations recently conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
Somerville, MA – In recent days the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) has conducted operations in various cities in the greater Boston area. This situation has caused anguish and uncertainty in immigrant families. “We strongly reject the presence of ICE in our communities. We denounce their tactics which we find to be militaristic, intimidating and discriminatory. We believe in and reaffirm the concept of democracy, and for this reason we make use of our legitimate right to speak up and demand respect for the human dignity of the immigrant community. A profound change in the immigration policy of the United States is urgently needed; a legal overhaul that reflects the true principles of liberty and democracy under which this country was founded,” declared Maria Elena Letona, Executive Director of Centro Presente and member of the Executive Committee of The National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities (NALACC)…
In recent months, thousands of immigrants have been deported following ICE factory raids occurring with greater frequency across the United States. The largest raid in Massachusetts occurred in March 2007 in New Bedford when an army of 300 federal immigration agents raided a leather factory and arrested 350 Guatemalan and Salvadoran workers. Federal agents stormed the building and helicopters circled above the factory alerting the agents of escape routes when terrified workers tried to flee.
After the raid in New Bedford, I accompanied a group of volunteers to one of the jails where the Salvadoran women were being held in order to take their testimonies. “We’re not criminals,” I was repeatedly told, “why are they treating us like we are?” “We were working.” “We are just trying to feed our families.” “Why did they bring in helicopters as if we were dangerous people; we were simply sewing, doing our jobs.” Many of these women remember all too well the days of civil war in El Salvador when the sight and sound of helicopters circling an area meant bombs and terror. Many of the young women with whom I talked were clearly traumatized. Mothers were separated from their children, nursing mothers prevented from attending to their babies. Those arrested were being held in different detention centers, some as far away as Texas. They were given no information about each other or the process that would unfold. One of the young women shyly asked me if I knew where they had taken the Guatemalans. I didn’t. She was here in this country alone and had recently started seeing a young Guatemalan. “If he’s deported, I may never see him again or even know how to find him.”
The Great Wall of America?
Yesterday, I read an article in the June 30, 2008 issue of Time magazine, entitled: “The Great Wall of America,” by David Von Drehle. The article asks whether a 700 mile, billion dollar barrier going up between the U.S. and Mexico can “stop the tide of illegal aliens?” and the conclusion seems to be, “…marking the border and aggressively patrolling it can reduce illegal activity… [yet], it is only as effective as the force that backs it up.” It went on to discuss the volunteers that patrol the border along with the officials. The article’s sub-headline does beg the question, “… does America really need to wall itself off?” Yet, the thrust of von Drehle’s article is really about the strategies immigrants use to cross into the U.S. despite the physical barriers and armed border patrol, and the strategies we employ to prevent their making it. Interestingly enough, not once in eight pages did von Drehle ever ask the question, “Why do people choose to risk everything, including their lives; why do they leave their families and their communities, only to be treated with hostility and disdain, as if they were animals or criminals in order to come to the U.S. in the first place?”
So let’s ask it: Why are millions of Mexican and Central American farmers fleeing each year to the U.S?
Rather than spending a billion dollars to build a wall to keep “them” out (which most sane people know is a losing strategy anyway), rather than pointing fingers at immigrants, blaming them for the country’s woes and making them the focus of public disdain, fear and attack, perhaps it’s time to start asking questions of cause and effect. Let’s dig a little deeper, and look at the roots of immigration, rather than throwing billions of dollars in inhuman, ineffective actions that, even if they worked, would only address the symptoms. Let’s look at our country’s failed agriculture and trade policies which have made it next to impossible for small farmers to survive in rural Mexico, Central America, and in many other regions.
Isn’t it time to create policies which begin to put the interests of our people and our communities before the interests of corporations? Isn’t it time we led with our hearts and put our minds and our resources in service of fairness and justice?
Maria Elena Letona, Executive Director of Centro Presente, asks us to press for profound changes in the immigration policy of the United States. I couldn’t agree with her more. We must do this before more lives are lost crossing the border, and before more inhumane raids occur, unnecessarily terrorizing workers and communities. While we are advocating for these changes, let’s also urge our Representatives to re-examine our agriculture and trade policies so that they actually benefit small farmers, workers, local economies and the environment. Ultimately, the “immigration problem” will only be resolved through policies that provide solutions to skyrocketing food prices, loss of family farms, and the disintegration of communities.
Learn more about the TRADE Act and how you can help ensure passage of the first FAIR trade bill!
I am a New Bedford resident and live near the factory that got raided in March. I remember driving home from work and seeing a convoy of white busses with tinted windows and police cars at each end driving up 140N. Wondering was going on I got closer to home to see more buses and Rodney French Blvd. barricaded and swamped with ICE enforcement. Turning on the TV to find out what was going on I was immediately in shocked and disappointed. Hearing the stories from the news and neighbors of this tragic incident my heart fell for the employees at the Michael Bianco Leather factory. People were fleeing for their lives’; jumping into the waters of Clarks Cove doing anything they can to get away. To find out that employees and there families had been separated to different states in America, their children left behind, some may have been sent back to Guatemala and El Salvador, I couldn’t believe the inhumanity taking place in my back yard. I understand the issues of legal citizenship that lead to the situation but can see that there could have been a better way to handle it. I don’t know too much information about working visas’ for individuals and employers and applying for citizenship but I do know we have ways of helping immigrants do so. If I don’t know this information chances are that they don’t either, and we need to give them the info and tools to apply. We are not dealing with evil terrorist here; these are just people like you and me trying to make a living for themselves and their families. Give them the chance to work for these companies just like anyone would here. Not a lot of Americans want to do the jobs that these people do because they may think they are too good for it, even though they probably could really use that income. I haven’t done much follow up on the incident but I do know that the factory has new ownership and back in business. A country of opportunity that once took in immigrants is now turning force to these people that once helped build this land of freedom. I’m tired of people being treated with injustice, that’s not what America stands for in my eyes so this nonsense has to stop. We defiantly need a BIG CHANGE.
The national discussion around immigration can tell us a lot about who we are as a society. When I look at the debate taking place (especially by “smart people” like those on NPR, CNN, TIme, NYTimes, etc.) I noticed a total absense of some of the most basic points that should be center stage in the discussion. For me, those points are:
1) Latin America has been unapologetically dominated militarily and economically by the US since the Monroe Doctrine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_Doctrine)
2) US funded and directed wars in Central America (especially during the 80’s under Reagan) completely undermined social movements in those areas.
3) NAFTA and CAFTA have continued to destroy the economies in Mexico and Central America.
4) No one wants to travel thousands of miles under life threatening conditions to work in a Tyson Chicken factory. The only reason people do this is because they are desperate. Many of these people never see their families for a very long time or ever again.
Why aren’t these things being talked about by Lou Dobbs or Tom Ashbrook?
I think that we should be talking about these things.