ICE RAID UPDATE: Another Exploitive Employer Finally Faces the Music! But No Relief for Workers!

In March, 2007, one of the largest and most non-humane ICE Raids occurred at the Michael Bianco Inc. plant in New Bedford, MA. Federal authorities arrested 361 workers, most of whom were from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. These raids were particularly cruel as ICE Raiders stormtrooped into this small factory and arrested the majority, 361 of their workers. These workers were shackled. Many were rushed away into the night and flown to a Detention Center in Texas. Families and the townsfolk were in shock especially since there was no mention of where the workers were being sent or how their children or families could contact them. Immigrant advocates criticized the raid for separating families and leaving children without proper care. Somehow, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency said the raid was properly handled although leaders in the State of Massachusetts disagreed.

It was reported that Francesco Insolia, the owner of the plant, had solicited, hired and exploited these 300+ workers, most of whom were from war torn, hurricane ravaged Guatemala. He said he did this so he could fulfill his contract with the Government of producing backpacks for the soldiers in Iraq. Initially, no charges were filed against Insolia although the government did say they were investigating. Now, 19 months later, news reports indicate Insolia is FINALLY being held accountable for his crimes.

AP Reports:

Michael Bianco Inc., a manufacturer that was awarded almost $230 million in (Government) contracts, also pleaded guilty Monday to 18 specific counts of knowingly hiring illegal immigrants between early 2004 and late 2006. The company has agreed to pay a fine of about $1.5 million and pay around $460,000 in restitution for overtime owed to employees. Insolia faces a year to 18 months in prison for his guilty plea and has agreed to pay a fine of $30,000. "The defendants' conduct in this case undermines our nation's principles of freedom and the integrity of our immigration system, oftentimes placing legally operating businesses at a competitive disadvantage," said U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan. In addition, Sullivan announced that two managers of Michael Bianco Inc. have agreed to plead guilty in connection to the March 2007 raid. Dilia Costa, the company's production manager, pleaded guilty to hiring and harboring illegal immigrants. Gloria Melo, the company's contracts administrator, pleaded guilty to continuing to employ illegal immigrants even after the company had reason to know their legal status. All will be sentenced in mid-January.

I have reported and commented about Insolia for some time. His was the first of the largest ICE Raids with the most inhumane treatment to their workers. He has gone unpunished for his exploitation for far too long. It is about time he has been brought to justice given the danger he imposed on his workers and on the New Bedford community. That said, it should also be reported that his business, Michael Bianco Inc., went OUT of Business. He sold his company to Eagle Industries of Fenton, Mo., his largest competitor. The latest information I found on Eagle Industries in New Bedford was this report.

from the MA AFL-CIO:

Description:
When workers at Eagle Industries in New Bedford tried to organize with UNITE HERE, management told more than four dozen workers that they were being terminated and their jobs shifted to Puerto Rico.
Eagle Industries is under contract to produce backpacks for the U.S. military. Join us in letting them know that companies under contract with the federal government should respect the right to join a union, and not send jobs offshore as a form of retaliation.

This exploitive employer is abusing American workers! Why aren´t these types of threats illegal?

Politicians in the Heartland Agree! Say NO to MASS Deportation!!

Politicians across the Heartland from ALL political parties are in agreement. They ALL are saying NO to Mass Deportation!

Agrinews Reports: Immigration: Barkley said the nation needs to bring immigration out of the closet and deal with it. It would be impossible to deport 12 million people. The only thing building a 21-foot-tall fence along the border with Mexico will do is create a demand for 21-foot-tall ladders, he said. The only people who need to be deported are members of the ruling party in Washington, Williams said. The nation's economy would collapse if all illegal immigrants were deported. He proposes a program where illegal immigrants register as guest workers and that the company hiring them pay their health insurance costs and a 10 percent tax on their wages to pay for costs associated with integrating them into the United States. Many Minnesota dairy farmers rely on guest workers to milk their cows and those workers need to be put on a path to citizenship, Franken said.
"We need comprehensive immigration reform," he said. Coleman said the priority should be secure borders. He doesn't support a required path to citizenship, but he does support a guest worker program.

Postville Update: ACLU Uncovers PROOF of Justice Denied in Speedy Cattle Barn Trials!

The truth has come to light and is now before a Congressional Hearing! The ACLU has uncovered the Government "manual" distributed to Iowa defense lawyers to commit their swift cattle barn injustice in Postville. Workers were hauled to Cattle Barns. The judge and the prosecutor agreed to the prescripted hearings and preordained guilty pleas. Lawyers were handed the scripts and told to support dozens of clients, with little to no preparation but the scripts. End Result: Guilty Verdicts and Injustice for All!

The New York Times reports: (summary)

The legal blueprint for those extraordinarily swift proceedings (in Postville) has come to light, and it is raising questions about the close collaboration in the months before the raid between the federal court in Iowa and the prosecutors who pressed the charges. The blueprint is a 117-page compendium of scripts, laying out step by step the hearings that would come after the raid at the Agriprocessors plant in Postville, Iowa, the largest immigration enforcement operation ever carried out at a single workplace. The documents suggest that the court had endorsed the prosecutors’ drive to obtain the guilty pleas even before the hearings began. The scripts included a model of the guilty pleas that prosecutors planned to offer as well as statements to be made by the judges when they accepted the pleas and handed down sentences. “This was the Postville prosecution guilty-plea machine,” said Lucas Guttentag, director of the Immigrants’ Rights Project of the A.C.L.U. “The entire process seemed to presume and be designed for fast-track guilty pleas.”
One defense lawyer who received the scripts from prosecutors on the day of the raid said he became convinced that the hearings had been organized to produce guilty pleas for the prosecution. As a result, the lawyer, Rockne Cole, declined to represent any of the arrested immigrants and “walked out in disgust,” he wrote in a letter to a Congressional subcommittee that is scrutinizing the raid and the legal proceedings that followed. Mr. Cole wrote that he was most dismayed to see that the scripts specified the particular plea agreements that would be offered to the defendants. “What I found most astonishing,” he wrote, “is that apparently Chief Judge Reade had already ratified these deals prior to one lawyer even talking to his or her client.” The hearings were conducted in emergency courtrooms set up in the National Cattle Congress, a fairground in Waterloo. Magistrate judges took guilty pleas from immigrants in groups of 10, then the immigrants were immediately sentenced, five at a time. Only a handful of the workers, mostly illegal immigrants from Guatemala, had prior criminal records. The scripts specified that prosecutors would offer a particular type of plea agreement that leaves no discretion to judges to raise or lower sentences. Some defense and immigration lawyers said the inclusion of these plea agreements was a sign of overly close cooperation between the court and prosecutors. “Here you have a court communicating with one side and not the other about substantive issues,” said Robert R. Rigg, a Drake University law professor who is president of the Iowa Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. “The court had bound itself to the agreement before the plea was accepted.” Professor Rigg and other legal scholars said such plea agreements were generally negotiated between prosecutors and defense lawyers after a defendant was charged, and were later approved by the judge. The rule governing the plea bargaining says, “The court must not participate in these agreements.”

Local Mayor´s Dogs are Murdered!! WHAT IS HAPPENING TO AMERICA? ARE WE ALL LOSING OUR CIVIL LIBERTIES?

What is Happening??? Why are we ALL losing our Civil Liberties? Can the "powers that be" storm in and shoot up your dogs? Your Family? What is happening in America?!?!? Are we willingly allowing our Civil Liberties to be stolen from us?? This reminds me of Arpaio´s Racial Profiling Sweeps happening now in Maricopa County!!

Mayor wants federal probe after SWAT raids house, kills dogs (CNN) -- A Maryland mayor is asking the federal government to investigate why SWAT team members burst into his home without knocking and shot his two dogs to death in an investigation into a drug smuggling scheme. "This has been a difficult week and a half for us," Cheye Calvo, mayor of Berwyn Heights, Maryland, said Thursday. "We lost our family dogs. We did it at the hands of sheriff's deputies who burst through our front door, rifles blazing." The raid last week was led by the Prince George's County Police Department, with the sheriff's special operations team assisting, after a package of marijuana was sent to Calvo's home. Authorities say the package was part of a scheme in which drugs are mailed to unknowing recipients and then intercepted.
Calvo said he had just returned home from walking his two Labrador retrievers, Chase and Payton, when his mother-in-law told him a package had arrived for his wife, Trinity Tomsic. Moments later, Calvo was in his room changing for a meeting when he heard commotion downstairs.
"The door flew open," he said. "I heard gunfire shoot off. There was a brief pause and more gunfire."
Calvo said he was brought downstairs at gunpoint in his boxer shorts, handcuffed and forced onto the floor with his mother-in-law near the carcass of one of dead dogs. "I noticed my two dead dogs lying in pools of their own blood," Calvo said. Calvo said his mother-in-law is still recovering from the incident.
"She got the worst of it," Calvo said. "She was literally in the kitchen, cooking a lovely pasta dish, and they brought down the door and shot our dogs." While he was being held, Calvo said, he told police he is the town's mayor, but they didn't believe him. Berwyn Heights has its own police force, he said, but Prince George's County police did not notify the municipal authorities of their interest in his home or the package.
"They didn't know my name. All they knew was my wife's name. They matched that to the registration of the car," Calvo said. "It was that lack of communication that really led to what has really been the most traumatic experience of our lives." After the raid, arrests were made in the package interception scheme.
The incident has prompted the couple to call for a federal investigation because, they say, they don't believe police are capable of conducting an internal investigation. "They've said they've done nothing wrong," Calvo said. "I didn't sign up for this fight, but I think what we have to do now is make changes to how Prince George's County police and Prince George's County sheriff's department operate." Calvo said authorities entered his home without knocking and refused to show him a warrant when he requested one. But Prince George's County Police Department spokeswoman Sharon Taylor said legal counsel had informed her that "no-knock" warrants do not exist in Maryland. Taylor said authorities were acting on a warrant issued based on information available to them at the time. "This warrant was for permission to search the premises," she said. "The special operations team that supported us made a decision about the necessity of entry at the point of being on the scene." "No-knock" warrants have drawn criticism before. In Atlanta, Georgia, Kathryn Johnston, 92, was shot to death by police in a botched drug raid involving such a warrant in November. Taylor, a self-described dog lover, expressed sympathy for the loss of Calvo's dogs, but stopped short of apologizing for the incident.
"We've done these similar kinds of operations over and over again, to the tune of removing billions of dollars of drugs from the community and without people or animals being harmed," she said. "We don't want any of our operations to result in the injury or loss of anybody, and certainly not animals." The deputies have said they killed the two animals because they felt threatened. "I would say that the dogs presented a threat, I would imagine, to the special operations situation," Taylor said. Meanwhile, Calvo and his wife said members of the community have expressed sympathy and concern about the incident. At a news conference Thursday, Tomsic tearfully recalled a recent encounter with a neighbor who used to wave at the couple as they walked Payton and Chase. "She gave me a big hug," Tomsic said. "She said, 'If the police shot your dogs dead and did this to you, how can I trust them?' "

Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon Calls Joe "Shakiest Gun in the West!"

Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon has laid down the gauntlet! He said, "I think with law enforcement, the last thing anybody wants is somebody with a gun, both that is angry and shaking... Arpaio is increasingly engaging in bizarre behavior, erratic ramblings and misstatements, contradicting himself within the same statement." This is quite a statement from the honorable Mayor. Will Joe take this sitting down or is he bent on revenge. We will see (and I will report) in the days and weeks ahead!

KPHO News Reports:Gordon-Arpaio Feud Escalates, Debate Swirls Over Enforcement Of Immigration LawsPOSTED: 1:05 pm MST July 15, 2008

PHOENIX -- Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon and Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio squared off again Tuesday in their ongoing battle over enforcement of immigration laws. Gordon said the sheriff has lost his focus and is not helping the county at all with reducing crime. "The continuing bizarre behavior of the sheriff, including last night's demonstration of anger and sarcasm, is continuing evidence that the stress and criticism of the office is affecting the sheriff's judgment," Gordon said. Arpaio said Gordon is not an expert on law enforcement and represents only one vote on the City Council. He also said Gordon lies and misrepresents statistics.

Asked whether he would have Arpaio working for him if he were the sheriff's boss, Gordon said no. "I think with law enforcement, the last thing anybody wants is somebody with a gun, both that is angry and shaking," the mayor said. "You'll see Arpaio is increasingly engaging in bizarre behavior, erratic ramblings and misstatements, contradicting himself within the same statement."

Arpaio said Gordon has no business criticizing him for doing his job and that he has overwhelming public support compared with the mayor. "He constantly criticizes me with my 48 years of law enforcement," Arpaio said. "A poll came out today. It said 86 percent support me, 14 percent support the mayor. He better look at what the people think. We are politicians. We serve the people." "I don't know when he became an expert on law enforcement," Arpaio said. "He's just a mayor with one vote."
Gordon said Arpaio, who continued another one of his controversial crime suppression efforts in Mesa on Tuesday, is putting too much emphasis on immigration issues. "You see rising crime rates in the county. You see the response times that have gone sky high where he's responsible. And you see the arrest rates going down," Gordon said. "Any other chief wouldn't be there."
Arpaio said his deputies have made thousands of felony arrests and conducted thousands of investigations and that 3,000 members of the Phoenix police union have endorsed him for re-election in November.
He said Gordon has attacked him with "petty statistics." "I'm not going to debate this guy," Arpaio said. "I'm going to keep doing my job. The people support me. I'm the elected sheriff and I back up my officers."

Postville Update: Severed Limbs Common at Agriprocessor´s Medieval Plant!

Medieval! The Des Moines Register, the warrant and the OSHA reports tell us the Conditions at the Agriprocessors plant have been medieval for some time! They have a long history of amputations including severed hands, feet, crushed body parts. Workers were made to work long hours (up to and over 80 hours in a week with no overtime) in unsafe conditions and no safety equipment.

The DesMoines Register reports:

Plant has long history of safety violations
Three months ago, state officials cited Agriprocessors for 39 workplace safety violations - an unusually large number.Federal and state records give conflicting information on fines against the company, but for the past few years Agriprocessors appears to have compiled one of the worst safety records of any meatpacking plant in Iowa. Although detailed worker-injury reports since 2006 are not publicly available, the Register has reviewed Agriprocessors' reports for the three previous years.

In 2003, the company reported 83 employee injuries, including smashed ankles, lacerated tendons in hands, smashed arms, and amputated fingers.

In 2004, the number of injuries jumped 45 percent, to 120, with workers being treated for chemical burns to their eyes and feet, third-degree burns, hand lacerations and broken ribs.

In 2005, the number of injuries dropped to 103. They included hearing losses, smashed fingers and severed fingers. The 2005 reports include the three amputations that began with Carlos Torrez's loss of a finger.

State records indicate that four weeks after that accident, Adolfo Lopez, 26, was working on a machine called "the foot masher."Witnesses said they heard Lopez screaming about 5:30 a.m. He had been clearing debris from inside the machine when a supervisor unwittingly turned on the device, crushing Lopez's left hand."I saw (Lopez) caught up in the gears, the teeth of the foot masher," maintenance worker Deon Branish told officials. "His left hand was stuck all the way to the wrist." Ten days after that incident, plant sanitation manager Jeff Bohr was at home when a co-worker called to tell him Eduardo Santos, 25, was in the laundry room with a severe hand injury. Bohr went to the plant, examined Santos' right hand, and called an ambulance. Then he looked into the machine Santos had been working on and saw pieces of two work gloves."There were also pieces of skin and bone," Bohr wrote in his report.Company records indicate Santos lost two fingers and a thumb. The remainder of his hand was crushed.

Workers must pay for safety equipment:

Company records indicate that workers had long been forced to either do without the protective gear or purchase it themselves from the company. And because some workers allegedly had no lockers at the plant, they often took their chemical-soaked rain suits home with them at the end of their shift. Company Vice President Sholom Rubashkin, in a September 2000 memo to all employees, included an "equipment price list" that identifies rain pants and jackets, as well as "wrist wraps" and "back support," as "personal clothing-type equipment," rather than mandatory, company-issued safety equipment. For at least six years, workers were being charged $30 for the pants and $30 for the jackets. Boots were $20.85. At those prices, 100 rain suits would have generated $8,000 in revenue for the company. By comparison, the state fine for this serious safety violation was $1,000.
In December 2006, a commission appointed by the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism found significant health and safety concerns at the Postville plant, including unsafe chemical use and "inadequate or nonexistent safety training."OSHA cited the company for more violations, and federal investigators launched a wide-ranging investigation into allegations of people in the United States illegally who were hired there, of child-labor law violations and of workplace safety issues.
Court records show that in January 2008, federal authorities equipped an informant with a hidden device to record a safety briefing for new employees. During the briefing, employees were allegedly told that their pay would be docked $2 per week to pay for gowns and gloves that they were required to wear. That informant, and another, made broader allegations, too. One told authorities a plant supervisor had put duct tape over the eyes of a Guatemalan worker and then beat the worker with a meat hook. Another told authorities that some workers were paid less than minimum wage and were paid in cash. Several informants alleged that the Postville work force was rife with illegal immigrants.

Cronyism:

In April, Eric Frumin of the Change To Win labor organization testified before a U.S. Senate subcommittee that was investigating workplace safety. He told senators that Agriprocessors had just been cited for 39 additional violations of health and safety regulations that carried potential fines totaling $182,000. "For perspective," he testified, "in 2007, Iowa OSHA issued 19 violations for all meatpacking plants in Iowa, with fines totaling over $120,000."What Frumin didn't realize was that the Iowa OSHA office had already agreed to cut Agriprocessors' fines. The agreement would not be made public for several weeks, but when it was, it showed the state had cut the proposed $182,000 fine to $42,750.

The company has had annual revenue of $250 million.

Postville Latest Update: Low Level Hispanic Supervisors Arrested, Warrant Out for Jewish Manager who Fled to Israel! Feds said Plant "Medieval!"

Congratulations to the Union and to the Blogosphere for keeping the pressure on the Justice Department. They arrested two Agriprocessor Supervisors.
Special Kudos to FailedMessiah.com and to the Latino PRO Blogosphere for keeping this topic HOT!
The bad news is, only two low level Latino supervisors have been indicted so far. Juan Carlos Guerrero-Espinoza was a supervisor in the Beef Kill dept. Officials are saying he was an American citizen. They are keeping mum on the citizenship status of Martin De La Rosa-Loera, the supervisor of the Poultry kill department. There is an arrest warrant out for Jewish Plant Manager Amara, however as we previously reported, Agriprocessors quickly whisked him off to Israel one step ahead of the authorities. Rubashkin also replaced his son Sholom as Chief Executive attempting to save him from being charged. News reports indicate, however, that due to the continued pressure from the Unions and the Blogosphere, the Grand Jury investigation of Agriprocessors is continuing, especially since they found Fake Green Cards in Agriprocessors HR Office and Feds investigating said the Plant Conditions were medieval!
The Cedar Rapids Gazette is reporting:
..The supervisors were indicted by a federal grand jury after a former human resources employee and illegal immigrants at Agriprocessors testified last month, according to court records. They told investigators of an effort by the men to update employee documents in the weeks before the raid. The week before the raid, Guerrero-Espinoza told some of his employees to give him $200 for new documentation to continue working at the company, court records state. Some of the workers testified that he asked them for an extra $20 to cover the cost of gasoline or serve as his commission. On the day before the raid, the workers were provided new application packets complete with fake resident alien cards to sign and return...Both men face up to 20 years in prison if convicted of the charges. Guerrero-Espinoza is facing an additional charge of aiding and abetting aggravated identity theft, which could get him another sentence of up to 15 years. ICE officials are seeking the public's help in locating Hosam Amara, 43, last known to live in Postville. The criminal complaint against him has been sealed until his arrest. Anyone with information is asked to call ICE at 1-(888) 347-2423.
The New York Times reported:
..Federal authorities called the raid the largest enforcement operation by immigration authorities at a single workplace. Unions and immigrant advocacy groups had criticized immigration officials for focusing arrests on workers while taking no action against top managers. The arrest warrant was issued for Hosam Amara, 43. In interviews after the raid, several workers said Mr. Amara was a floor manager with more authority than line supervisors. They said he was a link between workers on the slaughterhouse floors and meatpacking lines and more senior management. Agriprocessors, which before the raid was the country’s largest producer of kosher meat, is owned by Aaron Rubashkin. Two weeks after the raid, he removed his son Sholom as chief executive. Most of the illegal immigrants arrested at the plant were from rural Guatemala. In expedited proceedings (Cattle Barn justice), 270 workers were sent to federal prison on criminal charges, most for presenting false documents when they were hired...A former human resources employee cited in the complaint said Mr. Guerrero regularly brought in fake green cards for applicants.
A separate complaint says Mr. De la Rosa, a supervisor in Poultry Kill, also told illegal immigrant workers shortly before the raid that they needed new identity documents. The complaints make it clear that a grand jury investigation of Agriprocessors is continuing. Union officials said the new arrests did not go far enough. “The arrest of two low-level supervisors, while a start, barely scratches the surface of this company’s bad behavior,” said Scott Frotman, a spokesman for the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, which has tried to organize the plant. “What about the allegations of worker abuse? Does anyone really believe that these low-level supervisors acted alone without the knowledge, or even the direction, of the Rubashkins and other senior management?”

UPDATE:
Wall St Journal reports:
..The complaint (warrant) also alleges that the May 12 raid resulted in the seizure of dozens of fraudulent permanent alien resident cards in the human-resources department at Agriprocessors. The raid exposed allegations that workers at the sprawling plant, which employed more than 900 people, were underpaid, physically abused, sexually harassed and extorted. Speaking on condition of anonymity, a U.S. government official who has visited the plant described the operation as "medieval." An investigation is still under way, and a court spokesman declined to disclose whether more arrests are likely.

BREAKING NEWS! ICE RAIDS SWEEP ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS!!

Unbelievable! ICE RAIDS are now sweeping across California High Schools and Elementary Schools, racially profiling all Latino Children in the affected schools.

Are Immigration Authorities Going After School Children Now?
By New American Media. Posted May 8, 2008.Editor's Note: Immigration raids near schools in Berkeley and Oakland have sent waves of panic in the communities and may keep undocumented students from attending class, writes NAM education reporter Amanda Martinez.
OAKLAND, Calif. - ...As word of the presence of ICE agents in the neighborhood spread, Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums rushed over to Esperanza Elementary School, where a number of parents and community members had gathered. Addressing them, the Mayor called the situation the "the ugly side of government." He labeled the ICE actions "inappropriate and unnecessary" and reiterated that children needed education, not harassment. "There should be no raids in Oakland," he said. "As a sanctuary city," Dellums said, "we're all in unison. We don't want this type of intimidation. Immigrants are human beings, and need to be dealt with respect." Oakland Vice Mayor Larry Reid, who also showed up at the school, said there was no warning about the ICE raids. "ICE just rolls in and tells our police department after the fact," he said. "The students are upset and crying. The school's administration said some of the kids are very shook up." ICE spokeswoman Virginia Kice said that the agency is mindful of the sensitivities associated with schools. She said there was no truth to the reports that ICE was targeting schools on this day, and that the two ICE fugitive operations teams based in the Bay Area go out virtually every day seeking immigrant fugitives.
She confirmed that on the morning of May 6, ICE officers arrested four immigration violators who were from Mexico, and were living at a residence in Berkeley. A fifth person was arrested at a residence in Oakland, she said, noting that all five have been released, pending immigration hearings. Sara Nuno of the Family and Community Office of the OUSD dismissed ICE's assertion that there was no targeting of any schools. "They are targeting schools and we are watching them do it," she asserted. Ellen Murry, who had come to the school to pick up her grandnephew, said that she believed these types of government actions hurt all students, not just the undocumented ones. She said that if students stayed away from school out of fear, it could impact the school district's income, the bulk of which comes from student attendance. Troy Flint, communications officer of OUSD, pointed out that such raids distracted students who were taking the state standardized test. He assured students that the OUSD would do everything it could to allow them to finish taking the tests. Parents and local groups, including the Alameda Labor Council, sent out more than 900 e-mails letting parents know of what was taking place. One parent liaison, who helped to make phone calls throughout the day to concerned parents, said he thought the fear of deportation was serious. If parents sought his advice, he said, he would tell them to keep their chidren at home, even though the OUSD has assured them that the students would be protected.

Latino Trail of Tears: 66 Died in Heinous Family Detention Centers! (for a CIVIL Violation!)

What do we tell our Children?
How do we say we did NOTHING but sit on our hands as 66 people died in Family Detention Centers for NOTHING more than a Civil Violation as our Administration stays hindered by armies of those pushing for restrictionist laws and our government can not move forward with Comprehensive Immigration Reform!?!
The 66 risked their LIVES to provide their Children the Opportunity for the American Dream! Did they die in Vain?

The New York Times Reports:

Immigration Agency’s List of Deaths in Custody
Published: May 5, 2008
The document that follows, “Detainee Deaths 2004-November 2007,” is the government’s fullest account to date of deaths in immigration detention. Compiled by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and obtained by The New York Times under the Freedom of Information Act, it lists the names of 66 people who died, their dates of birth and death, where they were last held, where they died and the cause of death...The list does not mention the immigrants’ nationalities or where they lived in the United States. Some names and birth dates appear garbled. For example, No. 39 on the list is Reinaldo Prado-Arencilia, who died in a Houston hospital after an “unwitnessed arrest” in a privately run detention center. (Note: Who is really dying in the Detention Centers? How are they dying? Are they murdered? Who is accountable? Who even cares? These heinous Family Detention Centers reside in such a Veil of Secrecy!) A nationwide database search turned up no one with that name, but found a person named Reinaldo Prado-Arencibia who had lived in Florida. No. 18, N. Enriquez-Betancourt, is missing a first name. The birth date provided for No. 27, Yvel Fils-Aime, would have made him 48 when he died, but a newspaper obituary reported that a 29-year-old named Yvel Filsaime died on the same day in 2004, in the same place in Virginia. On Friday, immigration authorities confirmed that the birth date on the list was incorrect. Mr. Filsaime was born Nov. 2, 1975, they said, not Oct. 3, 1956. The list does not say where two of the detainees were being held, but it does provide locations for the others. It shows that 38 percent of the detainees were held in centers operated by county or local governments, and 27 percent in those run by the federal government. Privately run centers had 32 percent of the deaths, even though they housed only 19 percent of detainees over all, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
There are more than 300 detention centers around the country, but one private operator, the Corrections Corporation of America, had 13 deaths in its centers, including 5 at one in Eloy, Ariz. One locally run detention center, Hampton Roads Regional Jail in Portsmouth, Va., had 4 deaths, and another, Kern County’s Lerdo Detention Complex in Bakersfield, Calif., had 3.
The government produced the list after a Congressional hearing last fall into medical care and deaths in immigration custody. Representative Zoe Lofgren of California, the chairwoman of the House subcommittee that held the hearing, pressed for information on detainee deaths.
---------------

To all of my Readers,

The heinous Detention Centers are as bad as or worse than all of the atrocities that have gone before! Consider the Trail of Tears, the Japanese Internment Camps, the Holocaust! How can anyone, anyone deny what is happening and somehow, attempt to justify it!!

This is the NEW SHAME of OUR GENERATION!!

It MUST STOP!

STOP THE HEINOUS FAMILY DETENTION CENTERS!!

THERE IS NO EXCUSE!!

Latino Children Facing the New Trail of Tears!

As the restrictionist laws continue in Oklahoma, more and more Latino citizen children become the victims of racial profiling, bullying and harassment. This harassment continues with no penalties to the abusers!

NewsOk.com reports:

Many Hispanic students are targets of bullying in state

By Devona WalkerStaff Writer

Mayra Sigala lives in a two-bedroom mobile home on a remote road behind Frontier City. The door to her room is wrapped in red and pink Valentines Day paper. Cupids and hearts encase her name. At times, she seems amazingly mature for her age. At others, she seems more insecure than most 15-year-olds. "We try to ignore it as much as we can, but it just gets worse and worse,” Mayra said about the racist slurs yelled at her in the crowded hallways of Edmond Memorial High School. The first incident occurred in early November, within a week of the passage of House Bill 1804, Oklahoma's stringent immigration enforcement statute. A fellow student, a football player, yelled at her in the hallway. "He kept calling me names,” she said. "He kept telling me to go back to Mexico. I tried to tell him that I was born here, but he didn't believe me.” Other students laughed. "I guess they all agreed with him,” she said. Mayra did not tell the principal. She feared he would not believe her. Instead, she told her Spanish teacher. A few other Hispanic students were experiencing the same thing, she said. They were told by the teacher that something would be done. But the behavior continued, Mayra said. School officials say the information was not passed on. They say if they had known, something would have been done. But they conceded there have been issues in the past.