On Dec. 12, at least 1,280 immigrant workers were arrested in a series of raids targeting meatpacking plants owned by Swift & Co. The raids took place in Colorado, Nebraska, Texas, Utah, Iowa and Minnesota. It was the largest immigration sweep ever targeting a single company. The vast majority of workers arrested are Latino from Mexico or Central America.
Jim Papain, a spokesperson for the United Food and Commercial Workers union, described what happened in the
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The raids tore apart families and disrupted the functioning of entire immigrant communities. Many children of the detained workers were left in school that day and school officials had to scramble to make arrangements for relatives to look after them. Sylvia Martinez of the immigrant rights organization Latinos Unidos reported that in Colorado alone more than 100 children were separated from their parents because of the raids.
Agents from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement division of the Department of Homeland Security claimed the mass raids were carried out because they suspected 170 Swift workers of using stolen Social Security numbers to secure work. Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff said on Dec. 13 that the repressive government arm was “cracking down” on identity theft.
This is untrue. The U.S. government knows that hundreds of thousands of undocumented workers labor in the country under these circumstances—and it is tolerated and even tacitly encouraged.
The immigrants are not the ones who procure Social Security numbers for work, it is the employers. They do this to exploit immigrant labor and lower wages for all workers.
The racist raids are attempts to increase the insecurity of the labor force to keep wages as low as possible. None of the companies targeted in the raids will be significantly punished at the highest managerial levels. Chertoff announced that Swift would not face criminal or civil penalties because of its close cooperation with the raids.
Despite the announced crackdown, no significant portion of the U.S. ruling class wants to end immigration. The capitalists need a consistent influx of cheap labor to keep the unstable economy running.
The U.S. capitalists need companies like Swift to remain healthy and profitable—just like it needs immigrant labor. If the flow of undocumented workers is cut off, businesses will have to pay citizens and residents higher wages to work. Undocumented workers can be exploited as cheap labor, because they have no legal status in U.S. capitalist society.
The government cynically chose Dec. 12 to carry out the raids; it is the Day of the Virgin of Guadalupe, a holy day for many in Mexico.
The raids also came on the heels of a workers’ victory at North Carolina’s Smithfield plant. Smithfield, the largest pork processing plant in the world, had fired 75 pro-union workers under the pretext of working under false Social Security numbers.
Over 1,000 meat packing workers boldly stopped work and walked out, demanding the reinstatement of all fired workers. Their work stoppage slowed down operations so much that management caved and met the workers’ demands.
Homeland Security’s “crackdown” on identity theft will likely bring more racist raids targeting undocumented workers. The government’s message is clear—it wants to keep the immigrant population in check. It wants to scare immigrants into submission so they won’t struggle for even the most basic workers’ rights.
But immigrant rights and progressive, anti-racist groups are fighting back. From Chicago to Los Angeles, organizations are protesting at federal government buildings to denounce the raids and demand justice for all immigrant workers.
