 ICE raids are an instrument of state repression against immigrant workers who are only trying to earn a living. |
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents stopped and detained several vans filled with immigrant workers in the early hours of Jan. 6. The vans were carrying about 60 workers, including two 16-year-olds, all of Guatemalan descent, coming from northern Rhode Island into Foxboro, Mass. Seven workers remain in custody, five of the seven with pending charges, and two workers have been slated for deportation .
Forty-nine of the workers have been released but have been ordered to go to ICE offices for interviews to determine their immigration status and whether any immigration law s had been violated. After the workers were fingerprinted and released, ICE officials drove them back to Gillette Stadium, where their jobs were to clear snow prior to a New England Patriots football game.
The “delivery” of workers back to their workplace following the senseless raid is illustrative of the role played by ICE: protecting profit interests through the repression and criminalization of immigrant workers, which makes them more vulnerable to super-exploitation by their employers.
This is the largest attack on the Guatemalan population in Rhode Island and Massachusetts since the horrific 2007 factory raid in New Bedford, Mass., that forcefully separated many parents from their infant children. An ICE representative reportedly declared the most recent incident a “targeted law-enforcement operation looking for specific fugitives ,” yet the majority of the almost 60 workers detained had no criminal records. (Providence Journal, Jan. 8)
While the politicians in Washington pay lip service to “immigration reform,” the assault on hard-working immigrant communities continues in the form of racist raids and deportations. Real change will come at the hands of a mass movement that demands the immediate legalization and full rights for all immigrant workers. ¡Amnestia ahora!
