Bill Quigley | Shame: The US War Against Unarmed Working Mothers

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t r u t h o u t | 09.30

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Shame: The US War Against Unarmed Working Mothers

Tuesday 30 September 2008

by: Bill Quigley, t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Is this what our nation has come to? War against unarmed working mothers? Have we no shame?

Dozens of petite young mothers gathered this week in the parking lot outside the US Department of Homeland Security in Gulfport, Mississippi. Each wore a long dress or pants to hide her electronic ankle bracelet. Lift up a pants leg and you can see the black plastic band and monitor, which is the size of a pack of cigarettes. Most wore sandals. Several were obviously pregnant.

From the outside, the building looked like any office park. But a blue Homeland Security flag waved right next to the red white and blue out in front. Inside, the mothers were being interviewed and readied for deportation.

The crime these mothers are charged with? Not guns, not drugs, not spying. Working to put food on the table for their families and not being citizens of the US.

Heavily armed federal agents stormed the Laurel, Mississippi, parts plant where they worked in late August. Helicopters swarmed in an operation ABC News described as "paramilitary." Agents shackled hundreds of workers at the wrist, waist and ankles.

About one hundred women and nearly three hundred men were arrested. Most of the men are in prison. The women are wearing ankle bracelets 24/7.

One of the women has been working in the US for eleven years. She has children 8 and 7 years old. Another has been here two years and has a one-year-old child. One started work at the raided plant three weeks before the arresting immigration agents showed up.

In the Homeland Security office, no guns were visible. Agents were polite as interviews were conducted at several desks in an open office area. Yet, tears dripped down the face of one mother as federal agents questioned her.

These hundred mothers are a tiny fraction of the casualties of the US war on unarmed mothers and fathers.

In 2007, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested 30,408 immigrants, about double the number for 2006.

This 2008 election season finds federal criminal agents more active than ever. A few recent operations will illustrate.

In April 2008, federal agents arrested about 400 immigrants working at chicken plants in Arkansas, Florida, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia.

In May, US officials rushed eleven restaurants in San Francisco, arresting 63 immigrant workers.

Later in May, 389 immigrants were arrested in Pottsville, Iowa, for working at a meatpacking plant in what was then the largest workplace raid in US history. Federal agents packing heavy-duty weapons surrounded the plant, while others in helicopters swarmed overhead.

In July, 43 agricultural workers were arrested in Hawaii.

In August, federal officials arrested 59 people working at a parachute plant in North Carolina. Also in August, ICE agents arrested 42 undocumented people working at the Dulles airport.

Later in August, over 350 workers were arrested in a workplace raid in Laurel, Mississippi.

Thus far in September, there has been an increasing number of raids. In early September, federal agents raided a bakery in Palm Springs, arresting 53 workers. Another September raid netted 65 arrests at a candle plant in Arizona. In Chicago, federal agents swooped in by helicopter and arrested 21 people.

In the last week, federal agents raided a house in Hercules, California, arresting 21 undocumented workers, and raided a hotel in Maui, arresting another 21.

The U.S. Catholic Bishops, no leftist group, condemned the raids in September, saying, "The humanitarian costs of these raids are immeasurable and unacceptable in a civilized society."

What the hell is going on? How many working mothers and fathers and children must be sacrificed in this election-year war?

Does the US feel so vulnerable that we really need to declare war on unarmed working mothers and conduct paramilitary raids on bakeries, candle shops and meatpacking plants in order to feel safe?

The militarized war on unarmed immigrant mothers, fathers and children is expected to continue until at least after the November elections. By then, thousands more will be arrested and deported. After the election, the new Congress and the new administration will certainly turn their attention to substantive immigration reform. The high-profile war on unarmed working mothers will likely slow down a little. Mothers, fathers and children will go back to work. The butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker will be back in business and the shame will continue.

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Bill is a human rights attorney and law professor at Loyola University New Orleans. Bill and others at Loyola are helping the Catholic Legal Immigration Network represent dozens of mothers arrested in Laurel, Mississippi. Bill can be e-mailed at Quigley77@gmail.com

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