Immigration enforcement raids are becoming rote staples of the news cycle. A saddening reality at a time when Congress, the president, and most of the American people appear willing and ready to accept "comprehensive immigration reform" (certainly, Bill Gates and the farmers do). Yet, a year after the historic marches of spring 2006, we still have none. While lawmakers doddle, a presidential election looms on the horizon, lessening by the day the chances that some kind of reform will go through this Democratic-led Congress. So last week, dozens kids were stranded without their parents in New Bedford, Mass. where immigration raids swept up immigrants from Guatemala and El Salvador at a Michael Bianco Inc. plant with reportedly horrible working conditions. The mayor of New Bedford is outraged, according to this L.A. Times report by Erika Hayasaki, which begins:
Before heading off to jobs stitching safety vests for U.S. soldiers, the mothers kissed their babies goodbye, leaving them at nurseries or with sitters.
[...]
New Bedford Mayor Scott Lang called the factory a sweatshop, like "something out of a Dickens novel." He said that though the federal government was right to investigate the conditions and crack down on illegal immigrants, the workers should have been given a chance to take care of their children and put their affairs in order while awaiting legal hearings.
"The idea that we completely disrupt families, homes and the community in this matter," he said, "is not appropriate in the United States of America."
On Sunday at Olvera Street, Hermandad Mexicana held a press conference with young people whose parents are undocumented, calling on Washington to halt raids that divide families. Yet despite the schizophrenic message embedded in the ICE raids, the realities of our country's immigration problem are hard to deny. Our economy needs a steady stream of workers. Colorado gets it. Kinda. The state is looking to use prison inmates to work its undermanned farms. The notion of modern-day slavery has never sounded so apropos.
* AP photo above, dope-ass Mass. Gov. Deval Patrick comforts an employee of the plant in New Bedford that was raided by ICE.