UPDATE, Aug. 27: The number of detainees is now 595, making it the largest immigration raid ever in the U.S., and it could go even higher. The Laurel Leader Call quotes ICE Communications Director Barbara Gonzalez as saying: "This is probably the largest single site target for law enforcement."
For the second time in three months, a major immigration raid has led to the holding of 350 or more suspected illegal immigrants. This latest raid, which follows the May detention of a record 389 workers at a food processing plant in Postville, Iowa, took place at a transformer plant in Laurel, Miss., a town of 18,000. Warrants were also served at the company's local headquarters. "The Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed 350 people suspected as being illegal immigrants working at Howard Industries were found during a raid Monday," reports Jason Niblett of the Laurel Leader Call.
The paper notes that on Friday, the Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance warned of an impending raid in the area: “A series of preparations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement on the Gulf Coast has local advocates on edge about the possibility of yet another worksite raid .. " Bill Chandler, the executive director of the alliance, said the group is now "responding with humanitarian aid to the family members of the arrested.” (Read more)
Adam Nossiter of The New York Times notes that the Iowa raid "was a significant escalation of the Bush administration’s enforcement practices because those detained were not simply deported, as in previous raids, but were imprisoned for months on criminal charges of using false documents."
1 comment:
Hopefully ICE will continue these raids into North Mississippi where American workers in furniture factories are fired so that they can be replaced with illegals. While the advocates for illegals cry over the effect these raids have on the families of illegals they do not shed one tear for the families of those American workers who lose their job to illegals.
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