After the Raids
News report, New American Media
Valeria Fernández , Posted: Sep 04/05, 2008
ERASMA ZUNÚN LOPEZ lives a cautious life since the day she was arrested during an immigration raid almost two years ago. Now, doors are always double-locked and curtains are shut at her home. She lives near a police station in Greeley, Colorado, and she shivers any time she sees a police officer. She rushes back into her house when a white van approaches the station. She cries often for no immediate reason. Recurring nightmares haunt her. She no longer takes her eight grandchildren to the park a few blocks away. Her worst fear is to be separated from them again.
Lopez was one of 262 people who were arrested in 2006 when federal immigration agents raided the Swift & Company meatpacking plant in Greeley where she worked. About 1,300 workers were arrested at six of the company’s sites nationwide. Since the raid, justice has been postponed for at least 32 immigrant families like hers who live in legal limbo while they wait to see an immigration judge in October.
“They are stuck,” said Ricardo Romero, a Colorado immigrant rights activist. “They can’t work...what the hell are you doing giving them court dates two years after they’ve been arrested?”
"We used to have two checks coming in, now it's only one...we're limited in food [and] clothes, and gas is expensive." Many of the workers arrested in Greeley were Mexicans and Guatemalans, but the group also included Hondurans, Ethiopians and Laotians.
Among those from Mexico and Guatemala were many indigenous peoples from those countries who lived in families here with mixed documentation status. While they may not be citizens, they have U.S.-born children and spouses, or siblings who are citizens. Most of those arrested that day signed documents for voluntary deportation.
Others, like Lopez, chose to fight in court to stay, even if their likelihood of winning was remote. Some who were deported have already crossed the border again and are back with their children and working in Greeley’s underground economy.Al Frente de Lucha, a nonprofit organization run by Romero, has been helping 17 families with supplies and food coupons with the support of a local church, but help is running out.
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=3236feeaa1f7e54635ded906974f7641
