Immigration raid nets workers but stresses family fabrics
By E. Richard Walton, STAFF WRITER
Greenville Online, South Carolina
October 31, 2008
Many of the undocumented workers caught in a federal raid in Greenville last month may be deported, leaving behind children and other family members, homes, cars, clothes and property which a network of local volunteers are trying to sort and manage.
Court hearings are set to begin Nov. 12, according to a local attorney who has been providing legal advice to the affected workers.
The workers are accused of using fake and/or falsified paperwork to get jobs cutting chicken at Columbia Farms on Rutherford Road. More than 10 to 12 supervisors were also arrested prior to the raid.
Patricia Ravenhorst, a lawyer with the Wyche law firm, said some workers are being held in Georgia jails and have opted not to fight the charges. She said they have been transferred to jails in Alabama to be deported. She said she knows very few instances when undocumented workers caught in a raid like this have been permitted to remain in the United States.
"It rarely happens," she said.
A number of area churches are providing emotional and financial support to the workers and their families in the meantime, said Bill Lancaster, a spokesman for Foothills Presbytery.
"I think there’s no way to stop them from being deported," he said. "Some have already signed papers to be deported."
More than 230 of the workers, most of them Guatemalans, are being held in two jails in Georgia, according to Ravenhorst. At last count, about 58 workers were released for humanitarian reasons by federal prosecutors and ICE agents.
Most of those released were women or are primary caregivers or are the family’s major wager earner, according to a report by Ravenhorst. Those caregivers who were released agreed to wear electronic monitors on their ankles.
Ravenhorst said volunteers are still screening those with court dates, and volunteers are trying to get lawyers to represent them.
"We have 379 people in our data base, from which 107 have been released and are still in Greenville," said Adela Mendoza, a member of the Alliance for Collaboration with the Hispanic Community, a non-profit aided by volunteers.
Mendoza said there are other Hispanic workers who were asking for help, but volunteers wanted to focus solely on those caught in the raid and released from jail.
"We called folks who were wearing bracelets," she said.
Last Friday, volunteers bought $500 worth of food which they sorted and packed in 100boxes to distrubute. About $10,000 has been donated to those families to pay rent or mortgages due today.
While the raid attacked one problem, it left behind a complicated situation, Lancaster said. Couples from other countries and have lived and worked in the United States for a number of years have children who are American-born children.
"It makes things complicated," Lancaster said.
http://www.greenvilleonline.com/article/20081031/NEWS01/81031013/1013/NEWS05
