Arizona SB 1070 Copycats Fall Flat in Most State Legislatures

by Seth Freed Wessler
Colorlines
March 31 2011

At the start of the year, it appeared that Arizona’s SB 1070 would spread the country like wildfire, with at least 24 state legislatures having introduced copycat “show me your papers” bills since the original passed in spring 2010. But to date, none of those states have passed the bills and at least 10 legislatures have killed the bills altogether. Now, with many state legislative sessions coming to a close, the fight against SB 1070 copycat legislation appears contained to just a few key battlegrounds.

Converging forces have blocked the copycat bills’ success. On the one hand, the bills have spurred broad opposition from immigrant and civil rights groups, as well as from business interests. On the other, a ticking clock killed several bills as legislative sessions end before lawmakers have had time to pass the controversial laws—particularly in a season in which most state political debates are dominated by budget battles.

This week in Mississippi, a state where many feared the legislation could pass, the bill died after it failed to come to a vote before the session ended. The same outcome is expected in almost all of the 14 states with remaining bills this session.

Bill Chandler, executive director of the Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance, attributed the Mississippi bill’s failure to the breadth of the coalition opposing it. “It’s taken the leadership of the Mississippi Legislative Black Caucus and the African American community together with immigrants, not just Latinos, to mobilize people,” he said.

Business lobbies have come out against the bills as well, arguing that the legislation hurts the economy. They look to Arizona, where the Center for American Progress estimates that boycotts against Arizona in response to SB 1070 could cost the state more than $250 million in taxes, tourist spending and wages. As a result, Arizona business lobbyists played a key role in killing a suite of new anti-immigrant bills this session.

“The tide is starting to turn,” says Marisa Franco, an organizer with the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, an immigrant rights groups that’s helping lead the national fight against SB 1070-style bills. “In a period where many states are worried about budgets, they are starting to see that the economic costs of passing the bills is too great.”

While copycat legislation remains formally alive in as many as 14 states, few of the bills are expected to move forward. In some states, like California, the votes simply aren’t there to pass the bill. Earlier this month, the California bill’s author cancelled a committee hearing on the law.

Bills Still Moving in the South

The SB 1070-style laws remain alive primarily in a few southern states where conservative lawmakers continue pushing.

Georgia is currently closest to passing a bill. With only a handful of working days left before the state’s legislative session ends on April 14, a state senate committee approved a bill on Wednesday that looks very similar to one passed by the house side earlier this week. The bills will now have to be reconciled and voted upon again. If the state passes the legislation, it will become the country’s first SB 1070 copycat bill.

According to Azadeh Shahshahani of the ACLU of Georgia, the bill is precariously close to passing, even after months of organizing against the legislation. In the past several weeks thousands of people arrived to protest at the state capitol and a coalition of groups including the state’s NAACP have come out in strong opposition.

“The civil rights groups are concerned, especially with increased racial profiling,” said Shahshahani. “That’s brought us together.”

Immediately to the north in Tennessee, where many believed a bill would pass, it is now looking less likely to do so, according to advocates who are organizing against the law. The state has postponed deliberations on the matter until after it passes a budget, which is expected to leave little time for other bills.

South Carolina’s copycat bill already passed the senate and is now in the house’s hands. That state’s legislative session does not end until June and opponents of the bill worry it could become law there.

Florida’s immigrant rights groups and business groups have built a strong opposition to the bill there, and momentum for passage is waning. Notably, the state’s Chamber of Commerce came out against the legislation, arguing that immigrants bolster local economies.

Beyond SB 1070-Style Bills

Beyond SB 1070 copies, other anti-immigrant legislation is also failing to pass in state legislatures.

Even Arizona tossed out a round of bills this year that would have barred undocumented immigrants from using hospitals, and attending public schools. Another bill would have done away with birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants.

The failure of these bills made it seem that the state of Arizona might have hit bottom and that those leading the anti-immigrant charge were losing support. Paying little attention to the shift, notorious Maricopa County’s Sheriff Joe Arpaio on Tuesday announced the launch of “Operation Desert Sky.” The program will deploy 30 pilots into the air with M-16s to hunt border crossers.

Meanwhile, the federal government appears committed to pursuing another year of record setting deportations.

New data released this week by a coalition of immigrants and civil rights groups shows that the Obama administration’s signature deportation program is not targeting serious criminals, as has been claimed, but rather functioning as a deportation dragnet for all non-citizens. Most of those detained and deported as a result of the program, misleadingly called Secure Communities, have been convicted of no crime at all or of some low level violation.

Asraa Mustufa contributed reporting to this article.

http://colorlines.com/archives/2011/03/arizona_sb_1070_copycats_fall_flat_in_most_state_legislatures.html

Immigrant Rights Alliance Says Enforcement Unbalanced

by Ward Schaefer
Jackson Free Press
September 17, 2009

Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance Executive Director Bill Chandler is charging that the indictment of Jose Humberto Gonzalez in the 2008 Howard Industries immigration-enforcement raid highlights the unbalanced enforcement of federal immigration law. In 1986, the federal Immigration Reform and Control Act made employers liable for employing undocumented aliens.

"Since 1986 there's been a very small handful of employers that have been sanctioned for 'knowingly hiring illegal aliens,'" Chandler said. "On the other hand, literally hundreds of thousands of workers have been arrested and put into deportation proceedings. So walking into that picture at Howard Industries, the only Latino that is in the management of the company is the only one that is 'guilty' of hiring undocumented people. What about the Howard family and the rest of the management?"

The U.S. Attorney's office yesterday issued a new indictment (PDF) on Gonzalez, the personnel manager for Laurel-based Howard Industries, which was the subject of the largest immigration-enforcement raid in U.S. history. The previous indictment (PDF), issued May 6, alleged that Gonzalez engaged in a conspiracy to hire undocumented workers with false identification. The revised indictment adds a charge of aggravated identity theft for hiring workers whose identification he knew to be stolen.

Thus far, Gonzalez is the only Howard Industries manager to be indicted for employing undocumented workers. U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents took nearly 600 workers into custody after the Aug. 25, 2008, raid of the Howard Industries manufacturing plant and corporate offices. Nine of those arrested pleaded guilty to federal identity fraud charges, and others still await hearings.

"The new indictment concentrates more of the focus on the conspiratorial conduct, which is at the heart of the case, as well as the new allegation involving Gonzalez's participation in knowingly using the results of identity theft in employing job applicants at Howard Industries, which amounts to aggravated identity theft," U.S. Attorney Stan Harris said in a statement. "The indictment also narrows the employee verification fraud counts to produce a more streamlined set of charges."

Gonzalez faces up to 5 years in prison for each count and a $250,000 fine. Citing Department of Justice policy, U.S. Attorney's Office spokeswoman Sheila Wilbanks said that she could neither confirm nor deny whether federal authorities are still investigating Howard Industries.

http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/index.php/site/comments/immigrant_rights_alliance_says_enforcement_unbalanced_091709/

Arrested migrant awaits verdict

Brittany Brown and Ed Kemp
Hattiesburg American
August 23, 2009

One year ago this week, Tomas Hernandez-Urueta saw one of his worst fears realized when he was snared by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in a Howard Industries raid that netted 592 arrests.

"I felt horrible, as if I were a criminal," said Hernandez-Urueta, through translator Juan Carlos Cook, communications director of the Mississippi Immigration Rights Alliance.

The sweep, executed on Aug. 25, 2008, led to the arrest of about 14 percent of Howard's 4,200-member work force. It was the largest roundup of suspected illegal workers since the founding of the Department of Homeland Security.

Howard Industries officials declined to comment for this article.

For Hernandez-Urueta, who had a work visa that expired eight years ago, the day of the sweep began a year of turmoil. After the roundup, he spent one month at the LaSalle Detention Center in Jena, La., and still awaits a final verdict on his immigration case. He said his attorney believes the matter will extend into 2010.

Of the 592 arrested, some workers, like Hernandez-Urueta, were released on humanitarian grounds while others await adjudication for pending court cases.

Hernandez-Urueta is one of five defendants from the Howard Industries raid represented by immigration rights lawyer Patricia Ice whose cases have not been decided.

Temple Black, a spokesman with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said 66 suspected illegal workers arrested last August who were in alternative detention have been released on a recognizance order and fitted with ankle bracelets for monitoring.

Black said the initial nine juveniles who were placed with the Office of Refugee Resettlement have been deported or released into the custody of family members in the United States and await dispositions of their cases.

To date, Black said 424 of the 462 illegal workers detained have been deported.

Ice said that's a worst-case scenario she's working to avoid for her defendants.

"We are seeking immigration relief to allow (Hernandez-Urueta) to stay in the United States if legally possible," she said.

Not only does the recently-married Hernandez-Urueta still live in Laurel with his wife, Sybil, but his sister, Artemisa Hernandez, also lives in Laurel and is in the process of applying for residency.

He is adamant he did nothing wrong.

Hernandez-Urueta said he came to Mississippi in December 2000 with a Mexican passport and a work visa sponsored by Universal Forestry. His first job, planting pine trees, brought in starting wages that far exceeded those of his old job as a dump truck driver in Veracruz, Mexico, he said.

From Universal Forestry, he switched jobs to Sanderson Farms in Laurel and then to Howard Industries' transformers plant, where he worked as a welder. He said the only documentation he was required to show these employers was his Mexican driver's license and the Social Security card issued to him as a foreign worker.

It was while at Howard Industries in 2001 that his work visa expired. Hernandez-Urueta said that he did not attempt to renew it because he "didn't know that it was a possibility to renew it."

"I never bothered to get more documents because that was the job I had," he said.

And Hernandez-Urueta said he was never asked about his documents - until the morning the ICE agents arrived.

Until the raid, Hernandez said he rose to the challenge of the increased post-Hurricane Katrina demand for Howard products, working 60 to 70 hours, seven days a week.

Hernandez-Urueta was released on $5,000 bond. Since then, he has made several court appearances at the New Orleans Immigration Court, all the while living in Laurel. He is currently not authorized to work.

"I would say to them that if it's a sin to work, then I'm a sinner," he said. "I don't feel like I've caused any harm to this country. I just want to be here and work - stay and continue to be a productive member of society."

Meanwhile, Howard Industries' former human resources manager, Jose Humberto Gonzalez, could spend the rest of his life in a federal prison.

He is charged with 25 counts of conspiracy and employee verification fraud.

A trial date for Gonzalez, who was arrested in May, will be set for a criminal calendar beginning on Oct. 19, according to court documents.

Gonzalez's pre-trial hearing has been scheduled for Oct. 8 at the Mississippi Southern District Court in Hattiesburg.

In an 11-page indictment, Gonzalez is charged with one count of conspiracy to commit multiple offense against the United States and 25 counts of falsely certifying employment eligibility of job applicants and employees.

From June 2006 to June 2007, the indictment states that Gonzalez failed to adequately examine employment eligibility verification forms submitted by undocumented immigrants.

Additional Facts
By the Numbers

As a result of 2008's federal raid of Howard Industries in Laurel:

592: Workers arrested

462: Detained

424: Deported

44: Voluntary departures

103: Released on bond

Source: Immigration and Customs Enforcement

http://www.clarionledger.com/article/20090823/NEWS/908230358/1001/Arrested-migrant-awaits-verdict

Trial date set in Miss. illegal immigration raid

The Associated Press
May 20, 2009

HATTIESBURG, Miss. (AP) - The personnel director accused of knowingly hiring dozens of illegal immigrants who were rounded up in the nation's largest workplace raid is scheduled for trial Aug. 17.

Jose Humberto Gonzalez was indicted May 6 on 25 counts of conspiracy and employee fraud related to the raid on Howard Industries in Laurel.

Nearly 600 workers at Howard Industries' transformer plant were detained Aug. 25 when dozens of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents raided the facility.

Gonzalez was a personnel director and is accused of hiring workers he knew were in the country illegally.

If convicted, Gonzalez could face a maximum penalty of 5 years per count plus a maximum fine of $250,000.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

http://www.wxvt.com/Global/story.asp?S=10396954&nav=menu1344_2

A bitter struggle for the last jobs anybody wants

A bitter struggle for the last jobs anybody wants
By DEBORAH HASTINGS
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
January 24, 2009

LAUREL, Miss.

The work has always been stupefying and hard. Hour after hour standing on the line, soldering or welding or drilling in screws until tears join streaming sweat and hands cramp in pain.

Even in today's nightmare economy, most people would not want this daily grind that steals the soul in 12-hour shifts paying as little as $280 a week, before taxes.

Here in mostly rural Jones County, the area's biggest employer, Howard Industries, maintains a sprawling factory that builds electrical transformers and other big equipment behind a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. For a long time, Howard workers were poor blacks and whites in this town of 18,000. But in the past few years, immigrants poured across the Mexican border, eagerly applying for work on the Howard line and not complaining about long hours or menial labor.

Resentment began to take root in the hearts of some black and white residents, producing an odd alliance in a place that has seen racial hatred. Many blacks and whites claimed Hispanics were taking over their city and taking away jobs by not complaining about safety issues in a factory that faced $193,000 in federal fines last year for dangerous working conditions.

A disgruntled union member allegedly tipped the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, whose agents swept in last summer and staged the largest single workplace raid. As nearly 600 Hispanics were herded past black and white Howard employees, jeers and applause and wide grins erupted.

"Bye-bye," some trilled in falsetto, fingers wagging. "Go back where you came from."

And the assembly line rattles on. But now mostly blacks work it, with a smattering of whites, for the same wages paid to Hispanics. The plant, which has been working without a union contract since August, is mired in bitter negotiations over higher pay and safety issues.

Of the 592 people arrested, mostly for the crime of illegally entering this country -- more than 100, mostly women with children, were released pending the outcome of their cases. They wade through a long, confusing current of immigration hearings that will determine their futures. Many fear venturing out, lest they receive withering glances in the Wal-Mart aimed at the electronic monitoring devices on their ankles.

"We do the jobs no one else wants to do," says Ismael Cabrera, a 37-year-old father of two. "We just want to work."

He paid a smuggler $2,000 to walk him across the desert into Arizona. He paid $1,000 more to get a ride to Laurel, where he first worked in a poultry plant, wielding a small knife to slash the wings off dead chickens as they blurred past. His all-time high: 39 birds per minute.

"It's not that we took the jobs from other people," he says in Spanish. "It's that they don't want to work them."

He waits on deportation hearings that he does not understand. He weeps at the prospect of going back to his hometown near Mexico City.

"Sometimes I ask myself if it was worth it to come here," he says in a voice just above a whisper. "To gain insults and to be humiliated."

Blacks in Mississippi know plenty about humiliation. Laurel itself had long been Klan territory, where hooded, robed men carrying burning torches marched proudly down the main thoroughfare before the civil rights movement.

White Knights Imperial Wizard Sam H. Bowers, suspected in hundreds of attacks including the infamous "Mississippi Burning" murders of three voter registration workers, lived in Laurel.

These days, hate has a new target. "Time for Mexico and Mexicans to get the hell out!!!" blasts a recruiting message on a Klan Web site. In rallies staged in recent years in Laurel, Tupelo and other Mississippi cities, Klan members gathered to accuse Hispanic immigrants of being child molesters, job stealers and destroyers of the American way of life.

Angelica Olmedo, a 32-year-old single mother, has already decided what to do. She will volunteer for deportation to Vera Cruz, where her parents grow sugar cane. She hopes that decision will ease the way for her to someday legally return to this country.

Immigration officials have held out that hope to those willing to go quietly, she said.

Her 13-year-old son, who was 5 when she paid for him to be smuggled to Mississippi, will return with her. After she was swept up in the Howard raid, where she repaired forklifts for $10.25 an hour, she said immigration officials released her on "humanitarian" grounds because she was a single mom.

She was outfitted with an electronic ankle bracelet and told not to leave the state. It took about two months for Olmedo to realize that apparently no one was monitoring the devices. In time, the clumsy plastic device slipped off her foot. No one from ICE has said a word to her since.

"It's to shame me," she said. "That's all it was, to shame me. To make me look like a criminal. But I am not a criminal; I was only working."

Olmedo regrets she can no longer work and contribute to her sister's household. She baby-sits her two small nieces during the day as partial payment for rent and food. "I don't even like to go out," she says. "I feel like everyone is watching me and knows I was in the raid.

Yet Olmedo has met kindness from some former co-workers. "I had friends. African-American and white. They come and ask if I need money for food. I don't take it. They brought shoes."

At Howard Industries, where the day crew is just getting off, a freezing rain pelts workers walking to their cars, heads bowed to shield their faces.

They are mostly black and mostly male. Some carry the stooped shoulders of the bone-weary. Others bound toward the employee parking lot with the glee of the newly freed.

Larry Jones, 24, sits in his car with the heater blasting, sucking the life out of a Swisher Sweets cigarillo. He has been on the job as a coil winder for two months.

The African-American man had tried to get hired before the raid, he said. "I filled out an application and took the test, but they never called me back."

Now he makes $8.20 an hour. And he is thankful for the raid.

"In a way, I feel like it ain't right because these people are trying to better themselves. But on the other hand, we need jobs, too," he says softly. "A lot of folks 'round here were pretty happy about it, to tell you the truth. It was pretty much of a blessing for a lot of folks."

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20090124/ARTICLE/901240336?Title=A_bitter_struggle_for_the_last_jobs_anybody_wants

Immigration Raid Spotlights Rift of Have-Nots

Immigration Raid Spotlights Rift of Have-Nots
Shannon Ogden
Associated Press
January 23, 2009

Workplace raids reached an all-time high in 2008 with 6,287 arrests -- a tenfold rise since 2003. After the 9-11 attacks, in the name of national security, the Bush administration announced it wanted to detain, and then deport, every illegal immigrant in America. Such a drastic change in immigration policy was necessary to safeguard the country against terrorists, said the newly formed Department of Homeland Security.

But swooping down on low-paying jobs has yet to produce terrorism suspects. Asked if any of the raids had produced terror-related arrests, ICE spokeswoman Barbara Gonzalez replied, "Not to my knowledge."

Such raids have netted sweatshop workers in Massachusetts, kosher slaughterhouse employees in Iowa and federal courthouse janitors in Rhode Island.

But the biggest roundup -- 592 people arrested, mostly for the crime of illegally entering this country -- was here in Laurel.

Since then, 414 Hispanics have been deported; 23 have left voluntarily and 27 were released on bond pending immigration hearings. One remains incarcerated at a federal detention center in Jena, La. Nine were charged with identity theft for using false identification.

More than 100, mostly women with children, were released pending the outcome of their cases. They wade through a long, confusing current of immigration hearings that will determine their futures. Many fear venturing out, lest they receive withering glances in the Wal-Mart aimed at the electronic monitoring devices on their ankles.

Immigrant groups, religious leaders, and various Democrats have expressed hope that the raids will be curtailed under President Barack Obama. The immigrants in Laurel know this, and they hope Obama's promise of change applies to them.

"We just want to work," says Ismael Cabrera, a 37-year-old father of two, who paid a smuggler $2,000 to walk him across the desert into Arizona, then paid $1,000 more to get a ride to Laurel, where he first worked in a chicken slaughterhouse.

"It's not that we took the jobs from other people," he says in Spanish. "It's that they don't want to work them."

He waits on a deportation hearing and weeps at the prospect of going back to his hometown near Mexico City, where he made little money. His son, Cesar, has few memories of that place. He left when he was 6.

Now a sweet-faced boy of 13, Cesar respectfully interprets for his father in perfect English delivered with a Mississippi drawl.

Cesar is asked how he feels about going back to Mexico.

His gaze drops to his feet. His eyes brim with tears. He wipes his nose with the back of his wrist, sitting in Pentecostal church his family attends. "Bad," he manages to get out. "It would feel bad."

Cabrera wipes his own face with the sleeve of his shirt.

"Sometimes I ask myself if it was worth it to come here," he says in a voice just above a whisper.

http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/usworld/news-article.aspx?storyid=129484&catid=6

Families scattered after raid

Families scattered after raid
By EMMA JAMES • January 11, 2009
Hattiesburg American (Miss)

In less than 24 hours, Mendoza, 27, lost her husband, her job on an assembly line and a secure future as officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement swept through Howard Industries in Laurel that day, looking for illegal workers.

They ended up arresting 592 workers, about 14 percent of Howard's work force of 4,200.

"It's very bad," Mendoza said as Socorro Leos, community organizer with the Mississippi Immigrants' Rights Alliance, translated. "Because of one day, it changed my entire life 360 degrees."

Now almost five months later, Mendoza plays with her daughters and thinks of her husband, Malegando.

Malegando was deported after a brief stay at LaSalle Detention Center in Jena, La., while Mendoza remains in alternative detention, ordered to appear before a court in New Orleans in February to determine whether she can obtain a voluntary departure to Mexico to join her husband.

Mendoza said that the departure of their father has devastated daughters Allari, 4, and Shala, 2.

"They ask where their daddy is and then they cry because he isn't here," Mendoza said "Sometimes I tell them that their daddy comes when they are sleeping and kisses them while they are asleep and then leaves again so they know he loves them."

http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/article/20090111/NEWS01/901110303/1002

Protesting raids in Mississippi

Protesting raids in Jackson Mississippi
December 05, 2008
Laurel Leader Call Newspaper

— A get-tough Mississippi anti-immigration law that goes into effect next month drew dozens of advocates to the state Capitol on Thursday to protest the legislation they say targets Latino workers.

The business community also is concerned about the legislation because employers could face sanctions for failing to verify the citizenship of workers they hire.

The bill, which becomes law Jan. 1, requires employers to use the U.S. Homeland Security electronic verification system to check whether new hires are legal residents. Employers who hire illegal immigrants could lose their business license for a year and any state contract work for up to three years.

Any illegal immigrant found working in the state could face a one-year prison sentence and a fine of up to $10,000.

“It’s intended to scare Latinos out of the state,” said Bill Chandler, executive director of the Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance.

http://www.leadercall.com/local/local_story_340094237.html

After Immigration Raid, a Pastor Tries to Calm the Chaos

After Immigration Raid, a Pastor Tries to Calm the Chaos
By Marcelo Ballvé
New America Media
October 30, 2008

LAUREL, Miss. -- After four years building up a bilingual Pentecostal ministry in this diverse, working-class town, Pastor Roberto Velez thought he might rest on his accomplishments.

But Velez's real trial by fire began Aug. 25. That morning, in a raid on a local transformer plant owned by local manufacturer Howard Industries, federal agents arrested 595 immigrants. Perhaps a dozen of them were members of Velez's Peniel
Christian Church.

"It was terrible," he recalls. "I received calls starting at 8:10 a.m. I was having breakfast. They said, 'Pastor! Pastor! Immigration got into Howard.' I rushed over there."

Velez, a relative newcomer to Laurel, was suddenly thrust into a role he never expected to have: crisis management.

Outside the plant's perimeter, Velez waited with anxious immigrant families in a steady rain, comforting workers' children and wives. As blue-jacketed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents milled around, Velez buttonholed them, demanding information on detainees' fates.

From that day forward, he would tend non-stop to his panic-stricken flock-- and to any other families who walked through Peniel's doors, in want after their breadwinners ended up imprisoned.

Velez's role is reminiscent of those assumed by other clergy in towns upended by large-scale ICE raids this year.

In Postville, Iowa, an elderly Catholic nun and retired priest stepped up to the front-lines, after the May arrest of nearly 400 illegal immigrants at a local meatpacking plant created what they described as "a man-made" disaster. In Greenville, South Carolina, Episcopal and Catholic clergy teamed up to create a safety-net for hundreds of affected families, after a raid Oct. 7 at a poultry plant.

http://www.alternet.org/story/105272/

127 workers picked up in raids Westlake and Vinton

127 workers picked up in raids Westlake and Vinton
Associated Press
September 26, 2008 8:14 AM ET

WESTLAKE, La. (AP) - Federal officials say a search of Dunham Price's Westlake and Vinton plants by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents netted 127 undocumented workers all of them male from Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Honduras.

Authorities have not said what prompted the raid. Dunham Price is a cement and concrete products plant.

The workers were taken to a federal facility in Oakdale and were turned over to the Executive Office of Immigration Review. They will be tried in an administrative court, which will decide whether they should be deported.

http://www.wdam.com/Global/story.asp?S=9078296

43 detainees deported

43 detainees deported
Hattiesburg American
September 18, 2008

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Forty-three suspected illegal immigrants have been deported less than a month after being captured in the nation’s largest single-site raid on undocumented workers, an immigration official said Thursday.

Nearly 600 workers at Howard Industries’ transformer factory in Laurel were rounded up Aug. 25 by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Two others left the country voluntarily.

Most of those who haven’t been deported are being held in a Louisiana detention facility awaiting hearings. More than 100 others — mostly women with children — were fitted with monitoring devices after the raid and ordered to appear in court.

“Everyone has due process of law,” said ICE spokeswoman Barbara Gonzalez. “There’s obviously an appellate process as well. If individuals are ordered deported and they want to appeal that to the Board of Immigration Appeals they’re in their right to do so.”

Nine people detained in the raid face federal charges related to identity theft, according to court records.

Check Friday's Hattiesburg American for details.

http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080918/NEWS01/80918029

State probe doesn't help Miss. company's image

State probe doesn't help Miss. company's image
Fort Mill Times, SC
By SHELIA BYRD
September 08, 2008

Many lawmakers who voted for the new state law that penalizes companies that hire illegal immigrants probably didn't expect Howard Industries Inc. to be considered the first possible violator.

The Laurel-based company has been a bedrock of the economy in south Mississippi, employing some 4,000 workers. The private, family run business was founded in the 1960s.

State lawmakers, largely persuaded by a promise of job creation, approved a $31.5 million, taxpayer-backed incentive plan in 2002 aimed at helping Howard Industries expand its operations. The company produces dozens of products, including electrical transformers, medical supplies, even the scanners in grocery stores.

It's known across the country, but lately, not just because of its product line.

Howard Industries became the site of the largest workplace raid in U.S. history on Aug. 25. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents descended on the Laurel plant and rounded up nearly 600 suspected illegal immigrants.

http://www.fortmilltimes.com/124/story/282458.html

Workers in Mississippiprotest ICE factory raid

Workers in Mississippiprotest ICE factory raid
BY SUSAN LAMONTAND CLAY
September 15, 2008
The Militant

DENNISON LAUREL, Mississippi—More than 50 workers held silent protests outside the gates of the Howard Industries plant August 28 and 29, demanding the company turn over paychecks owed to some 595 workers arrested August 25 in a massive immigration raid at the company’s plant here.

Workers organized the protest with help from the Mississippi Immigrants’ Rights Alliance, which is aiding with legal defense for the workers and assistance for their families. The group says the protests will continue until workers get their checks.

The company released some checks the first day. However, when workers returned August 29 signs were posted that the company would not release any more checks, regardless of identification. Several pickets reported that some U.S.-born workers coming out of the plant embraced them and expressed concern about what had happened.

The mass arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), make this the largest single worksite raid to date.

Most of those arrested are being held at the federal detention center in Jena, Louisiana. About 100 workers were released to care for small children or other family members. They must wear GPS ankle bracelets and cannot return to work or leave the state.

http://www.themilitant.com/2008/7236/723604.html

Raid's Outcome May Signal a Retreat In Immigration Strategy, Critics Say

Raid's Outcome May Signal a Retreat In Immigration Strategy, Critics Say
By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 2, 2008; A13

The federal government's handling of a massive immigration raid at a Mississippi manufacturing plant last week has led critics to suggest that the Bush administration is backpedaling from its aggressive use of criminal charges and fast-tracked trials against illegal immigrants caught at workplaces.

U.S. officials reject any suggestion of a retreat or a shift in strategy in the Aug. 25 raid at a Howard Industries transformer plant in Laurel, Miss. In the nation's largest immigration enforcement operation at a single work site, federal agents arrested nearly 600 illegal immigrants there but charged only eight criminally, turning over the rest for civil deportation proceedings, as they have in the past.

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency "continues to target egregious employers . . . to identify individuals engaging in identity theft, and we seek criminal charges where appropriate," spokeswoman Kelly A. Nantel said.

Nonetheless, it was a stark departure from the way authorities conducted the previous record-setting sweep 15 weeks earlier.

On May 12, immigration agents apprehended 389 illegal immigrants at an Agriprocessors meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa. Nearly 300 were charged, convicted and sentenced within 10 days in group trials in temporary courts set up at a fairground. Most pleaded guilty to document fraud, receiving five-month prison sentences.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/01/AR2008090102358.html

Raids sharpen divisions over immigration

Raids sharpen divisions over immigration
In Miss. town, some residents cheer crackdown
By Miguel Bustillo and Richard Fausset
Los Angeles Times, September 1, 2008

LAUREL, Miss. - Fabiola Pena considered running away from her factory job when she realized that she was being targeted in a federal immigration raid. She was deterred when she noticed the helicopters hovering overhead.

But helicopters were not what shocked Pena the most on her last, fateful day at Howard Industries, the largest employer in this small Southern city. It was the black co-workers who clapped and cheered as Pena and hundreds of other Hispanic immigrant laborers were arrested.

"They said we took their jobs, but I was working from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.," said Pena, 21, a day after the raid last week that resulted in the arrest of 595 illegal immigration suspects. "I didn't see them working like us."

The raid at Howard Industries, an electronic transformer manufacturer, was the largest of its kind in many years, and it exposed some of the rawest emotions that fuel the illegal immigration debate.

It was also carried out during an odd period of political limbo: Polls suggest that for voters, the immigration issue has been eclipsed by the sputtering economy, and neither of the two major presidential candidates has made much of the topic during the election season.

As the Bush administration winds down its tenure in Washington, it has made efforts to step up immigration enforcement, especially after Congress failed last year to pass a sweeping overhaul of the nation's immigration laws.

Since then, thousands of people have been arrested in raids at dozens of facilities, generating considerable controversy: Immigrant advocates have howled over the coarse treatment of suspects and the breakup of families, while anti-immigrant groups say the raids allow for the long-overdue enforcement of existing laws.

But the raids might not have much of a future after the swearing in of Republican John McCain or Democrat Barack Obama, both of whom have staked out moderate-to-liberal stances on immigration reform.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/09/01/raids_sharpen_divisions_over_immigration/

Immigration raid fallout is tough on town

Immigration raid fallout is tough on town
August 31, 2008
Elizabeth Crisp
elizabeth.crisp@clarionledger.com

Tensions had been building in this small southeast Mississippi town even before the immigration raid at the city's largest employer.

Feelings in the wake of Monday's raid now range from fear to anger to sympathy. And some residents are simply trying to move on.

At least 595 people were taken into custody when agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement stormed Howard Industries, a company of more than 4,000 workers that specializes in technology products. It was the single-largest workplace immigration raid in U.S. history.

Lashonda Dase, the store manager of a local pawnshop, questions whether the company knowingly hired illegal workers over those who are here legally.

"You're basically keeping 600 people who are legal to work here from working," she said. "That could be 600 households, 600 children who've been suffering.

"It was wrong if they knew."

No one at Howard Industries has been charged, but the investigation is ongoing. Arrests at companies often can come weeks, months or even years after raids.

The company has denied any wrongdoing.

Wanda Benson, the city's public relations director, would not discuss anything for this story, including questions about Laurel's Hispanic community, Howard Industries' role in Laurel or how the raid stands to impact the city's future.

"Maybe at a later date the city will make a formal statement, but we have nothing to say at this time," she said.

Nearly all of the city's Mexican restaurants closed following the raid and have not reopened.

http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080831/NEWS/808310370/1001/news

Immigration Raids Cripple Small Towns

Immigration Raids Cripple Small Towns
Towns Say Mass Deportations Cause Economic and Humanitarian Crisis
By SUSAN DONALDSON JAMES
Aug. 29, 2008 —

When federal agents swooped down on an electrical transformer plant in Lauren, Miss., this week, seizing 595 immigrants, the scene resembled a paramilitary operation: sealed exits, workers shackled at the wrists, waist and ankles.

The dramatic raid -- the nation's biggest in a search for evidence of identity theft, Social Security fraud and individuals living illegally in the United States -- sent echoes throughout the town of 20,000 and beyond.

"They've 'Postvilled' again," said Erik Camayd-Freixas, a federal translator who witnessed the second-biggest immigration raid in Postville, Iowa, in May when 389 were arrested at a kosher meat processing plant.

Three months later, Postville is a "ghost town," according to Camayd-Freixas, having lost one-quarter of its 2,300 population. Agriprocessors Inc., the plant, runs at half-capacity, lunch counters are empty and property values have plummeted in an already strained economy.

In the last two years, raids have intensified in the absence of comprehensive immigration reform. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has publicly said he will enforce laws on the books, not ignore them.

The result has been felt in towns like Laurel and Postville, which have lost workers, taxpayers, tenants and businesses.

Officials point to a slight downturn in people sneaking across the border, but there is still no solution to the nation's immigration crisis. And in a contentious election year, both presidential candidates treat the issue like a political hot potato.

"Enforcement belongs at the border and not at the American heartland, because there is immense collateral damage on American citizens and communities like Laurel and Postville," said Freixas. "It brings out the best and worst of humanity."

http://www.abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=5679696&page=1

Businesses Cite a Catch-22 After Miss. Immigration Raid

Businesses Cite a Catch-22 After Miss. Immigration Raid
By Spencer S. Hsu, Alejandro Lazo and Darryl Fears
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, August 28, 2008; A01

The arrests this week of nearly 600 immigrant workers at a manufacturing plant in Laurel, Miss., are fueling a national debate over a federal system to check new hires' work documents, a program whose expansion the Bush administration has made a cornerstone of its fight against illegal immigration.

In what they called the largest immigration sweep at a single site in U.S. history, federal agents raided a Howard Industries electrical transformer plant Monday despite the fact that the company last year joined the work eligibility system, called E-Verify.

The White House has called the program a key weapon against illegal hiring, proposing to expand it to nearly 200,000 government contractors this fall, covering about 4 million U.S. workers. Thirteen state legislatures have enacted similar legislation, and Congress is debating whether to extend E-Verify this fall.

Major U.S. employers assailed the expanding crackdown, saying it creates a Catch-22. If businesses fail to enroll in E-Verify, they run the risk of a raid by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, business groups led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said. But if they sign up, they face added costs, labor disruptions and discrimination complaints -- as well as the risk that flaws in the program won't stop all illegal hiring or prevent government raids, they said.

"I think it's a mistake on the part of a company to think that simply because they [enroll] that they are going to be protected from any kind of government audit or raid," said Myles Gladstone, vice president of Miller & Long, of Bethesda, a major construction firm based in the Washington area.

At issue is a program that is supposed to help employers abide by laws that bar the hiring of illegal immigrants. E-Verify allows companies to check federal Social Security and immigration databases to determine whether an employee is authorized to work.

However, a key weakness in E-Verify is that while it can determine whether a Social Security number presented by a worker is valid, it often cannot determine whether the number belongs to the applicant. Many workers try to evade detection by using another person's identification.

That was allegedly the case Monday, when dozens of U.S. agents sealed entrances to Howard Industries' Mississippi plant, stopping production while they executed a criminal search warrant for evidence related to aggravated identity theft, fraudulent use of Social Security documents and other crimes. A civil search warrant for illegal immigrants was also executed, turning up suspect workers from Mexico, Guatemala, Germany, Peru, Brazil, El Salvador, Honduras and Panama, the government alleged.

About 475 workers were sent to a detention center in Jena, La., for deportation; 106 were released for humanitarian reasons to tend to a child or a medical condition pending court appearances; nine were juveniles transferred to a refugee resettlement agency, and eight face charges of criminal identity theft.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/27/AR2008082703931.html?hpid=topnews

Hundreds of Workers Held in Immigration Raid in Mississippi

August 26, 2008
Hundreds of Workers Held in Immigration Raid
By ADAM NOSSITER
NY Times

LAUREL, Miss. — In another large-scale workplace immigration crackdown, federal officials raided a factory here on Monday, detaining at least 350 workers they said were in the country illegally.

Numerous agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement descended on a factory belonging to Howard Industries Inc., which manufactures electrical transformers, among other products.

As of late Monday afternoon, no criminal charges had been filed, said Barbara Gonzalez, an agency spokeswoman, but she said that dozens of workers had been “identified, fingerprinted, interviewed, photographed and processed for removal from the U.S.”

The raid follows a similar large-scale immigration operation at a meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa, in May when nearly 400 workers were detained. That 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.

The mass rapid-fire hearings after the Postville raid took place in a temporary court facility on the grounds of the National Cattle Congress in Waterloo, Iowa. An interpreter was later sharply critical of the proceedings, saying the immigrants did not understand the charges against them.

An immigrant rights group in Jackson, Miss., the state capital, was critical of Monday’s raid, saying families with children were involved.

“It’s horrific what ICE is doing to these families and these communities,” said Shuya Ohno, a spokesman for the Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance. “It’s just hard to imagine that this is the United States of America.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/26/us/26raid.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin