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Aid after the immigrant raids

Web Posted: 04/26/2006 12:00 AM CDT
Guillermo Contreras
Express-News Staff Writer

Citing the humanitarian aid the city offered to victims of Hurricane Katrina, Mayor Phil Hardberger said Tuesday that the city is considering helping the families of undocumented workers swept up in last week's immigration raids at a local company.

Hardberger made the comments to reporters after meeting with some of the wives and children of workers who were arrested and deported and members of activist groups, the League of United Latin American Citizens and the César Chávez Immigrant Defense Organizing Committee. The 15-minute meeting also included workers who escaped the raid.

The April 19 raids on IFCO Systems locally resulted in the arrest and deportation of 27 undocumented workers. The raid was executed as part of a national crackdown on the company, which makes crates and pallets, and resulted in the arrests of 1,187 workers who were in the United States illegally.

Hardberger said the raid left families behind — women and children who may be here legally or are U.S. citizens.

"I take no position on the national (immigration) debate because I do not think that this is city business," Hardberger said. "But what is our business is people who are here ... that are in need. We showed with the evacuees of the hurricane that we are a humanitarian city and that we believe that everyone is worthy of respect and dignity."

Hardberger said he will meet with City Manager Sheryl Sculley "to see if our existing institutions to help the needy are enough to take care of the needs of these people or whether we should have some sort of special effort in the same sort of sense that we helped the evacuees."

"Right now, some of them are very torn up and have very bad circumstances," he said.

Mark Krikorian, head of a think tank that supports tighter immigration controls, criticized the mayor for comparing lawbreakers to U.S. citizens fleeing a natural disaster. Krikorian said the city likely wouldn't do the same for families of U.S. citizens who have been sent to prison for committing state crimes.

"He's saying the city is neutral, (that) immigration policy isn't its business, and then he's assisting illegal immigrant families," said Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington. "He clearly is getting involved in immigration policies. To say that a city can be neutral on immigration matters is false because anything that a state or local government does is its immigration policy. What he's clearly doing here is subverting federal immigration enforcement."

Meeting with Hardberger were Adolfo I., 49, and Marcelo T., 26, of El Salvador, and Luis T., 29, of Guanajuato, Mexico, who were among about six workers who hid and escaped during the raid.

Also meeting with the mayor were Imelda L., 33, whose spouse was deported to Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, and Aracely B., 29, who said she is the wife of Luis T.

The immigrants, who declined to provide their last names for fear of capture, said after the meeting that they had a glimmer of hope because the mayor "said he would try to help us."

The individuals said before the meeting that they did not come seeking handouts, but were left in dire circumstances because of the raids.

The raids came as immigration issues have been in the forefront nationally. A rally is expected Monday in cities including San Antonio, where immigrants and others have been asked by activists to forgo work and march in a show of solidarity, and to boycott certain businesses with roots in the U.S.

Jaime Martinez, a treasurer for LULAC's national executive board, said the focus has been on enforcement rather than dealing with immigrants who work and contribute to the economy.

"They are criminalizing and demonizing immigrants," he said. "They're not focusing on all those who make contributions to society. ... It's time they develop legislation that does not split up families and provides a path to citizenship."

This week, the Senate will discuss dueling proposals on immigration reform, the biggest of its kind in a decade.



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gcontreras@express-news.net