I hope this has not been posted previously.

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Mothers' Tracking Devices Removed

By WeNews staff

Saturday, January 16, 2010

(WOMENSENEWS)--

Cheers


Just in time for New Year's, electronic monitoring devices were removed on Dec. 30 from the ankles of 11 immigrant mothers detained in Postville, Iowa, following a massive military-style immigration raid in May 2008, Women's eNews learned Jan. 11.

Women's eNews first reported the continued shackling on December 17.

"The monitors are off all the ladies," said Violeta Aleman, a bilingual legal assistant at St. Bridget's Roman Catholic Church in Postville. Through its Hispanic Ministry, the church has helped immigrants prohibited from working but forbidden to leave the state pay for rent, food, heating and medical bills for themselves and their children.

"The ladies were receiving phone calls from an office in Omaha and they were really scared," Aleman said. "But now they are very happy the GPS devices are finally off."

Tim Counts, a spokesperson for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, confirmed the removal of the tracking devices. He said the women would be required to check in with authorities as their cases wend their way through the federal immigration court system. He said he does not know why the decision was made to remove the monitors after 19 months and because of privacy regulations could not comment on individual cases if he did know.

Several of the women expect to be called as witnesses in upcoming court cases connected with the raid, Counts said. Others are appealing their deportation order, he said.

The women, Guatemalan and Mexican immigrants who came to work at Agriprocessors, a Kosher meat processing plant, were among 389 undocumented workers arrested in the raid. More than a year and a half later, 11 of them still had to wear what they referred to as "shackles" 24 hours a day. The devices took two hours a day to charge and caused bruising and skin irritation. Several of the women said they felt humiliated by being designated as criminals for wanting to work to support their children.
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http://www.womensenews.org/story/cheers ... d-in-haiti

http://www.womensenews.org/search/node/immigration