ICE raids not the answer to natural disasters
By John Leschak in Editorial/Op-ed
Issue date: 9/11/08
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On the eve of Hurricane Katrina's third anniversary, the Gulf Coast suffered another humanitarian disaster. On Monday, Aug. 25, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) conducted the largest workplace raid to date, arresting nearly 600 immigrant workers at a manufacturing plant in Laurel, Miss. Like the government's horrifically inept response to Katrina, the Laurel raid reveals the racism and classism of America's political establishment.

Many of the arrested workers came to Mississippi to help rebuild after Katrina. Now the people who helped revive the Coast face deportation. This mass deportation will result in incredible losses on the workers' families. According to research by the Pew Hispanic Center, there are over five million children in the United States with undocumented parents. In the aftermath of the Laurel raid, hundreds of children did not show up to school. Who is caring for these children while their parents are being detained?

Of the 595 immigrants arrested, almost 500 are being detained at an ICE detention center in Jena, La. If Jena sounds familiar to you, it should. Last year, the small, rural town was put in the national spotlight by the campaign to free the Jena Six. The racism of Jena's criminal justice system is apparent both in the excessive charges against the Jena Six and in the history of Jena's prison, which has been forced to close twice in response to accusations of racially motivated abuse.

As both W.E.B. Du Bois and Martin Luther King said, racism is not for racism's sake. Rather, racism is largely motivated by the economic concern of maintaining a constant supply of low-wage labor. The economic impetus of the ICE raid in Laurel is two-fold: First, it maintains a low-wage workforce by preventing unionization; second, it maintains a low-wage workforce by expanding the availability of prison labor.

Mississippi is one of the least unionized states in the entire country. According to investigative journalist Elizabeth Schulte, "In 2003, only 5 percent of workers in the state were members of unions, compared with the national rate of 12.9 percent." The manufacturing plant raided in Laurel, owned by Howard Industries, is one of the few that is unionized.

In 2000, Howard's workers chose representation by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1317. However, the union's contract with the employer expired at the beginning of August. To increase its ability to negotiate a new contract, Local 1317 made great efforts to sign up immigrant workers. According to Jim Evans, an AFL-CIO member in Mississippi, the raid will help Howard Industries resist the union's demands for a new contract.

Mississippi also has a history of exploiting prisoners for labor. In the antebellum period, blacks were charged with "crimes" such as trespassing, vagrancy, loitering and disturbing the peace. According to sociologist Michael Hallet, "Once imprisoned for petty crimes, former slaves, now inmates, were leased in large numbers to private vendors." This convict-lease system continues today-with prisons leasing inmates to corporations such as Boeing, Dell, IBM, Microsoft and Victoria's Secret.Although some may be cashing in on immigrants' misfortune, ICE raids are not in the best interest of the working class. We should oppose raids, rather than cheering them on.

John Leschak is a second-year law student. You may e-mail him at jlesch2@pride.hofstra.edu.


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