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02-01-2009, 08:57 PM #1
MS: After raids, Americans finding work again in factory
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Sunday, February 1, 2009
Mississippi immigration raid spotlights rift of have-nots
Competition turns fierce for town's factory jobs
BY DEBORAH HASTINGS THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Standing outside the Jones County Courthouse in Ellisville, Miss.,on Dec. 31, 2008, Ismael Cabrera says America's educational opportunities for his two children are among the foremost reasons he wants to stay in this country. Cabrera, who was among the almost 600 immigrants picked up during a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid at Howard Industries, a transformer factory in Laurel, Miss., is optimistic about his future regarding his status.
LAUREL, Miss. -- The work has always been stupefying and hard. Hour after hour standing on the line, soldering or welding or drilling in screws.
Even in today's nightmare economy, most people wouldn't want this daily grind that steals the soul in 12-hour shifts paying as little as $280 per week, before taxes.
But such labor prospers here in mostly rural Jones County, home to Laurel, where 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.
Assembly lines like these offer tenuous lifelines to those desperate enough to toil on them. And sometimes, competition for these jobs pits have-nots against have-nots.
For a long time, Howard workers were poor blacks and whites in this town of 18,000, where an estimated 30 percent of the population lives in poverty.
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
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labor.
A festering resentment began to take root in the hearts of some black and white residents, producing an odd alliance in a place that has seen decades of racism. Now, even the Ku Klux Klan has turned its hatred against Hispanics.
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 fines last year from federal inspectors citing dangerous working conditions.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency swept in last summer and staged the largest single workplace raid. When 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."
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.
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 the 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.
At Howard Industries, meanwhile, there is a different feeling in the employee parking lot.
Larry Jones, 24, sits in his car with the heater blasting. He has been on the job as a coil winder for two months. He makes $8.20 per hour. And he is thankful for the raid.
"Now they got to hire us. The illegals will work for less than we will, and they'll work more. They were getting jobs everywhere."
He added: "I know they got to work, but it's rough over here, too."
http://www.thonline.com/article.cfm?id=231436
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02-01-2009, 09:10 PM #2
legalatina said :
"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."
Not for what you will work for ...
"Now they got to hire us. The illegals will work for less than we will, and they'll work more. They were getting jobs everywhere."Support our FIGHT AGAINST illegal immigration & Amnesty by joining our E-mail Alerts at http://eepurl.com/cktGTn
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02-01-2009, 09:26 PM #3
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IMO, one of the worst things GWB did to this country was stressing the need for more foreign workers "to do the jobs Americans won't do" in a speech, which empowered every illegal and their support groups. This man had blinders on when normal Americans were losing jobs, while trying to keep his corporate buddies happy by allowing in more cheap labor, legal and illegal. Did he expect Americans to keep spending money on big-screen TVs made in China when fuel and food prices were rising and citizens were jobless. The childish idiocy and farce in "protecting" this country has become apparent to all people that are here legally and are citizens.
Join our efforts to Secure America's Borders and End Illegal Immigration by Joining ALIPAC's E-Mail Alerts network (CLICK HERE)
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02-01-2009, 09:56 PM #4
Quote : 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.
Guess Americans will take those jobs. (And the fact that most workers there now are black doesn't mean more whites did not apply for those jobs.)<div>Number*U.S. military*in S.Korea to protect their border with N.Korea: 28,000. Number*U.S. military*on 2000 mile*U.S. southern border to protect ourselves from*the war in our own backyard: 1,200 National Guard.</
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02-01-2009, 10:01 PM #5Quote: 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 the 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.<div>Number*U.S. military*in S.Korea to protect their border with N.Korea: 28,000. Number*U.S. military*on 2000 mile*U.S. southern border to protect ourselves from*the war in our own backyard: 1,200 National Guard.</
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02-02-2009, 01:15 AM #6
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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.
Go back to where you belong no one asked you to come here any way.
Boo freaking Hoo!
Now just go away please.We can't deport them all ? Just think of the fun we could have trying!
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02-02-2009, 10:03 AM #7The work has always been stupefying and hard. Hour after hour standing on the line, soldering or welding or drilling in screws.
Join our efforts to Secure America's Borders and End Illegal Immigration by Joining ALIPAC's E-Mail Alerts network (CLICK HERE)
"
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02-02-2009, 10:47 AM #8Originally Posted by miguelina
Ismael Cabrera says America's educational opportunities for his two children are among the foremost reasons he wants to stay in this country."A Nation of sheep will beget a government of Wolves" -Edward R. Murrow
Join our efforts to Secure America's Borders and End Illegal Immigration by Joining ALIPAC's E-Mail Alerts network (CLICK HERE)
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02-02-2009, 12:16 PM #9
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 the Pentecostal church his family attends. "Bad," he manages to get out. "It would feel bad."
Who are they kidding? The kid left Mexico at 6, and has been here 7 years. He'll adjust just like he did when he came to this strange country that he had no memories of. He translates for his father who can't learn English after 7 years, so he speaks Spanish, and will get along just fine in his own country.
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02-02-2009, 12:56 PM #10in 12-hour shifts paying as little as $280 per week, before taxes.Join our efforts to Secure America's Borders and End Illegal Immigration by Joining ALIPAC's E-Mail Alerts network (CLICK HERE)
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