Thread: Children of the raid

Children of the raid
Fear and chaos explode for Latino families as the news spreads
Thursday, June 21, 2007
By Stephen Beaven and Tom Hallman Jr.
The Oregonian
The news spread the morning of June 12, cell phone to cell phone, door to door, in schools, apartment complexes and businesses throughout North Portland.

Immigration raid at the Fresh Del Monte Produce plant. Your sister. Your mom. Your dad. Your uncle. Your aunt. Gone.

By afternoon, the head count reached 167. In a few hours, the controversial issue of immigration had moved from rural farm fields to dense Portland neighborhoods where Latino immigrants have created a home away from home.

The raid prompted nods of approval among some residents. The targets were illegal immigrants, after all. But it also turned families upside down, interrupted final exams for high school kids and sent illegal immigrants into hiding. And the fear and rumors that followed created a chain reaction that rippled outward for days, leaving empty desks, unanswered phones and vacant homes.



Lorna Fast Buffalo Horse found out at 11:30 a.m., about 90 minutes after the raid began, as she walked into the library at Roosevelt High School and saw a girl standing in the hall, crying hysterically and talking on a cell phone in Spanish.

The girl's sister had been taken. What happens to her young daughter? Fast Buffalo Horse is the principal of the Spanish English International School at Roosevelt, so she took the girl to the office and tried to comfort her.

In the next few hours, Fast Buffalo Horse called two elementary schools that feed Roosevelt -- James John and Clarendon -- on behalf of parents who'd been snagged in the raid. Relatives had already begun calling Roosevelt students to tell them to pick up younger siblings, nieces and nephews. Fast Buffalo Horse wanted to coordinate with the schools so the younger students had somewhere to go by day's end.

Maira Navarrete started making phone calls that day, too. The 17-year-old Roosevelt junior wanted to warn everyone about the raid. Some thought she was joking. She got irritated, convincing them this was no prank, that she was calling for their own good.

Meanwhile, schoolmates gathered in small groups, crying, hugging and offering words of encouragement to friends whose relatives had been taken. Someone from the Oregon Council for Hispanic Advancement provided support and advice.

But some kids, even legal residents, left school and didn't come back. They feared federal agents were coming for them, or they were eager to join their families in flight. Their absences were obvious, in classrooms and at their lockers.



At Clarendon Elementary, the school year was winding down and the principal, Antonio Lopez, was tying up loose ends. The most pressing task was a newsletter he had to finish by week's end. He was working on it when the school's community liaison burst into his office with news of the raid.

Lopez asked his secretary, Norma Lawson, to see whether the school had a Fresh Del Monte connection. Minutes later, word came back -- yes. Lopez, who'd been an assistant elementary principal in Salinas, Calif., in the 1990s, had been through immigration raids before. This would be the first at Clarendon. He knew he needed a plan or pandemonium would break out.

He drove to the Fresh Del Monte Produce plant, where he learned how many had been arrested. He knew some of his students would have parents caught up in the sweep. He'd have to guide his staff. So, back at his small office, he started work on a plan.

Lopez didn't want to scare the kids. That, he knew, would come soon enough. When the school day ended -- in about three hours -- some students would be left at school because their parents were in custody. The school doesn't allow children to leave without a guardian. At the same time, the school is barred by law from questioning students about their citizenship. So Lopez had to come up with a way to notify the teachers and figure out which students were at risk.

He jotted out a quick note -- please stop by my office -- and gave instructions that it be delivered to every classroom. That wasn't his usual style. Normally, Lopez spends little time in his office. He likes to be with the kids, walking on the playground and talking to teachers.

So within minutes, secretary Lawson's phone rang. What's going on? Is someone in trouble? She revealed nothing.

Soon, lunch was under way. Once teachers had their kids in the cafeteria, they headed for the office and gathered in small groups. Lopez filled them in and issued orders.

Their mission, he said: Figure out which students had parents at Fresh Del Monte -- without violating privacy rules or scaring the children. Together, they came up with a plan.

Each teacher would have an activity to ask students a series of seemingly innocent questions. Some teachers talked about summer jobs. If someone was looking for one, where would be a good place to work? How about construction? After running through a series of jobs, they'd mention Fresh Del Monte and ask kids whether they knew anyone who worked there. Other teachers suggested future field trips, offering suggestions until they named Fresh Del Monte.

Teachers quickly learned that many kids were affected. In Jorge Meza's second-grade classroom, half the kids raised their hands.

Within the school, it was common knowledge that some students had parents who were illegal residents. Meza knew the signs. Once, he'd been just like them. Decades earlier, his mother had smuggled her six children across the Mexican border and into California. In time, they'd all become legal residents. But in the faces of his students, he continued to see himself.

Now, for the 31-year-old teacher, illegal immigration was no longer something debated by politicians in Washington, D.C. It was a drama playing out in his classroom.

Meanwhile, parent helpers working with the school's administration learned which parents had been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Six children in Meza's class had no parent to pick them up. Other relatives arrived to pick up a few. Meza walked the others home to a nearby apartment complex.

Next to the school, Northgate Park was unusually empty. No kids played on the swings. No one threw a football. As he walked into the complex, Meza noticed that every door was closed, the blinds pulled tight. The parking lot, usually filled with people chatting, was empty.

He led one child to an apartment where a relative waited. The child walked inside. Everything OK? Meza asked. He received nods but nothing more. The door closed.



That afternoon, somebody handed a teen with sad eyes a phone in the hallway at Roosevelt. His friend was on the line, saying the teen's younger sisters were crying because their mom -- his mom -- had been taken by federal agents.

He felt heartsick and angry, like he wanted to punch and kick the lockers. But his English teacher calmed him, told him to take the news one step at a time. The teacher brought him to the Spanish English office. A few minutes later, his nephew picked him up, and they went to check on his sisters at a relative's house.

He's a senior at Roosevelt and the man of his house, with a younger teenage brother and the two sisters, 10 and 12. His dark hair is cut short, and he's grown a faint mustache and beard. He speaks softly, looks at the ground, politely refuses to discuss his own immigration status, and doesn't want his name used.

He told his sisters not to worry, that everything would be OK, the kind of thing you tell kids when you want to be strong for them, even though you don't know what's going to happen and your stomach is churning.

We'll watch the news, the teen told them, and find out what's going on.

He was relieved when he heard a few hours later that federal agents would release some of the workers, including parents with no one to take care of their children.

His mom was released late Tuesday with a tracking device around her right ankle.



On Wednesday morning at Roosevelt, during the faculty meeting for the Spanish English International School, teachers considered the predicament facing their students. Relatives of at least 10 kids had been detained, and roughly 25 students did not return to school.

The teachers came up with a plan, with an assist from the school district.

The deadline for final grades would be extended. Students could come in late and take their exams, or teachers could use grades earned through Monday. Teachers volunteered to clean out the lockers of missing students so they could pick up their belongings after classes ended for the summer.

If they come back.

That morning, the teen whose mother had been detained learned details of the raid. His mother told him she'd been ridiculed and that she'd started to cry before agents began treating her better.

He went back to school that day, tried to concentrate on his exams. But the stress weighed on him. He had an essay to write but couldn't start a sentence.

His eyes betrayed his worries: What if his mom is deported? What happens to his siblings? Who will be her lawyer? What will he do this summer for a job?

He has one semester of high school left, and he's determined to finish next fall. That's what his mom wants.



They call the apartments along North Fessenden Street, the ones across the street from Clarendon Elementary School, "the Landing." It's where many immigrants -- legal and illegal -- end up while trying to put down roots in the city.

On Thursday, two days after the raids, Maggie Reinhardt walked through the Parkview Apartments, the sprawling 72-unit complex she's managed for four years. Once a dump, it's been cleaned up and is now home primarily to families.

"These are good people just trying to survive," she said. "Right now, because of what happened everyone around here is like a zombie."

Reinhardt said ICE agents knocked on the doors of three units, hauled some people away and placed one woman under house arrest. The woman has to wear an ankle bracelet and can't leave her apartment, not even to take trash to the Dumpster at the far end of the property. Reinhardt got someone to haul it for her.

"She's a mom trying to raise a child," Reinhardt said. "Her husband works out of state. She's just trying to make a good life for her child."

Even those with no connection to Fresh Del Monte are fearful. They may be in the country illegally. Or a relatives is. Or a friend. So the men and women who live in the Parkview are leery of everyone.

In the raid's aftermath, Reinhardt made a tour of the complex to see how people were doing. She knocked on doors, hoping to be a friendly face. People were home -- a curtain moved slightly, or Reinhardt heard a television, radio or snatches of conversation -- but only one woman answered the door.

She nodded, "si," everything is fine. But she shut the door quickly, before more questions could be asked.

"Even though I know they trust me, I represent authority," Reinhardt said. "These people are scared."

For now, she's heard that children are being warned to stay inside and keep the blinds closed. There's a rumor going around that the immigration agents may come back.

"The children," she said, "have been told that if they see anything, they're to hide."

http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/oreg ... xml&coll=7

Someone got an extra tissue?

(sniff) I have an extra MW

News Flash kiddo's ...parents should not break the law...it happens every day in every country(well some Countries) you break the law and even parents with children go to jail...OK short and easy lesson...Class dismissed...Go home and educate your Mom and Dad on the rule of law and possible penalties of breaking and entering...

redpony353 wrote:

(sniff) I have an extra MW

Thanks. Please excuse me, have to wipe my eyes and blow my nose.

There, I feel much better now.

The cell phone angle just kills me. A struggling illegal in high school
owns a cell phone? I don't own a cell phone & I'm almost 50 years
old. I guess I need to stop paying med ins premiums, go to the ER
& health dept & use that money for a cell phone.

These stories never mention how in reality these children go from school to school then to Mexico for a vist and then back to another school. Most of the illegals do not put down "roots" as they say because they never stay in one place very long. I can't tell you how many times I've seen them just pick up and move or go to Mexico without notice. One day they are here and poof the next day they're gone! Their moving has nothing to do with ICE as there haven't been any raids in my town.