Thread: TN: Imm. raids hit Springfield hard, 1000 flee city

There are pictures at the link. Enforcement seems to work... (did not see this in a search).


Monday, 01/07/08
Immigration raids hit Springfield hard
Enforcement sends shock wave to employer, hundreds of lives

By JANELL ROSS
Staff Writer

SPRINGFIELD — The piles dotting South Main Street's rental yards, just beyond downtown, hint at lives suddenly abandoned.

There's a pair of toppled plastic Christmas trees with silver garland still attached, a Los Rehnes de Javier Torres CD and a crumpled spelling test. A grade-schooler named Alana scored a 93.


Some estimate that 1,000 Hispanic residents fled the city in fear or went into hiding after a handful of immigration raids.

Those left behind deal with the fallout — empty homes and businesses and anxious waiting for what comes next.

Springfield landlord James Huffine said he'll lose $5,000 this month in cleaning, hauling and lost rent after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested members of five families last month who lived in his apartment units. Huffine said his tenants showed him work identification and paycheck stubs issued by Electrolux, Robertson County's largest employer, and he believed they were here legally.

"I don't think people ought to be here illegally, but these raids, sweeping up people in the dead of night, it just doesn't seem right or productive," he said, motioning to the tangled mess at the edge of the road. "I know a lot of people think we need to get all the illegals out of here, but you've got to look at stuff like this. Look at what those raids have done to this entire town."

A city of 17,000 about a half-hour north of Nashville, Springfield is vibrant and growing, city officials said. Part of that growth is, without question, from immigration.

By the end of last year, 3,000 to 4,000 Spanish-speaking immigrants — some from El Salvador but most from Mexico and many in the United States illegally — lived in Springfield, City Manager Paul Nutting estimated. Between the 2000-2001 school year and this one, the number of Hispanic students in Robertson County schools nearly quadrupled to about 750.

In the weeks after the raids, the trend began reversing.

Electrolux spotlighted

Attention turned to Springfield's illegal immigrants on Dec. 5, after a Nashville television station aired a story about Electrolux Home Products. It detailed hiring practices the station said allowed illegal immigrants into the work force.

The Electrolux Springfield plant employs about 3,500 people and produces electric and gas stoves.

In a statement, the company said it depends on a staffing company to identify employees and gather information about their legal right to work in the United States. The staffing company is Randstad, which did not return phone calls seeking comment. Then, typically within weeks, the employee is subjected to a second round of identity checks, according to a statement issued by Tony Evans, an Electrolux spokesman. Evans did not specify when Electrolux began doing that.

But sometime between the Dec. 5 television report and a visit from ICE one week later, the company began reviewing paperwork. As many as 800 workers lost or walked away from Electrolux jobs, said Tommy Vallejos, executive director of HOPE, a Tennessee immigrant advocacy group.

"There are people who are so afraid, they have not collected their final paycheck," Vallejos said.

The company declined to comment on the order or details of events, but Evans acknowledged in a statement that "we have lost some employees in recent weeks."

Norma Linda, 23, who did not give her last name, was among them. She came to Tennessee illegally nearly five years ago from a farm in Oaxaca, Mexico. For the last three years, she worked on an Electrolux line installing stove components, presenting a Mexican government-issued ID and an expired visa to get the job, she said.

"I was standing at my station when I heard them starting to call people into the office," she said in Spanish. "The only people they were calling were Hispanic, so I started getting really … my heart was racing. I think I started sweating."

When word spread on the floor that employees were being questioned about their ability to work in the United States, Norma Linda made a decision. When her break time came, she left and never went back.

Nearly a month later, Norma Linda, four months pregnant, and her husband ration food so they don't have to visit the store too often. Her husband removed their names, spelled out in scrolled letters, from the back window of their truck. And now, the couple argues about what to do — stay or go back to Mexico, or maybe Kentucky.

"The stories here are that Tennessee is going to get ugly," she said.

The ICE arrests began Dec. 12, with two people accused of selling identification to illegal immigrants who primarily used it to get jobs at Electrolux. Agents also arrested 14 suspected illegal immigrants, said Temple Black, a New Orleans-based ICE spokesman.

On Dec. 19, four suspected illegal immigrants were arrested at the Springfield Electrolux facility, and by the end of the day Dec. 20, 11 more were arrested at homes and apartments in and around Springfield.

Black declined to say what sparked the agency's actions.

Of those arrested, four were released to care for children and given court dates before an immigration judge. Two face federal charges related to manufacturing identity documents. The remaining 25 were brought to the Metro Jail and later transferred to an ICE facility in Texas, where an immigration judge is likely to order them deported.

Springfield Alderman Clay Sneed said he believes ICE agents gathered names and addresses from Electrolux's files, which led agents to his home on Dec. 20. He rents out his 900-square-foot basement and other properties in the city.

He said he's concerned about the education, health-care and other costs of illegal immigration to taxpayers and had no idea the person who rented his basement was in the country illegally.But he is outraged by ICE's methods and the fear the agency has spawned.

"If they were going to enforce immigration laws, why would they wait until a point where it would become so detrimental to (such a large) employer? This is going to be a large economic loss to our community," said Sneed, a 22-year Electrolux employee who left the company to start a security firm last year. His wife still works there.

Pews empty, cars gone

The raids' impact was clear almost immediately, said the Rev. Tomas Bielawa, who ministers to the Hispanic congregation at Springfield's Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church.

The day of the raid on the fake ID operation, about 200 people attended the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe at the church, a special date for Mexican Catholics in particular. Last year, the same celebration drew about 450, said Bielawa.

"You have to understand that if you are a Mexican and you only go to church one time a year, this is it, you go that day," he said.

The panic continued and the piles of discarded furniture, the evidence of apartments abandoned in the dead of night, continued to mount on Springfield streets. And businesses started to feel the impact.

Nestor Patino, a car salesman at Pancho's Used Cars, said about 60 percent of the dealership's clients are Hispanic immigrants. Since the first arrests in early December, about 20 vehicles sold on credit have either gone missing — presumably driven out of the country — or been abandoned, Patino said. And the adjacent family-owned gas station has seen a significant drop in business.

Patino is a native Texan who hails from a family so steeped in its faith that the car dealership shirt he wears to work, even the company doorways, are marked with the words, "Jesus Loves You, John 3:16."

"I tell you what, when we go to collect money for the cars now, or even to spread the gospel, people don't want to answer the door," Patino said. "They turn off the lights and pretend they aren't inside. It wasn't like that three weeks ago."

Elias Quijada, the owner of E&D Auto Repair, who is from El Salvador, said his entire clientele have either been deported or disappeared in the weeks since the raids.

Now Quijada's shop sits idle, and Quijada is himself looking for work.

"I was starting to have a lot of clients and they're gone," Quijada said. "... I've been a resident since 1985, and I've never seen anything as big as this personally."

It's tough for city leaders to predict what the long-term effects of last month's raids might be. Robertson County Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Margot Fosnes said she hasn't heard of any businesses in distress because of ICE activity in the area.

"I do understand that Electrolux has lost a significant element of its work force," she said. "And what negatively affects Electrolux is going to affect Springfield. But that is not something we have heard in this office."

She said nobody mentioned Electrolux or ICE at the 400-member chamber's monthly gathering Dec. 20.

Electrolux has always been a "good corporate citizen," a company that donates to Toys for Tots and this year even entered the winning float in Springfield's Christmas Parade, Fosnes said.

"I think what we are dealing with here isn't unique to Robertson County or even Springfield," she said. "The same things are going on, perhaps still undiscovered, but they are going on everywhere."

County Mayor Howard Bradley said the change is noticeable. He blames faulty immigration policy for allowing the community to build its economy, at least in part, with illegal labor only to have it yanked away.

Some immigrants remain

"There is a noticeable absence, you just do not see many Hispanic people on the street," he said. "The only thing that isn't clear at this point is the long-term impact this may have on Robertson County."

Enforcement may become even more strict this year, when a new state law allows government agencies to report employers suspected of knowingly hiring illegal immigrants. Those caught twice in three years will lose their business license.

But some illegal immigrants say they'll continue to make a go of life here.

Nacio, 33, who also did not give his last name, said he came to the United States nine years ago from Pueblo, Mexico, to work and send money to his mother. Now he has a family — including a 2-year-old who is an American citizen — and can't just leave.

"I know a lot of people don't like it that we are here, they don't like the change," he said. "They say we broke the law. But I reached a point in my country where my family, we did not have enough to eat.

"I can not go without hurting our children here or my family in Mexico. So we will be careful, we won't take risks we don't have to. But, we are here."

Nacio made arrangements with friends to care for his children or get his family back to Mexico if he or his wife are deported. He and his wife have avoided leaving the house together for weeks so they can not be arrested together.

And Nacio has not worked in nearly three weeks. He said his boss at the bathroom refinishing company wants him back.

"I think we are going to stay, to try to see what comes," said Nacio. "In a few days, maybe a week, I'll go back to work. … We, my mother, none of us can live without my pay."

http://www.fairviewobserver.com/apps/pb ... 321/MTCN06

I can only say what I know ..from the front lines..
For years a man I know has hired illegals..His father warned him about the consequences but he made a profit and undercut the competition. He felt safe because not even a phone call from a local Judge could bestir INS to collect illegals from the County Jail..
He has sons...neither of whom work..One, who has nothing, not a wife, not a chick or child, not a car, not a job, not a house, nothing..is in the Peace Corp in Ecuador...helping a peasant farmer who has a house, cows, chickens, a donkey, a tv, internet access and 5 children..on a large farm..
His other son lives at home..his mother cleans and cooks for him
Both sons are in their 20's and Now..the law is cracking down..
The man is going to have to find legal labor..
Is he angry? Yes Indeed but he has dodged taxes, engaged in unfair competition and profited from illegal labor practices..
He knew the illegals were illegals...and he claims they are his friends..
But..as Bob Dylan said, 'You never turned around to see the faces on the clowns when they all did tricks for you."
This man and millions like him..have been selling Lenin the rope to hang them with..
His father warned him..

Vaya con Dios, amigos!!

Wow, Springfield sure cleared out in a hurry, didn't it? Well, that's okay.....there are plenty of Americans who will snap up those jobs at Electrolux. That is who is entitled to have them to begin with.

I hope that Nacio does stay......with so few of them left and the fact that he announced where he works, he shouldn't be all that difficult to find and deport.

wow, imagine that, upholding the law works.

Please call ICE...you can do it anonimously.....we all need to work together on this......

ICE.... PLEASE COME TO VEGAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The casinos are waiting

When word spread on the floor that employees were being questioned about their ability to work in the United States, Norma Linda made a decision. When her break time came, she left and never went back.

Nearly a month later, Norma Linda, four months pregnant, and her husband ration food so they don't have to visit the store too often. Her husband removed their names, spelled out in scrolled letters, from the back window of their truck. And now, the couple argues about what to do — stay or go back to Mexico, or maybe Kentucky

.
Well, she'll soon have her anchor.

Huffine said his tenants showed him work identification and paycheck stubs issued by Electrolux, Robertson County's largest employer,

Again more jobs stolen from Americans in the name of "Corporate Greed."
I keep hearing their only coming here to pick lettuce! I don't know lettuce picking is a far cry from working in a facotory. What is sad is there are so little manufacturing jobs left in America, and they are being filled by Illegal alien labor , because an American will not work for menial wages and then be subsidized by welfare! Manufacturing was once the backbone of this country, it is those jobs that producted the middle class.

It is time for employer enforcement...raid as many companies as possible, impose stiff fines, and if they do not adhere , pull their liscense for doing business.

"I was standing at my station when I heard them starting to call people into the office," she said in Spanish. "The only people they were calling were Hispanic, so I started getting really … my heart was racing. I think I started sweating."

When word spread on the floor that employees were being questioned about their ability to work in the United States, Norma Linda made a decision. When her break time came, she left and never went back.

Now I ask you, what kind of raid is that? I'd prefer to hear that the place was surrounded by ICE agents and that every illegal on the property was captured and deported. These "compassionate" raids allow to many illegals to escape the long (oops, I mean short) arm of the law. ICE needs to go in with the intention of apprehending every single illegal on the property, not just a few of them.

sounds like the displaced americans can have the jobs back! mabe even with a nice union to sqeeeze electrolux's owners testicles for top wages and healthcare!!!!