Thread: ICE raids plant in Laurel, Mississippi

NCBR Article

Nation's legal-worker verification system flops
By Steve Porter


September 26, 2008 --
When it comes to verifying a worker's legal status to be hired for a job in the United States, one thing seems to be increasingly clear: the current system is not working.

Recent immigration raids conducted in Iowa and Mississippi - and the raid on the Swift slaughter-and-packing facility in Greeley in December 2006 - have shown that illegal workers are continuing to be hired under the federal government's E-Verify program that began 11 years ago as the Basic Pilot Program.

Nearly 400 immigrant workers were arrested in May at a kosher meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa. Owners of Agriprocessors Inc. were charged earlier this month with more than 9,000 misdemeanors for allegedly employing 32 illegal-immigrant children under 18, including seven who were younger than 16. The charges allege the children were handling dangerous equipment and exposed to toxic chemicals.

"All of the named defendants possessed shared knowledge that Agriprocessors employed undocumented aliens," the arrest affidavit said, according to a story by the Associated Press.



Forgery encouraged

The Iowa Attorney General's office said the company encouraged job applicants to submit forged identification documents that contained false information about their resident status, age and identity, according to the report.

While Iowa does not allow the hiring of illegal workers, it is a state that does not require the use of the federal E-Verify program, and some might argue that if it did have E-Verify the situation might not have happened. Currently, E-Verify is largely a voluntary program that is supposed to match documents submitted by new hires against federal Social Security and other data bases.

But Mississippi is one of three states - along with Arizona and South Carolina - that requires employers to use E-Verify. Howard Industries, an electrical products manufacturer in Laurel, Miss., was raided in August by U.S. Immigration and Customs officials and 595 workers were arrested and charged with identity theft and fraudulent use of Social Security numbers.

Howard Industries had been using E-Verify for more than a year.

And Northern Colorado was hit with its own ICE raid in December 2006 when nearly 1,200 workers at the Swift plant in Greeley were arrested on identity theft charges. Swift was then using and continues to use E-Verify to check its new hires.

Colorado, like Iowa and most other states, has taken its own approach in trying to make sure employers don't hire illegal workers. In July 2006, Gov. Bill Owens signed House Bill 1017, which requires employers to comply with federal employment verification requirements or face fines of up to $25,000. However, the measure did not specify using the E-Verify program.



Illinois example

One state that has gone very much its own way is Illinois. In 2007, the Illinois legislature amended the state's Right to Privacy in the Workplace Act to prohibit employers from enrolling in Basic Pilot/E-Verify "until the Social Security Administration and Department of Homeland Security databases are able to make a determination on 99 percent of the tentative non-confirmation notices issued to employers within three days."

The law was supposed to take effect on Jan. 1 of this year but the Department of Homeland Security filed a lawsuit against the state of Illinois to block it. The law is still on hold as legal proceedings go on.

"The status of the E-Verify case is presently stayed awaiting pending (federal) legislation," said Natalie Bauer, a spokeswoman for the Illinois Attorney General's office. "The state has agreed not to enforce that particular part of the law until there is a resolution of the case."

Supporters of the Illinois law were responding to criticisms of Basic Pilot/E-Verify that claim the system is seriously flawed because it sometimes fails to correctly match Social Security numbers or often isn't able to spot stolen numbers.

Those criticisms seem to be valid, given the large numbers of illegal workers who continue to find jobs in states and companies using the still-mostly-voluntary E-Verify system and even in states - like Mississippi - where it is mandatory.



Federal mandate

But still the federal government - through the Department of Homeland Security and the strong support of President George Bush - continues to push for increased use of E-Verify as the answer to the nation's illegal worker problem. Bush signed an executive order on June 6 requiring all federal contractors to use E-Verify.

In July, an amendment to the FY 2009 Homeland Security Appropriations Bill was added to extend E-Verify past its Nov. 30, 2008 expiration date. The program has not yet been officially renewed.

But Michael Chertoff, Homeland Security secretary, continues to claim that E-Verify is the best way to stem the flow of illegal workers - and possible terrorists - from illegally obtaining work in America and undermining the nation's immigration system and its homeland security.

"Congress has repeatedly acknowledged that rampant document and identity fraud has significantly undermined the existing system for stopping illegal workers from getting jobs, and E-Verify is the best available way for employers to ensure their workforce is legally authorized to work," Chertoff said in a press release.

If only that was true.



Steve Porter covers agribusiness for the Business Report. He can be reached at 970-221-5400, Ext. 225, or at sporter@ncbr.com.
http://www.ncbr.com/article.asp?id=96214

Activists push for amnesty in MS raid
Chad Groening - OneNewsNow - 9/28/2008 3:00:00 AM
A Mississippi-based immigration reform activist says it's absurd that a group of illegal immigration supporters are staging a protest against recent federal immigration raids aimed at enforcing the rule of law.



On August 25, federal agents conducted a raid at the Howard Industries transformer plant in Laurel, Mississippi, where nearly 600 illegal aliens were detained, and some processed for removal from the U.S. The raid was the largest of its kind in U.S. history and created uproar among the pro-illegal alien advocates, who are staging a Sunday protest during a Hispanic festival in the Gulf Coast city of Biloxi.

Organizers claim the protest is part of a nationwide movement to take a stand in favor of "humane immigration reform," but Dr. Rodney Hunt of the Mississippi Federation for Immigration Reform and Enforcement believes what they want is amnesty.

"It's disingenuous to talk about immigration reform," Hunt contends. "True immigration reform, I think, is making sure our laws are a benefit to United States citizens -- and amnesty is a not a benefit to our citizens."

Hunt adds that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are protecting the rights of American citizens and legal residents when they conduct these raids. "It's against the law in the United States to have employment if you're not legally qualified to be employed here," he explains. "You have to have a legal work visa to have employment in the United States."

According to Hunt, the pro-illegal alien rally will ultimately fail. "A couple of years ago when they had the mass rallies demanding amnesty, I think it rallied the American citizens against the idea of amnesty," he says. "It brought it to the forefront, and it reminded them that these people came here illegally. It reminded them that they were not here to assimilate into our culture."

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Security/Defa ... ?id=264690

According to Hunt, the pro-illegal alien rally will ultimately fail. "A couple of years ago when they had the mass rallies demanding amnesty, I think it rallied the American citizens against the idea of amnesty," he says. "It brought it to the forefront, and it reminded them that these people came here illegally. It reminded them that they were not here to assimilate into our culture."

This voice of reason is SO refreshing! Just goes to show how weak our opposition is...

Careers


To apply for an opening, contact our personnel department:

Human Resources Manager
Howard Industries, Inc.
P.O. Box 1588
Laurel, MS 39441

Phone: (601) 425-3151
Fax: (601) 422-1483
E-mail: HumanResources@Howard-Ind.com

A variety of job opportunities are available at Howard Industries, from unskilled laborers to highly trained engineers. Some of the job opportunities that become available are:
Manufacturing Workers (All Divisions)
Electrical Engineers (Computer, Transformer, Ballast Divisions)
Mechanical Engineers (Transformer Division)
Truck Drivers (Transportation Division)
Hardware and Software Engineers (Computer Division)
Sales (Computer Division)
Technical Service (Computer Division)
Some of the many benefits currently offered by Howard Industries are:
Medical and Dental Insurance
Life and Disability Insurance
Paid Holidays
Paid Vacations
401k Retirement Plan


Howard Industries is an equal opportunity employer. Howard Industries complies with all Federal and State laws governing labor. The company has developed an Affirmative Action Program to ensure equal employment opportunity.




Howard Industries, Inc. PO Box 1588 Laurel MS 39441 (601) 425-3151 Marketing@Howard-Ind.com

Statement of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers on the Immigration Raid at Howard Industries
Posted : Wed, 08 Oct 2008 13:02:22 GMT
Author : International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers
Category : Press Release
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LAUREL, Miss., Oct. 8 IBEW-Howard-statement

LAUREL, Miss., Oct. 8 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The massive August 25th raid by the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement at Howard Industries in Laurel, Mississippi, removed nearly 500 immigrant workers from Howard Industries -- mostly from Mexico and Central America, all suspected of being undocumented -- to a detention center in Jena, La. As the elected bargaining representative of more than 2,000 workers at the company, the IBEW carefully reviewed the facts as best we can determine before issuing any public statement.

Our union first won a representation vote at Howard Industries in 1974 after a difficult organizing campaign. The company has never accepted the IBEW as a working partner, and the relationship has never been positive.

Since the beginning of August -- when our last collective bargaining agreement expired -- our union has been in negotiations with Howard Industries on a new agreement.

Long before the raid, some IBEW Local 1317 representatives at Howard Industries became aware that many Spanish-speaking workers were being paid wages far below the rates that were paid to our members under provisions of our labor agreement. And the numbers don't tell the story of people going to work every day but living in squalor. Our representatives filed grievances alleging that the company was undermining our labor agreement by assigning our work in its transformer operations to satellite facilities at a lower wage scale with lesser benefits.

Protecting wage standards is part and parcel of why workers, mostly African-American and white, at Howard Industries originally voted for the union. So was protecting safety on the job. In June, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration announced it intended to fine the company $123,000 for 36 violations of health and safety regulations at one plant and another $41,000 at another.

In a right-to-work state, where union membership is voluntary, unions' sole method for maintaining bargaining strength is by constantly organizing to achieve majority status. So last year, knowing that contract negotiations were coming up, the IBEW assigned an organizer to reach out to Spanish-speaking workers about joining the IBEW. Hundreds did so with the understanding that becoming union members was the only way to win equitable pay and benefits with others in the plant. The IBEW believes that it is the employer's job to screen workers for legal immigration status. Once they are working in a bargaining unit, our duty is to represent them and work to sign them as members.

The vast majority of members who joined IBEW during our campaign are here legally. We are still trying to determine exactly how many of those detained are IBEW members.

The agency says that it knew about the presence of undocumented workers at Howard Industries two years ago. It is suspicious, then, that the raid took place as contract negotiations were drawing near, the perfect time to undercut the strength of the union. We also give credence to Mississippi State Rep. Jim Evans, who said that the raid was, in part, politically motivated, an election-year "attempt to drive a wedge between immigrants, African-Americans, whites and unions -- all those who want political change here."

Howard Industries is an influential employer in Mississippi. In 2002, the company received $31.5 million in subsidies to expand its operations. Despite these millions in subsidies, Howard maintained unsafe working conditions -- until being forced to change -- and deliberately pursued a policy of undercutting wage standards by hiring workers afraid to speak out because of their immigration status.

We are also aware of reports that information supplied by an unnamed "union member" led to the raid and that some workers cheered as the immigrants were taken into custody. We cannot confirm these as facts. What is clear, however, is that the mutual suspicion between native-born workers and immigrants is a tragic reminder that our immigration system is broken.

The IBEW has consistently supported an immigration policy based on respect for the law and the security of America's borders. We also deplore the cynical abuse of those who come to the United States, with or without documentation, by employers who exploit the fears and economic desperation of workers. Through substandard wages, unsafe working conditions and no benefits, employers reap the benefits of cheap labor while undercutting the standards of all workers. This drives a wedge between workers and limits their ability to stand together for change. Allowing such a system to continue is a stain on the American character that must be addressed by our national leaders.

The IBEW will continue to organize within workplaces where we have bargaining units, like Howard Industries, and at the operations of nonunion employers across the country.

For further information:
Jim Spellane
(202) 728-6014
cjspellane@ibew.org




SOURCE International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers



http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show ... 1870.shtml

After Raid, Laurel's Inter-Racial Bonds Still Strong

New America Media, News Feature, Marcelo Ballvé, Posted: Oct 13, 2008

Editor's Note: Nearly 600 people were detained in an immigration sweep in Laurel, Mississippi in August. New America Media's Marcelo Ballvé traveled to Laurel to find out how a small town has dealt with demographic change, and discovered proximity can give rise to both tensions and some surprising relationships.

LAUREL, Miss. -- Melvin Mack remembers the ugly days of Jim Crow when he witnessed the Ku Klux Klan march right past the downtown building where he now works as Laurel's first black mayor.

"At one time there was a lot of racism in and around the city of Laurel, a lot of shooting in black people's houses, a lot of cross burning, a lot of brutality," he says.

Mack, elected in 2005, is a symbol of Laurel's efforts to put this contentious history behind it. Of course, segregation's scars haven't healed completely. Poverty remains entrenched in the African-American community, pockets of prejudice persist. But Laurel has progressed enough so that when thousands of Latin American immigrants began arriving in the late 1990s, there was hardly any fuss at all.
Laurel Mayor Melvin Mack
"It didn't really raise any eyebrows," says Paul Barrett, publisher of The Review, a weekly newspaper in Laurel. "They were hard-working, they stayed to themselves."

The newcomers, mostly undocumented Mexicans and Panamanians, rented homes and trailers and renewed vacant storefronts and buildings with their restaurants, shops and churches. They found work in pine plantations, in wood and poultry-processing, and at Howard Industries, a homegrown billion-dollar electronics manufacturer that is the town's largest employer.

By all accounts, Laurel and surrounding Jones County had begun to piece together a civic coexistence, binding together black, white and immigrant.

Then, on Aug. 25, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents rushed into a sprawling Howard Industries transformer plant just outside town, arresting 595 undocumented workers and exposing the extent to which local businesses had begun to tap immigrant labor. Some tensions that had built under the surface for a long while received a public airing -- especially worries about whether illegal immigrants were taking jobs from poor locals.

Not surprisingly, immigration restrictionists, lately on the rise in Mississippi, extolled the raid.

State Sen. Chris McDaniel, a Jones County Republican, had co-authored a strict law that passed earlier this year. Among other disincentives to illegal immigration, it made it a felony for an undocumented worker to take a job in Mississippi. Shortly after the raid, McDaniel appeared on local NBC affiliate WDAM-TV news. "There's no question in my mind that Americans will do those jobs," said McDaniel, who is white. "I think it's a good thing what the federal government did."

McDaniel cited high unemployment in Jones County as a reason for welcoming the raid, although Jones has the fourth lowest unemployment rate among Mississippi's 82 counties-- 6.5 percent, according to state government statistics from July.
The Howard Industries transformer plant
where the undocumented workers were detained.
The same news spot also showed scores of people, mostly African Americans, but whites, too, lined up at Howard Industries hiring offices. An anchor said that now, instead of illegal immigrants, "honest to goodness Americans" were seeking jobs. In on-air interviews, some applicants complained bitterly they'd formerly been shut out of Howard jobs because of an unstated preference for illegal immigrants who work for less wages.

But many in Laurel disputed that contention.

"The 'illegals are taking jobs away from American workers' chant doesn't ring true for me," wrote Barrett, the newspaper publisher, in an editorial. It may be true in a theoretical sense, but practically speaking, many of those doing the chanting aren't filling out the job applications."

According to several community leaders, Howard had been advertising jobs at all levels of pay for months, not only in local newspapers but also on a large billboard over Laurel's main drag, 16th Avenue, without achieving anything approaching what they described as a publicity-motivated post-raid response.

Rather than make it impossible for local workers to find jobs, what immigrants have done is removed some fluidity from the job market and made it more difficult for workers to exit and enter the labor force at will, switch jobs, and find work quickly, says Mack, the mayor.

"That did make people upset," he says, but he dismisses as "hot air" speculation of a deep rift dividing the black and Hispanic communities.

Other than occasional prickliness between races, the Aug. 25 raid laid bare what may turn out to be the newcomers' more lasting legacy: the surprisingly strong web of relationships that has woven immigrants deep into the town's fabric, and begun to change it.

Some signs of this interweaving are visible: the local Wal Mart stocks Jarritos-brand Mexican soft drinks and jars of mole sauce. Good old boys don't hesitate to recommend dinners at La Casita, one among the half-dozen or so Mexican restaurants that already outnumber barbecue spots. There's even a taco joint in Sawmill Square, the local mall.

Over at Tienda Las Americas, an Anglo customer comes in everyday to buy a Mexican brand of chocolate he's grown fond of.

Before the raid, the city sports complex hosted a 15-team soccer league, overwhelmingly composed of immigrants but with the participation of some locals.

The immigrant influx, more than just spurring economic renewal and injecting new diversity into Laurel, has clearly shaken up the town's old pattern of residential segregation. In recent years, white flight from Laurel to the surrounding county had turned Jones County into a demographic "donut," in the words of Barrett, the newspaper publisher.

Blacks concentrated in Laurel -- giving them a slight majority -- and whites bought up homes in the county's formerly rural areas.

The arriving immigrants, as many as 10,000 by some counts, moved into the vacuum left behind by whites. In Laurel, some immigrants moved into the historic district and its tree-canopied streets lined by Queen Anne, colonial revival and craftsman style homes built by early 20th Century lumber barons, mill owners and railroad entrepreneurs.

Local builders, sensing an opportunity, also erected new apartment residences for the newcomers, such as the sprawling La Joya Apartments, which locals dubbed "Hispanic City," located near the city's traditionally black south side. One defunct church near downtown Laurel, abandoned by its formerly white congregation, became Peniel Christian Church, with a mostly immigrant membership, but also including white and black worshippers, according to Pastor Roberto Velez.
Angelica Olmedo and
Magdelena Mina outside
the Catholic Church in Laurel
This year, Velez officiated at a marriage between a Hispanic immigrant woman and a Native American from the Choctaw Reservation in Sandersville, 11 miles to the north.

Trailer parks lining the access roads in and out of the city began to mix residents of all races.

Not surprisingly, among longtime Jones County residents, those who perhaps lived in closest contact with the newcomers were their landlords.

Harmon Sumrall, 65, the son of white sharecroppers, is now a property owner who rented out 10 rental homes, including apartments and trailers, to immigrant clients, who he says are the best tenants he's ever had.

Now, five of his units are empty. The tenants, even if they were not arrested, picked up and fled in fear afterward, leaving behind couches, frozen turkeys, kids' toys, cereal boxes, lawn ornaments and even DVD players.

"They were scared to death," says Sumrall, showing a reporter the inside of one abandoned trailer.

He's forgiven a month's rent to five immigrant households in the hopes that with a little help they might get on their feet and stay.

"I hate to say 'aliens', they're not aliens," he says. "They're immigrants. I mean we're all immigrants, we're all from somewhere .... If they get rid of all the illegal immigrants in Jones County, Jones County is going to suffer economically."

Sumrall's sympathy isn't just self-interest. He and his wife Frankie, 62, have developed real ties with immigrant families. They sheltered them at their house during Hurricane Katrina, which peeled trailers' roofs off, they've let tenants use their pool, and they've shared birthdays and barbecues.

Then there's what immigrants did for them. Sumrall was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease in 1996, and non-Hodgkin lymphoma last year. Tenants and former tenants helped with odd jobs, forgave Sumrall's lapses, and fetched glasses of water when they spotted him on his tractor-mower in the sun.

"They knew I was sick, and they were loyal, just good, loyal people," says Sumrall.

Bill Smith, 48, would agree. A year ago, he bought a motel and trailer park near to Sumrall's with money he made as a major distributor of immigrants' long distance phone cards.
Bill Smith at his mobile home park
outside Laurel, Miss.
In 2004, he married an undocumented Mexican woman. Now, they're parents to a two-year-old, Smith speaks fluent Spanish, and he's also helping tenants by offering free rent for a month, two if need be.

"We're like a family," he says. "I've been in business with the Hispanics for 10 years and I do anything I can for them. I think that's at least fair, to help them out."

No doubt, a good number of people in Jones County believe Howard Industries and the unauthorized workers got what they deserved.

But what surprised Jason Niblett, editor of the daily Laurel Leader-Call, was that he received so few letters or calls celebrating the raid or denouncing the company's hiring of illegal immigrants. Most letters of that nature came in from out of town.

He attributes this in part to the popularity of the Howard family in Laurel, thanks to their charity giving and sponsorship of local sports teams and education (CEO Michael Howard declined to give an interview for this article). But Niblett also perceives a general tendency among all groups to get along in this working-class town, where he's lived since 2001.

"Compared to when I lived in San Antonio, I think it's better here" in terms of the tolerance toward Hispanics and the lack of divisions between groups, he says.

National media fanned the idea of a racial divide in Laurel when it reported that black workers at Howard Industries had clapped and cheered during the ICE raid, as Hispanic colleagues were arrested and led away.

Former employees say the transformer plant was by no means a multiracial workers' utopia, but also was not irredeemably polarized along race lines, or over union membership. (Some media reports speculated there was tension because of immigrants' relatively low union adherence amid a dispute with management over wages and benefits).

"I saw those people making fun of us," says Angelica Olmedo Paz, a Mexican immigrant who was arrested in the raid. "But for everyone that clapped, there were people who let us know they were with us, who cried with us, who didn't want us to leave."

Immigrant workers interviewed said that as far as they knew they did not receive less pay or benefits than U.S. citizen workers. Olmedo, 32, says that in part immigrant workers succeeded at the plant due to their willingness to work jobs with high turnover.

Her role at the plant was to replace workers in the production line who were absent or quit. Not surprisingly, she often found herself completing the most unpleasant tasks, such as pumping a lubricating oil into the transformers, which once full, had to be covered and pushed forward on metal rollers. The oil often spilled.

"No one liked being there," she says. "It was heavy, dirty work. I was always there, filling in for an Afro- or an Anglo-American, who'd last three weeks, a month at most. They'd leave, and again, I'd have to return until someone else came in."

Cory Welch, 22, who is half black and half Filipino, quit his job at Howard four days before the raid and now works at an athletic shoe store at the local mall, where the flexible hours allow him to attend accounting classes at the University of Southern Mississippi. He says many black workers resented the immigrants, but that on an individual level, they established friendships with the newcomers. "Some of them gave love to this person or that person," he says.

Olmedo, a single mother, was among the 106 detained workers, mostly female, who were released with an ankle bracelet device, so they can care for their children as they await court dates.

In order to save money, since she can't work any longer, Olmedo moved with her 12-year-old son into a trailer rented by a family that wasn't caught in the raid. Two of her friends, in her same predicament, did the same, and now they share a single room.

She shows a visitor a greetings card ("We miss you," reads one line) sent to her by an African-American ex-colleague, as well as an envelope on which at least a dozen workers, of all three ethnicities, scrawled the amount they were contributing to a cash collection organized on her behalf.

Learning she'd be living in a friends' home, they also gave her a cell phone as a gift.

The women with ankle bracelets realize they'll most likely have to leave the country, either voluntarily or via deportation. But even with their departure and that of many friends, they doubt the raid at Howard Industries represents a final chapter in Jones County's Hispanic community.

A good number of immigrants will hang on, and so will their children, many U.S.-born, who are already making their way through Jones County's increasingly ethnically diverse schools.

At the Laurel School District spelling bee earlier this year, a black student won first place, a Hispanic student second, and a white student third.

Related Articles:

http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/vi ... 8ca9799124

Interesting article. Thanks for the follow ups on this.

I don’t believe the issue is Hispanics the problem is ILLEGALS, ILLEGAL EMPLOYERS, the CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, and other SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS. Since the ILLEGALS’ infamous L.A. march displaying their foreign flags demanding their rights United States citizens are distrustful of any organized protest by the ILLEGALS OR for the ILLEGALS demanding anything. The situation will remain this way until our National Borders are secured and our Immigration Laws are Enforced. Our Elitist Politicians at the demand of their Elitist Political Contributors, Chamber of Commerce, and other Special Interest Groups will not allow the problem to be solved for fear of losing a dollar.

Just follow the money my friend. The "political contributors" will get their "cheap labor" and not have to furnish any "benefits" because all the "benefits" for the ILLEGALS will be “socializedâ€

After Mississippi Immigration Raid, Pastor Tries To Calm Chaos

New America Media, News feature, Marcelo Ballvé, Posted: Oct 17, 2008

Editor's note: Pastor Roberto Velez, like other clergy with a growing flock of undocumented immigrants, became de-facto leader of an emerging Hispanic community in Mississippi after immigration agents raided a local transformer plant, arresting 595 workers. New America Media's Marcelo Ballvé traveled to Laurel to uncover how a small town is dealing with the raid's aftermath.

LAUREL, Miss. -- After four years building up a bilingual Pentecostal ministry in this diverse, working-class town, Pastor Roberto Velez thought he might rest on his accomplishments.

But Velez's real trial by fire began Aug. 25. That morning, in a raid on a local transformer plant owned by local manufacturer Howard Industries, federal agents arrested 595 immigrants. Perhaps a dozen of them were members of Velez's Peniel Christian Church.

"It was terrible," he recalls. "I received calls starting at 8:10 a.m. I was having breakfast. They said, 'Pastor! Pastor! Immigration got into Howard.' I rushed over there."

Velez, a relative newcomer to Laurel, was suddenly thrust into a role he never expected to have: crisis management.

Outside the plant's perimeter, Velez waited with anxious immigrant families in a steady rain, comforting workers' children and wives. As blue-jacketed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents milled around, Velez buttonholed them, demanding information on detainees' fates.

From that day forward, he would tend non-stop to his panic-stricken flock-- and to any other families who walked through Peniel's doors, in want after their breadwinners ended up imprisoned.

Velez's role is reminiscent of those assumed by other clergy in towns upended by large-scale ICE raids this year.

In Postville, Iowa, an elderly Catholic nun and retired priest stepped up to the front-lines, after the May arrest of nearly 400 illegal immigrants at a local meatpacking plant created what they described as "a man-made" disaster. In Greenville, South Carolina, Episcopal and Catholic clergy teamed up to create a safety-net for hundreds of affected families, after a raid Oct. 7 at a poultry plant.

It was a spontaneous ecumenical response at the grassroots. Independent of top-down organization, and unconcerned about the controversy surrounding illegal immigration, individual clergy like Velez took the initiative.

Though their work was accompanied by that of organized immigrant advocates, pro-bono lawyers and faith-based charities, they were motivated solely by extraordinary circumstances and their pastoral vocations.

A bespectacled Vietnam veteran who is more than 6 feet tall, Velez had recruited a robust membership of some 80 worshippers, including recently arrived Panamanian, Mexican, and Guatemalan immigrants, as well as some longtime black and white residents.

He also parlayed his pastoral experience into a job as a badge-toting local police chaplain and interpreter. Born in Puerto Rico and raised both in Brooklyn and the island, Velez, who voted twice for President George W. Bush, moves effortlessly between Spanish and English.

After the raid, he found himself at the center of a crisis.

Velez became not only a shoulder to cry on, and the dispenser of checks underwriting families' grocery and utility bills, but also the organizer of a significant food drive, as well as an all-around advisor and translator.

One day, this sometimes gruff pastor drove 11 relatives of arrestees 200 miles to a privately run federal detention center in Jena, La. Hundreds of former Howard Industries workers were being held there, awaiting court dates. (Beginning in September, some of the workers being held in Jena began to be deported, leading their families to leave as well.)

At first, prison authorities did not want the pastor inside. ICE detention facilities are notoriously strict regarding visits. After a back-and-forth, however, they relented, and he spent three hours with prisoners and their relatives.

"Everyone began weeping," recalls the 58-year-old pastor. "It's one thing to speak with (imprisoned) relatives on the phone, but to see them in person, hold them, that's another thing."

Between the new troubles and usual pastoral duties at Peniel, Velez hardly finds time to sleep. It isn't uncommon for him to be surprised by a nap as he catches his breath in a leather armchair in the church lobby.

"Naturally, I can stretch my resources only to the point I can manage," he says, "but I haven't been afraid to put myself out there, I haven't been afraid to speak up."

Velez's role as a spokesperson was particularly important in post-raid Laurel. Fearful of being misrepresented, the local Catholic Church refused to speak to press as it moved to aid immigrants with food and support, although in other places, such as Postville, the Catholic parish served as a nerve center for media relations.

Velez was particularly well positioned to help the immigrants because of his pre-existing role as a one-person linchpin between Laurel, its civic institutions, and the immigrant community.

"I work with Pastor Velez a lot," says Laurel Mayor Melvin Mack.

In fact, the mayor's only complaint regarding Velez is that he sometimes is too ambitious as immigrants' advocate, as when he requested Mack to issue a city driver's permit to undocumented immigrants.

"If I could issue drivers' licenses I'd be working for the state," says Mack. "He means well, he's a good fellow, but there's only so much I can do."

One mid-September evening at Velez's handsome brick-walled, blue-windowed church, a handful of parishioners are absorbed in prayer, one of them nearly prone over the shallow steps to the altar, while Christian music plays over loudspeakers.

Meanwhile, in his office, the pastor counsels two immigrants in their twenties, who work at a local sawmill. Mixing scripture with stern admonitions about responsibility and discipline, Velez trains them in leadership once weekly. In turn, the men spread God's word and anti-drug messages in their neighborhoods.

Conversation moves quickly to the raid, and one student worries aloud about his family's future after his father's arrest.

"There's total uncertainty, because we don't know where all this is going to lead," says Allan, 24, a Panamanian who only gave his first name since he entered the country illegally.

"I don't know how, but one day God will straighten out the situation," replies Velez.

Within the church's nave, the worshipers have ended their prayers and mill among the shiny wood pews. Most have been touched in one way or another by the ICE raid.

"I feel comforted here, supported," says 37-year-old Leonidas Santiago, who adds that her husband is being held in Jena.

She was arrested in the raid, but like 105 other detainees was released with an ankle bracelet monitoring device so she could care for her children, which in her case include a two-year-old U.S. citizen.

Velez doesn't deny that providing aid to immigrants dovetails with his proselytizing. As he helps, he's possibly attracting new faithful to his church, which is affiliated with the Assemblies of God.

However, Velez, says he feels compelled to help the immigrants mainly because he had the "privilege and blessing" to be born a U.S. citizen in Puerto Rico.

"They don't have what I had," he says.

Velez agrees the immigrants broke the law by entering the country illegally, but notes both current presidential candidates advocate some form of immigration reform. He blames the flawed system, not desperate migrants, for the problem.

Some locals complain he's aiding illegal immigration, Velez says.

"I tell them no, I'm not aiding and abetting. You can come to my church, you won't find anybody refuged here. The people who are here aren't wanted by the authorities. I'm helping because it's humanitarian, anyone might do it. Why not me? They're my people."


http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/vi ... c35a6ab529

Outside the plant's perimeter, Velez waited with anxious immigrant families in a steady rain, comforting workers' children and wives.

It should have been stated "Velez waited with the anxious ILLEGALS' families.."

The Elitist Politicians, their Elitist Contributors. Big Labor, Big Religion, Chamber of Commerce, Special Interest Groups, and former Elitist presidents of Third World Countries consider United States citizens only as “units of laborâ€