Raid At An East Houston Plant
Put forth on June 25, 2008 by XicanoPwr
Posted in Deportation, ICE, Immigration, La Migra, News/Noticias, Round-ups
Around 7AM, Wednesday, 150 to 200 ICE agents raided an East Houston plant, Action Rags U.S.A. The company has 240 employees. Bob Rutt, ICE’s agent in charge, would not specify what led them to plan this raid, which is at least the second major immigration enforcement action in Houston in recent months.
Here are the highlights from the Houston Chronicle:
Of the detained workers, 60-70 percent are women, Rutt said.
ICE officials have released 16 employees so far. “One was a U.S. citizen and another 15 were here in status and are legally authorized to work,” Rutt said.
Ten female workers who are pregnant were detained. “We are processing them here for humanitarian purposes and will release them here under an order to report to an immigration court,” Rutt said.
He said that four employees were transported from the facility for medical treatment, including a woman transported by helicopter to a local hospital after she fell 20 feet off a stack of wooden pallets in which she was hiding.
I will update this post when I hear more.
Update: I have not found out any additional information, however, I am not the only on frustrated at the lack of response here in Houston. Thanks to the folks who run Houston Indy Media, I just found out there will be a protest today to respond to the raid. After the protest, there will be a power analysis on immigration in Houston. Following this, there will be meeting to form a rapid response team in case of another raid. I plan to attend both the protest and the meetings and I will definitely my presence known.
Mira gente, I don’t have to tell you how bad things are today. Everybody knows things are bad. Everybody’s out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel’s work, multinational corporations are bleeding us dry, and there’s nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there’s no end to it.
We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TV’s while some local newscaster numbs us with unless news coupled with how bad things are, as if that’s the way it’s always been. Did we really need to know that Houston was rated as 7th-sweatiest American city. We are constantly reminded we live in a very hot city every damn day when we step outside our homes. Why did my local news feel the need to remind us again that Houston is hot? Are they in the business of providing free advertising to the mega corporation who conducted this survey? I guess it is to soften the blow when they report on know things are bad – worse than bad. Well, I am tired of this. I am tired of people pinning their hopes on this election. I am tired of feeling angry. I am tired of people thinking that the “don’t worry be happy” mentality will easier to digest. NO! DAMN IT! Things have got to change. All I know is that first you’ve got to get mad to make it happen!
I’M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!
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This is the blog of Edmundo "XicanoPwr" Rocha, a social worker, an activist, freelance writer and founder and editor of The Sanctuary. My interests include: immigration reform, critical race theory and it's interaction with equality/inequality and freedom/oppression as they relate to the experiences of people of color in the Americas.
Para Justicia y Libertad is a Latino-centered political blog focusing on the humanistic perspective of politics, history, and society as they relate to the Latina/o community throughout Texas and the United States.
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You’re not the only one who’s mad as hell, bro.
It is way too much, man. Now we are talking about black Friday. When is this madness ever going to stop?
Break the law, get detained. It’s not rocket science, folks.
Next time you decide to go over the speed limit and you are stopped by the police, you ask them to detain you since you did break the law.
Under current law, presence in the United States without valid status is a civil violation, the same civil violation for speeding and any other traffic violations such as tailgating, improperly passing a school bus, reckless driving, and illegal u-turns. It carries the same legal weight for someone charged for disorderly conduct, including certain types of domestic disputes; vandalism; ordinance violations involving signs, property maintenance, and other matters; and harassment.
Oh no, people like you are so quick to jack unlawful residency violations up to felonies. This kind of thinking not only shows callousness, but a complete lack of understanding of the havoc the move will create.
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