On Dec. 7 about 80 people took part in a vigil at the Idaho Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial in Boise to support the arrested workers and protest the raid. The vigil was organized by Idaho Community Action Network and Catholic Charities of Idaho.
Immigration News Briefs
Vol. 11, No. 30 - December 28, 2008
1. Texas: Detainees Protest Death, Seize Hostages
2. Idaho Raid Protested
3. Georgia Poultry Plant Raided
4. Indiana Oil Refinery Raided
Immigration News Briefs is a weekly supplement to Weekly News Update on the Americas, published by Nicaragua Solidarity Network, 339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012; tel 212-674-9499; weeklynewsupdate [at] gmail.com; http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com. INB is distributed free via email; contact immigrationnewsbriefs [at] gmail.com to subscribe or unsubscribe. You may reprint or distribute items from INB, but please credit us and tell people how to subscribe. Immigration News Briefs is posted at http://immigrationnewsbriefs.blogspot.com.
*1. TEXAS: DETAINEES PROTEST DEATH, SEIZE HOSTAGES
On Dec. 12, some 1,300 federal prisoners staged an uprising at the privately run Reeves County Detention Center in Pecos, Texas, to demand better medical treatment after a detainee died at the facility, allegedly of natural causes. The Reeves County Detention Center has been run since 2003 by the GEO Group, based in Boca Raton, Florida, under contract with the federal government. The medium security prison holds more than 2,400 people, mainly inmates detained for immigration law violations. The uprising took place after the detainee's body was removed from the prison, Texas Department of Public Safety Trooper John Barton told the Pecos Enterprise. The prisoners set a fire in an exercise room at the facility and were evacuated to an outdoor yard, where they took two prison recreation workers hostage. The newspaper reported that firefighters had to extinguish bonfires inmates had set to keep warm overnight. [...]
Read the full INB at:
http://immigrationnewsbriefs.blogspot.com/2008/12/inb-122808-texas-detainees-protest.html
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Monday, December 29, 2008
Will the Border Wall Stand?
by Kent Paterson, Frontera NorteSur (FNS)
December 26, 2008
As the Bush Administration enters its final weeks, pressure is building to halt construction of the Department of Homeland Security’s unfinished US-Mexico border wall. The controversial project, which was originally slated to be completed by December 31 of this year, is the target of reinvigorated opposition from border residents, elected officials, indigenous communities, human rights activists, and environmentalists.
Buoyed by changes coming to Washington, border wall opponents are stepping up their lobbying of President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team to ensure the fencing is halted and even reversed. [...]
Read the full article:
http://www.newspapertree.com/features/3245-will-the-border-wall-stand
December 26, 2008
As the Bush Administration enters its final weeks, pressure is building to halt construction of the Department of Homeland Security’s unfinished US-Mexico border wall. The controversial project, which was originally slated to be completed by December 31 of this year, is the target of reinvigorated opposition from border residents, elected officials, indigenous communities, human rights activists, and environmentalists.
Buoyed by changes coming to Washington, border wall opponents are stepping up their lobbying of President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team to ensure the fencing is halted and even reversed. [...]
Read the full article:
http://www.newspapertree.com/features/3245-will-the-border-wall-stand
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Immigration Activists Battle Harsh Laws Across U.S.
by Marcelo Ballvé, New America Media
December 22, 2008
Editor's Note: Realizing that the immigration wars have trickled down into state legislatures and even county boards, those who advocate for immigrants have begun weaving together coalitions to have their voices heard. These groups may include business, civil rights, labor or faith-based organizations. New America Media contributing editor Marcelo Ballvé is based in New York.
JACKSON, Miss. -- Ever since the harshest immigration law in the country went into effect in this state July 1st, activists on the ground have mobilized a diverse coalition-- including civil rights, church and labor leaders-- to build opposition to it. [...]
Read the full article:
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=1e2b1d68506bb0697893f32744779675
December 22, 2008
Editor's Note: Realizing that the immigration wars have trickled down into state legislatures and even county boards, those who advocate for immigrants have begun weaving together coalitions to have their voices heard. These groups may include business, civil rights, labor or faith-based organizations. New America Media contributing editor Marcelo Ballvé is based in New York.
JACKSON, Miss. -- Ever since the harshest immigration law in the country went into effect in this state July 1st, activists on the ground have mobilized a diverse coalition-- including civil rights, church and labor leaders-- to build opposition to it. [...]
Read the full article:
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=1e2b1d68506bb0697893f32744779675
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Leaning on Jail, City of Immigrants Fills Cells With Its Own
Mr. Canté, whose time in detention cost federal taxpayers about $10,000, was part of what many call an “immigrant gold rush” that turned the private prison industry from bust to boom.
by Nina Bernstein, New York Times
December 26, 2009
CENTRAL FALLS, R.I. — Few in this threadbare little mill town gave much thought to the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility, the maximum-security jail beside the public ball fields at the edge of town. Even when it expanded and added barbed wire, Wyatt was just the backdrop for Little League games, its name stitched on the caps of the team it sponsored.
Then people began to disappear: the leader of a prayer group at St. Matthew’s Roman Catholic Church; the father of a second grader at the public charter school; a woman who mopped floors in a Providence courthouse. [...]
Read the full article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/27/us/27detain.html?hp
by Nina Bernstein, New York Times
December 26, 2009
CENTRAL FALLS, R.I. — Few in this threadbare little mill town gave much thought to the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility, the maximum-security jail beside the public ball fields at the edge of town. Even when it expanded and added barbed wire, Wyatt was just the backdrop for Little League games, its name stitched on the caps of the team it sponsored.
Then people began to disappear: the leader of a prayer group at St. Matthew’s Roman Catholic Church; the father of a second grader at the public charter school; a woman who mopped floors in a Providence courthouse. [...]
Read the full article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/27/us/27detain.html?hp
Friday, December 26, 2008
Caution: NAFTA at Work
"In the U.S., in contrast, authorities chose not to pursue full economic integration, instead negotiating terms that were exploitive of Mexico and protective of the U.S. And since the signing of NAFTA, migration from Mexico to its northern neighbor has continued unabated as efforts to increase border enforcement have backfired, encouraging Mexican migrants in the U.S. to remain and actually increasing net undocumented migration."
How Europe's trade model could solve America's immigration problem
by Douglas Massey, Miller McCune
March 04, 2008
Consider this scenario: A group of wealthy nations with well-established democracies is linked in a successful economic union that has dramatically increased trade, commerce and living standards. To the south, a much poorer nation is undergoing a transition to democracy after decades of authoritarian rule, at the same time moving to open its formerly closed economy to international investment and exchange. As part of its broader transformation, the southern nation asks to join the economic union to its north. [...]
Read the full article:
http://www.miller-mccune.com/article/190#
How Europe's trade model could solve America's immigration problem
by Douglas Massey, Miller McCune
March 04, 2008
Consider this scenario: A group of wealthy nations with well-established democracies is linked in a successful economic union that has dramatically increased trade, commerce and living standards. To the south, a much poorer nation is undergoing a transition to democracy after decades of authoritarian rule, at the same time moving to open its formerly closed economy to international investment and exchange. As part of its broader transformation, the southern nation asks to join the economic union to its north. [...]
Read the full article:
http://www.miller-mccune.com/article/190#
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Immigrant and African American Workers Unite and Win
"Lou Dobbs keeps turning up every night, you know, 'Immigrant workers are taking jobs away from white workers and black workers.' But the labor movement brings them together. Because when they organize, they find their common issues -- arbitrary supervisor power, the idea that the employer is not giving you notice, taking the money in their own pocket. That’s where workers come together."
Before Sit-In, Workers Beat Racial Tensions
by Chip Mitchell, Chicago Public Radio
December 17, 2008
A sit-in by laid-off employees of a Chicago window company this month sparked international attention. Republic Windows and Doors had closed with only a few days’ notice and blamed a bank that had received billions of federal bailout dollars. The employees were members of a union, the United Electrical Workers. They fought for a severance payment and became symbols for hundreds of thousands of U.S. workers facing layoffs. Their efforts required overcoming long-standing racial tensions in their ranks. We sat down with two of those workers to hear how they did it. [...]
Read the full report:
http://www.chicagopublicradio.org/Content.aspx?audioID=30940
Unions Come to Smithfield
By David Bacon, The American Prospect
December 17, 2008
When immigration agents raided Smithfield Food's huge North Carolina slaughterhouse two years ago, union organizer Eduardo Peña compared the impact to a "nuclear bomb." The day after, people were so scared that most of the plant's 5,000 employees didn't show up for work. The lines where they kill and cut apart 32,000 hogs every day were motionless. "Workers think it's happening because people were getting organized," said Vargas at the time.
Yet on Dec. 11, 2008, when the votes were counted in the same packing plant, 2,041 workers had voted to join the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), while just 1,879 had voted against it. That stunning reversal set off celebrations in house trailers and ramshackle homes in Tarheel, Red Springs, St. Pauls, and all the tiny working-class towns spread from Fayetteville down to the South Carolina border.[...]
Read the full article:
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=unions_come_to_smithfield
Before Sit-In, Workers Beat Racial Tensions
by Chip Mitchell, Chicago Public Radio
December 17, 2008
A sit-in by laid-off employees of a Chicago window company this month sparked international attention. Republic Windows and Doors had closed with only a few days’ notice and blamed a bank that had received billions of federal bailout dollars. The employees were members of a union, the United Electrical Workers. They fought for a severance payment and became symbols for hundreds of thousands of U.S. workers facing layoffs. Their efforts required overcoming long-standing racial tensions in their ranks. We sat down with two of those workers to hear how they did it. [...]
Read the full report:
http://www.chicagopublicradio.org/Content.aspx?audioID=30940
Unions Come to Smithfield
By David Bacon, The American Prospect
December 17, 2008
When immigration agents raided Smithfield Food's huge North Carolina slaughterhouse two years ago, union organizer Eduardo Peña compared the impact to a "nuclear bomb." The day after, people were so scared that most of the plant's 5,000 employees didn't show up for work. The lines where they kill and cut apart 32,000 hogs every day were motionless. "Workers think it's happening because people were getting organized," said Vargas at the time.
Yet on Dec. 11, 2008, when the votes were counted in the same packing plant, 2,041 workers had voted to join the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), while just 1,879 had voted against it. That stunning reversal set off celebrations in house trailers and ramshackle homes in Tarheel, Red Springs, St. Pauls, and all the tiny working-class towns spread from Fayetteville down to the South Carolina border.[...]
Read the full article:
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=unions_come_to_smithfield
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Immigration Reform Trapped in Political Dualism
Roberto Lovato, New America Media
December 02, 2008
Editor’s Note: Obama’s appointments to positions that would affect immigration policy have drawn praise from advocates. But NAM contributor Roberto Lovato sees contradictory messages in the team being assembled.
Recent talk about "immigration reform" coming from Washington inspires some hope, some fear and lots of reminders about what I call "political-dualism": the ability of a President or political party to simultaneously communicate opposing policies while delivering either no new policies or exceptionally bad ones.
As the Obama Administration prepares to take the reins of the massive and massively inefficient and broken immigration system, it is important to have clarity about the incontrovertible need to overcome the political dualism that created our immigration mess in the first place.
Read the full article:
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=bbec79095461b6baf2260d72a79d31fd&from=rss
December 02, 2008
Editor’s Note: Obama’s appointments to positions that would affect immigration policy have drawn praise from advocates. But NAM contributor Roberto Lovato sees contradictory messages in the team being assembled.
Recent talk about "immigration reform" coming from Washington inspires some hope, some fear and lots of reminders about what I call "political-dualism": the ability of a President or political party to simultaneously communicate opposing policies while delivering either no new policies or exceptionally bad ones.
As the Obama Administration prepares to take the reins of the massive and massively inefficient and broken immigration system, it is important to have clarity about the incontrovertible need to overcome the political dualism that created our immigration mess in the first place.
Read the full article:
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=bbec79095461b6baf2260d72a79d31fd&from=rss
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