Denison is a small town in western Iowa, surrounded by farms, landscaped by grain elevators, and bordered by railway tracks. An Iowa Beef Processing (IBP) plant and a Farmland Foods meatpacking facility employ many hundreds of immigrant workers who are changing the face of the working class in the area.

On October 14 a worker at an Archer Daniels Midland grain elevator southwest of the town had found the 11 bodies inside a hopper rail car. The car had left Matamoros, near Mexico’s border with the United States, in June.

According to the Iowa State medical examiner, intense heat and dehydration had killed the seven men and four women, who had set out for the United States from Mexico and Honduras. As temperatures soared as high as 140 degrees, outside locks prevented escape.

According to government statistics, more than 650 working people have died in the last two years as they have attempted such border crossings. Most of the deaths are attributed to heat exposure. "Many Hispanics here have relatives or friends who either died or had close shaves" with death, Reverend Bo Brink of Lutheran Hispanic Outreach told the Denison Review.

We issued a campaign statement laying the blame for the deaths squarely at the door of the U.S. government and its brutal immigration policy, condemned the "attacks on immigrants at the border, in the workplace, and elsewhere," and demanded that the U.S. government stop its workplace raids and deportations (see excerpts below).

As part of our fact-finding visit, we organized a campaign stop at the Farmland Foods plant gate, and found a variety of opinions among the workers who stopped to talk on their way out from work. One meatcutter with seven months seniority said that he "hadn’t expected to see this kind of massacre up here. I come from the Southwest where this is more common. These are people trying to come just to feed their families.

"Imperialism is everywhere," added the young worker. "We are considered trash by the rich. We don’t have equal rights. If we save up enough of the crumbs they toss us, maybe we can put together one piece of bread. I can’t save enough, can’t make enough. I’m worried about tomorrow." He bought a subscription to the Militant and the issue of New International featuring the article, "Opening Guns of World War III: Washington’s Assault on Iraq."

We also talked to farmers and others unloading animals and hay at a cow-holding barn near the plant. A sewing machine operator from Carroll, Iowa, purchased a Militant subscription in between helping her farmer friend dump his hay.

"Are you saying it’s the U.S. government that is criminal and discriminates?" asked one man who had been recently fired from Farmland. "I’ll be right back." He promptly returned and signed up for a subscription to Perspectiva Mundial. He had been a farmer in his native El Salvador.

Earlier that day we had visited the site where the bodies had been found and were interviewed by Univision, a national Spanish-language television network. I told the reporters that the labor movement and its allies must join together and condemn the attacks on immigrants.

Politicians and media commentators have pointed to "coyotes," the smalltime immigrant smugglers who organize border crossings for fees of a few thousand dollars, as the culprits in the 11 deaths. This, said Fruit, "is an attempt by the ruling class to deflect blame from the root cause of these deaths."

Lisa Rottach is a kill floor worker at the Swift and Co. plant in Omaha, Nebraska, and the Socialist Workers candidate for governor.
 

Hundreds of immigrant workers die every year trying to cross the border from Mexico. In countries plundered by imperialism millions of workers and peasants continue to be driven off the land and into the cities, often to the United States, in search of a livelihood.

The U.S. employers and their government want to maintain a permanent category of millions of workers with few rights who can be superexploited. That is the role of the immigration cops, the hated la migra. As the rulers march toward war, the rights of all workers are being attacked, but none more than those of immigrant workers.

Despite the efforts by the U.S. employer class to portray workers born abroad as "illegals," criminals, or helpless victims, immigrant workers are becoming more confident in speaking up, organizing, and defending their dignity and rights. Through such actions these fellow workers strengthen our class. The labor movement and its allies must condemn the attacks on immigrants. We must demand:

No to Washington’s imperialist war drive!

Open the borders ! Stop INS raids and deportations! End Social Security ‘no match’ letters and driver’s license denials!

Defend workers’ rights! No secret detentions or trials!

Cancel the Third World Debt!  
 
 
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