On the evening of December 29, supporters of the Róger Calero Defense Committee sponsored a public meeting at the Holy Family School in Des Moines. The event was built on a few days’ notice through e-mail, phone calling, and leaflet distribution at a local Latino food store. More than a dozen people came to hear Calero, among them workers originally from Sudan, including one who works at the Swift meatpacking plant in Marshalltown, Iowa.

Calero, a Militant staff member and Perspectiva Mundial associate editor, described how, on his return from a reporting assignment abroad, he was arrested December 3 by the INS at the Houston airport and jailed for 10 days. He explained that supporters of his right to live and work in the United States, including those in Iowa, had sent faxes and letters of protest to the INS district director in Houston, who paroled him December 13. Calero, a 12-year permanent resident, continues to face exclusion by the INS, which has scheduled a hearing on his case for March 25.

Calero emphasized to the audience that his case was not an exception, but that tens of thousands of U.S. residents were being subjected to exclusion or deportation based on provisions of the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act and other reactionary measures.

During the discussion, Larry Ginter, a farmer activist, said the INS attack on Calero’s rights was part of the attacks being waged on civil liberties by the U.S. government, and that "an injury to one was an injury to all."

Channel 13 TV featured the meeting on its 10:00 p.m. news program that evening as well as the following morning. Calero said on the television broadcast that in fighting his exclusion and publicizing the case to win wider backing, he and his supporters were also trying to show what can be done to oppose the INS’s broader attacks on the rights of immigrant workers around the country.

The city’s daily newspaper, the Des Moines Register, published an article on the meeting in its December 30 issue. In response to the prominent newspaper and TV coverage of the case, a right-wing talk show host on WHO-AM radio focused on Calero’s case the next morning, calling for his exclusion by the INS. Listeners called in, some attacking and some supporting Calero’s right to remain in this country.

Calero also went to Perry, Iowa, where he visited with Jim Oleson, president of United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 1149. Calero had been a member of this local when he worked at the IBP plant in Perry a couple of years ago. Oleson warmly welcomed him and gave examples of how workers there were being harassed by both the company and the government. He said the union defends workers regardless of their immigration status.

That evening, Calero met at the Perry public library with seven workers from the IBP plant. The meeting had been publicized by supporters leafleting workers at the plant and through two articles on the case published in the local Spanish-language weekly El Enfoque.

Calero spoke in English and Spanish, highlighting the importance of his case for working people, whether born in the United States or abroad.

One worker asked if the INS had arrested Calero because of his trip to Cuba and the fact that he writes for Perspectiva Mundial, a socialist magazine. Calero replied that he was flagged by the INS like many other immigrants returning from trips abroad, and that it was not until later that the INS found out who he was.

The fact that the INS is seeking to exclude Calero--a permanent resident--on the basis of a 1988 conviction of selling an ounce of marijuana to an undercover cop while he was in high school, is similar to what thousands of others are facing in this country today, he pointed out. While locked up he began interviewing other prisoners in the INS jail--many of whom had stories similar to his--and filing the articles with Perspectiva Mundial and the Militant.

Another worker at the meeting asked how supporting the case would help other immigrants, and whether signing the petition opposing his deportation would put them in any danger. Calero explained that by fighting back workers have a chance of winning and that a victory in his case would strengthen the fight to defend the rights of all. All those present at the meeting signed the petition, and agreed to help publicize the case and give money to the defense effort.

On New Year’s eve, Calero went to a Kwanzaa celebration in Des Moines. There he met with activists in the Black community who indicated they wanted to spread the word about the defense campaign through their e-mail lists and to send letters of protest to the INS.

At a New Year’s party in Des Moines, supporters of Calero from Omaha, Nebraska, reported that they were winning broader support for the case there and were building a public meeting in that city scheduled for January 8. Edwin Fruit is a member of UFCW Local 1149.
 
 
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