Vol. 71/No. 17      April 30, 2007

Militant/Carlos Samaniego

Enrique García, a construction worker, and Leah García in their trailer in Willmar, Minnesota, April 14. They said immigration cops surrounded their home and forced their way in to check IDs.

According to the media and residents interviewed here, federal immigration cops arrested 49 people in raids on homes and businesses. Those grabbed by la migra had criminal records or were fleeing deportation orders, ICE officials said. But many people said such claims are the smokescreen.

“The reason given for the raid is an excuse to attack immigrant workers, because they took those with no criminal records too," said Norma Gama, a resident of Willmar, a town of 18,000 people some 95 miles west of Minneapolis. According to the local daily Tribune, 18 of the 49 arrested had criminal records.

"Things would be a lot worse now if it hadn’t been for the marches and rallies demanding their rights,” Gama added, referring to the mass actions here and across the country last spring demanding legalization of all immigrants.

Enrique García, 21, is a construction worker. “I didn't think this was going to happen to us, at least not in this way,” he said, describing how ICE agents entered his house at 6:00 a.m. while he was away working.

The immigration cops knocked on the door of the trailer, García said. When his wife, Leah García, opened the door to see who it was the ICE agents pushed their way in and forced her to stay seated in the living room, demanding to see her ID. Meanwhile, other federal cops had surrounded the trailer, the Garcías said.

This is how the immigration cops conducted their sweep of trailer parks and other working-class neighborhoods, many workers said.

The statements by Enrique and Leah García, and by others, contradicted the claim by ICE spokesman Tim Counts that immigration agents enter homes only after getting permission. Counts also denied the statements of many workers that federal agents are targeting Latinos by asking for their IDs. "That is absolutely false," Counts said. "We do not target people based on ethnicity. We target based on illegal behavior."

Many working people, however, said ICE agents outside the local Wal-Mart store were asking only Latinos for IDs.

Workers interviewed by the Militant said they know of many people in town who have moved temporarily to hotels or to friends' houses, or have locked themselves at home and are not sending their children to school nor going to work, after the ICE raids.

Rodolfo Maldonado, who works at a Jenny-O plant here, said 80 percent of the Latino workers in the plant had not reported to work for several days. Many said they feared a similar raid as the one last December at the Swift meatpacking plant in Worthington, Minnesota, may take place here.

Jennie-O Turkey Store, Inc. is based in Willmar and is owned by Hormel Foods Corporation. It is one of the largest turkey processors and marketers in the world.

Workers here attempted unsuccessfully to unionize the plant in 2003 because of bad working conditions, Maldonado said.

Among the 130 people who gathered today outside the Ramsey County Jail was Rosa Serto. She described the way in which ICE agents broke her window to get into her house and the denigrating words they used against her and others, like pendeja (damn ass). Serto said the cops handcuffed two young guys living there and took them out into the cold almost naked. "They threw them in the back of the truck like animals," Serto said.

Other workers in the area reacted with outrage to this assault and with determination to fight. "Going out on more marches and demanding our rights is the best way to put pressure on the government to stop this," said Elmer Linares, a meat packer at Dakota Premium Foods and member of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 789 in South St. Paul, Minnesota.

Those interviewed at Willmar said actions are needed to press for an end to raids and deportations. “There has to be a big change,” said Enrique García. “More marches would be great, for us to get together and fight for our rights.”

Immigrant rights groups in the Twin Cities and surrounding areas are building a march in Minneapolis on May 1 to demand: “Stop the raids and deportations! Unconditional legalization for all!”

The ICE sweep of Willmar was part of Homeland Security's nationwide Operation Cross Check. In a similar two-day operation in North Carolina that culminated April 11, ICE agents arrested 40 immigrant workers, according to North Carolina's News Blaze.
 
 
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