Thursday, December 20, 2007

They are Human Beings.

As we see individual communities sign on to programs like 287g ACCESS, and as we see communities such as Prince Williams County in Virginia enact very harsh anti immigrant laws, and as the cry from the Nativist Movement grows louder, and more hateful with each breath crying for Mass Deportations..there is one thing that is being forgotten.

These are Human Beings.

Unfortunately, the Nativist Bigots such as those in FAIR, NumbersUSA, The Minutemen, and other numerous hategroups will never tell you what actually happens in an ICE raid. And there will never be a camera recording the way ICE rushes into a home, in paramilitary style, terrorizing the homes occupants. There will never be a camera rolling inside a deportation center, showing you the abuses that occur there, or the children poking out from behind bars as they await deportation with their undocumented parents. And it is that very lack of actual footage that keeps people blinded to the human rights crisis we find ourselves in in this climate of hatred, discrimination, raids, and deportations.

These are human beings. They are not "Aliens". Nor are they Cattle. They are not Slaves. And the vast and overwhelming majority of them are not criminals. They are human beings. Human beings who are working the jobs that many of us would never take. For the wages we would never accept, in conditions we would never tolerate. They are Human beings who have families, that they are struggling to keep united, and provided for. They are Human beings, who are being woefully abused by this system. Both as they work in our factories in horrible conditions, subjected to many work place abuses and violations, and by our own justice system.


On March 6, 2007, ICE conducted a very large scale raid on a leather factory in New Bedford, Massachusettes. Here is one womans tale, one HUMAN BEINGS tale of how she was treated.




Here's another testimony by a woman who was detained in an ICE raid in Illinois.



And this little girl, brings us the often unseen side. The effect of these raids on the children they leave behind.

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