Mayor criticizes raid for disrupting familiesImmigration arrests in Massachusetts stranded 140 children. By Erika Hayasaki (Los Angeles Times - 3.9.07)
NEW BEDFORD, MASS. — Before heading off to jobs stitching safety vests for U.S. soldiers, the mothers kissed their babies goodbye, leaving them at nurseries or with sitters.
The factory employees — mostly women from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador thought to be in the U.S. illegally — had just started their workday earlier this week when the immigration officials arrived.
Tiodora Tejada, 37, sat at a sewing machine in the back while Vilma Inestroza, 22, cleaned military backpacks nearby. Tejada recalled hearing someone shout: "Turn off the machines…. Don't run!"
At first, she said in an interview, she thought it was a fire drill. Then she saw hundreds of workers running toward her — along with dozens of immigration officers with guns and barking dogs.
The raid was the latest in a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement crackdown o
n illegal workers nationwide. In all, 327 employees were detained for possible deportation.Company officials also were arrested
By Thursday, officials said, 60 of the workers had been released on humanitarian grounds. They included immigrants who were pregnant, had medical issues or did not have someone to care for their children.
New Bedford Mayor Scott Lang called the factory a sweatshop, like "something out of a Dickens novel." He said that though the federal government was right to investigate the conditions and crack down on illegal immigrants, the workers should have been given a chance to take care of their children and put their affairs in order while awaiting legal hearings.
"The idea that we completely disrupt families, homes and the community in this matter," he said, "is not appropriate in the United States of America."
Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Richard Rocha said Thursday that the raid on Michael Bianco Inc., a leather goods manufacturer, was part of an 11-month investigation coordinated with social service, law enforcement and city government officials.
Tejada, who had dropped her 1-year-old daughter off at day care the morning of the raid, was among those whom authorities let go pending a hearing. Many who were not released were transferred to detainment centers in Texas and across the country.
The arrests of the workers in this community 50 miles south of Boston stranded about 140 children until someone could be found to take care of them, said Bethany Toure of the New Bedford Community Connections, which is helping the immigrants find legal and social services.
Search for relatives
A church was turned into a triage center Tuesday, as husbands showed up looking for wives, and children came looking for mothers. One baby was rushed to a hospital for dehydration after she refused to drink anything other than her mother's breast milk, Toure said. Residents dropped off diapers, bottles, juice and formula at the church.
"When a child today in New Bedford asks where his mother is, we don't necessarily have the answer," said state Sen. Jarrett T. Barrios. "And we can't say that we will have the answer tomorrow, or next week, or next month, because the federal government has chosen to send some of these mothers to another state…. We don't know when they will be reunited with their children."
Harry Spence, commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Social Services, said two teenagers were missing as of Thursday night. The other children had been accounted for. Social workers were able to locate relatives of one 7-year-old girl who called a hotline Tuesday night, saying she could not find her mother.
"We met the children and made sure they had a safe place to go," Spence said. "But for the long-term arrangements, we don't know."
During the raid, Tejada said, she spent seven hours on the factory floor — her hands tied behind her back and her feet bound in front of her with plastic cuffs — as officers rounded up illegal workers. All the while she worried about her baby and a 16-year-old daughter. She said she was not allowed to drink water, make phone calls or go to the bathroom.
Outside, she said, a helicopter hovered above the factory, and boats searched a nearby lake looking for workers who had escaped. On Wednesday night, she still had the identification tags on her wrists.
Francesco Insolia and three managers at Michael Bianco Inc. — which has $92 million in defense contracts to make products, including vests and backpacks, for troops — were also arrested Tuesday for allegedly exploiting illegal immigrants. The four were released, said Samantha Martin of the U.S. attorney's office for the district of Massachusetts.
A fifth person was arrested on charges of helping illegal immigrants obtain fake identification.
Many of the factory's employees came to New Bedford from Guatemala. They settled in this industrial city of 100,000 residents after fleeing civil war in their homeland in the 1980s.
"Probably 95% of these children were born of this country," Toure said at a news conference Thursday. "We are not talking about immigrant children. We are talking about United States citizens that are the children of immigrants from wartorn countries."
'They aren't criminals'
Jasmine Mendoza, 21, used to work at the Michael Bianco factory but said she quit because the conditions were so bad. Mendoza said she was paid $6.75 an hour and was given $20 fines if she took water or bathroom breaks longer than two minutes.
Immigration officials backed up Mendoza's claims, adding that the factory provided one roll of toilet paper per restroom stall per day, and fined employees for talking while working.
Mendoza, who had gone to Our Lady of Guadalupe at St. James Church looking for her friends, cradled her baby boy Wednesday night and worried about the families who had been separated.
"I will understand if they get deported because they are stealing, or people with drugs, criminals," she said. "But they aren't criminals. They come here to work."
Tiodora Tejada's stepson Franklin Tejada, 21, spent Tuesday night taking care of his infant son and teenage sister as he waited for news of his wife, mother, stepmother and two sisters-in-law — all immigrants from Honduras — who had been detained.
On Wednesday, Franklin Tejada hugged his wife, Inestroza, who was released. But his 51-year-old mother had been sent to a detention facility in Texas.
"I haven't talked to her," he said. "I'm worried about her right now."
His sister, Stephanie Tejada, 17, said she last saw her mother Tuesday morning before she headed off to Bedford High School. Her mother, she said, told her she loved her and reminded her to study hard. Later that afternoon, Stephanie waited for family members to pick her up from school. No one came.
She has missed the last two days of school, waiting at home for a phone call about her mother.
"It's scary if they send her back to her country," she said. "Then I have to stay here by myself."
Photo 1: MA Governor Deval Patrick consoling a victim of the federal raid.
Photo 2: A stranded baby.
Photo 3: Family members trying to locate loved ones.
These people didn't know they were breaking the law being here illegally? They didn't know they were putting their children at risk being here illegally?
ReplyDeletethey were trying to feed those children, so they don't have to starve in their own country
ReplyDeleteI hear all the bitching about the children being cared for. If that was 350 (poor) US citizens engaged in illegal activies ( printing fake money), what would happen to them?
ReplyDeleteThe exact same thing! And they would never be released for humanitary reasons. This is just a smoke screen issue to divert the attention away from the fact that they are here illegally and do not belong here! They totally disregard our laws ( sneaking into our country and obatining false documents) and they cry about being treated fairly? Give me a break.
The factory owner is the main criminal here, and should be imprisoned and his factory confiscated. If not for the willingness of him and others like him to hire illegals, we wouldn't have these problems. But the illegal workers are criminals, too. We can't open our borders to all the poor in the world. Those who enter the country illegally have no right to complain when caught. Their first act in our nation was to disrespect its laws.
ReplyDeleteI say, it's about dog gone time they start doing something about this. I work three jobs to make ends meet, and my wife works 50 hours a week. In the mean time, our tax money goes to put their children through school, and give them food and medical care. No way they can do that with what they were making. Ok, so these folks were working, but where the hell is the tax money they should be paying? All they do is drain on society, and they do so ILLEGALLY. Pack 'em up send 'em home! Let them come here "LEGALLY" like my ancestors did!
ReplyDelete"I hear all the bitching about the children being cared for."
ReplyDeleteYou say this because you are an American citizen if you were someone from a poor country who would work for alot less then what they get exploited here you would see it in a different perspective. I am from New Bedford and also in high school kids in my high school had no where to go on tuesday because their parents were taken away. They have no idea where any of their parents are, the guidance department is trying to find them. If you in this position i doubt that you wouldnt be "bitching". I would have to agree that it is illegal and they should come into this country legally. But dont complain about hearing "bitching" about poor innocent kids who have no parents at the moment.
I am also from New Bedford! So now I am suppose to feel bad for "the kid who is getting a education for free illegally" because his parenst were gone.I got news for you buddy, if your parents were arrested for a crime, you would be in the same boat too!
ReplyDeleteWhile decent Americans everywhere are horrified by the government's grotesque policy of tearing immigrant parents from their children in the raids in Bedford, the above commentator cheers.
ReplyDeleteClearly, some people have no sense of shame.
"our tax money goes to put their children through school, and give them food and medical care. No way they can do that with what they were making. Ok, so these folks were working, but where the hell is the tax money they should be paying? All they do is drain on society, and they do so ILLEGALLY. Pack 'em up send 'em home! Let them come here "LEGALLY" like my ancestors did!"
ReplyDeleteSuch comments derive from a person who is very badly educated. If you don't know something or are not sure, do not speak up as if you're telling facts. And those are: those children do not use your tax money. There is a law created by idiots like you who do not allow those children to go to school for free. And THEY ARE NOT ELIGIBLE FOR MEDICARE. They do pay taxes even though they are here illegally because lazy American citizens who prefer to sit at home and collect welfare are willing to sell their social security numbers. And not only do those people pay taxes so you can get you social security check but they also OVERPAY THEM because they never file their tax returns. But of course you never thought about that. It is easier to judge sitting on your couch in a warm house with food on the table. It is not their fault their government is stealing money from them and they die in poverty. It is not their fault they have to come here and work for such ungrateful people like you.