USA Today, Sir Gomez, and the Tainted Tanton Express Line

AN ARTICLE QUOTING CIS YANKED ME OFF MY TRACK, as  I am mid-composition of another post, as well as juggling a few other things. But reading it sickened me just a bit, and writing an email to the editor didn’t satisfy my feelings of unease, well…disgust, I should say—for the machinations and slant of the piece, and so I resort to the mighty blog again.

Granted, I should be, or might be expected to be, immune by now to the horrible way in which immigrants and Mexicans alike are treated in most articles on…well, anything. But for one thing, no, I never seem to get wholly inured, and two, once in a while the article is just so artless (or nastily artful) that I have to speak on it.

It’s a Pro-ICE, Pro-Raid, Divide and Conquer (a popular genre, increasingly so lately given all the cultural shifting in the US) article that uses various methods in an attempt to slash at some of the strongest points that immigration advocates and human rights activists wield in the fight to bring fair treatment to so many humans and workers amongst us—that raids disrupt communities, harm local economies, and shatter worker unity/efficiency, among others. The article attempts to convince us that hordes of citizens seek these jobs, and to sell all these pionts, the author relies on ridiculously controversial data to grasp at the whip-ring.

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Immigration raids yield jobs for legal workers

Updated 5h 43m ago | Comment | Recommend E-mail | Save | Print | Reprints & Permissions |

By Alan Gomez, USA TODAY

Firstly, you have to love that it’s written by a GOMEZ, which of course makes anything he says against Mexicans or Latinos VALID in the eyes of the mainstream thinker and that’s how the system uses brown people in its inertia and purposes, which is to continue a power imbalance and a system of exploitation. Blacks in the civil rights era had names for pawns like this. And what’s that you say? This isn’t about Mexicans? Just immigrants? Okay. Well, ride with me for a while, at least to the end of this article. Let’s see how it shapes up.

When federal agents descended on six meatpacking plants owned by Swift & Co. in December 2006, they rounded up nearly 1,300 suspected illegal immigrants that made up about 10% of the labor force at the plants.
But the raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents did not cripple the company or the plants.

Gomez begins right away by trying to undercut a truth of these raids: they disrupt communities, economies, and thrash the social spirit with an aura of fear and state control. I mean, he can’t even wait to get there. He just leaps right in with a blunt assertion that ICE agents did not, in fact, “cripple the company.” As if the standing accusation—tho unnamed—was hanging over Gomez’ head even before he hit the keyboard. As if he hopes to reference an argument without having to actually engage any stats, facts, articles, or otherwise, actual material from that argument—just present his own.

But wait. The stats and info he uses to write this article are not his own. But we’ll get to CIS in a moment.

On top of this, the writer makes sure you understand that ferreting out these ALIENZ doesn’t gut the workforce, after all it’s only a measly 10%. Well…in this case, that is. The ones Gomez/CIS chooses to include. But is that figure indicative of all factories/plants, and all raids?

We know for one thing, that American Apparel just let go 25% of their massive workforce due to a Federal probe. That’s no small beans. Especially for a company like AA.

Additionally, while Mister Gomez breathes a literary sigh of relief that the company is not harmed, he seems to care nada for how the families and workers are affected. Which is sad. I assume Gomez hails from Latin America. How far your writing and role seem to have come from where your roots began, my friend—where worker and family solidarity are crucial and celebrated. Ouch.

In fact, they were back up and running at full staff within months by replacing those removed with a significant number of native-born Americans, according to a report by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS).

Doozy. First of all, let’s get real about CIS. Anyone quoting this group—one whose origins and slant were incubated in white supremacy—does themSELVES a disservice and SNAP renders their entire argument moot. It’s like…quoting eugenicists in an article that seeks to convince people the gene-sniffing intrusion that is yanking Caster Semenya’s glory from her only to replace it with public trauma has been fair.

Gomez quotes NCLR in a separate but related moment (health injuries on the job and pay) and I suppose that is fair, after all. Balanced. NCLR is named in the article as a Civil Rights group, so if you buy that, then it makes sense that CIS ought be posed as the opposite. It seems fair to classify CIS as an anti-civil-rights group.

And really, I oughtta stop right here. But I’ll keep on. But should we touch on this “Native-born” worker thing? Where to begin? Oh, right, with our collective brains in our ass and our forehead on the ground as we kneel to an invisible line that was drawn with blood and lies in the sand. Okay. I suppose it is the bounteous beneficence of the Border God that allows one to overlook any harm done to humans or families as long as ICE is making cash and the detention industry is ballooning. And speaking of military type outfits like ICE, perhaps it is of note (and perhaps not, I’ll leave that up to you) that Mister Gomez writes for USA Today…which is owned by Gannett. Gannett also happens to own the Army Times, Navy Times, Navy Times Marine Corps, Air Force Times, Federal Times, Defense Times, and Military Market. No lean toward legalized gang action there! Also perhaps of note, Gannett is quite the lil corporate borderhopper, with a portfolio including 16 newspapers in the UK.

Anyway.

That was the most extreme example of what has become an increasingly common result of the raids: “They were very beneficial to American workers,” according to Vanderbilt University professor Carol Swain.

Ah, sweet. So we DON’T have to feel bad about these raids! Whew. All those photos of crying mothers and scared children and stories of heartbreak and lives uprooted and shuffled into jails was getting a bit oogy. But these raids are  GOOD for “American Workers.”

“Whenever there’s an immigration raid, you find white, black and legal immigrant labor lining up to do those jobs that Americans will supposedly not do,” said Swain, who teaches law and political science.

Mmmm. Yummy Conquer -N- Dividettes. They come in all flavors and have zero calories! (And zero nutrition.)

Exactly who is filling the jobs has varied, depending on the populations surrounding the plants:

• Out West, one of the Swift plants raided by ICE, had a workforce that was about 90% Hispanic — both legal and illegal — before the raids. The lost workers were replaced mostly with white Americans and U.S.-born Hispanics, according to the CIS.

• In the South, a House of Raeford Farms plant in North Carolina that was more than 80% Hispanic before a federal investigation is now about 70% African-American, according to a report by TheCharlotte Observer.

Sure you don’t want any more of these Yummy Candies that corrode the social cohesion of our People? Swear, you’ll love ‘em. They’ll flush out the spics and bring in the War Between Races! Mmmmm!

T. Willard Fair, president and CEO of the Urban League of Greater Miami, said it has taken the greatest recession in a generation for poor Americans to line up to work in fields and factories.

“We’ll take anything now,” Fair said. “We’re willing to be exploited for a while.”

Ugh. I don’t know where to begin with this comment. The idea, Mister T Willard, is not that exploitation of workers is so cool that now its legal people’s turn, or that the “exploitation” is just an unfavorable condition that any person would voluntarily accept in order to work, or even if so that it would be acceptable or RIGHT to exploit those who are in a position to need to “take anything,” you schlemiel. The idea is that even desperate people should not be exploited. But nice job, sending those messages.

After ICE agents descend

…like the witch’s flying monkeys

on poultry-processing plants, pork factories and meatpacking facilities across the USA, in some cases plant owners are forced to raise wages to get Americans to sign up, Swain said.

and what conclusion ought we draw from that factoid, Gomez? Gomez? Bueller? ANYONE? Hmm. Silence. Okay. Moving on.

New leverage for workers

As the face of factory workers changes, so do the issues that workers and employers must tackle.

Cashen said her union had to negotiate with plant managers in Nebraska and Colorado to allow employees to properly observe the Islamic holiday of Ramadan.

This month, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled that the Colorado plant was wrong to fire more than 100 Muslim workers who walked out during Ramadan last year in a dispute over prayer breaks.

“Ten years ago, we were negotiating to provide for Cinco de Mayo,” Cashen said, referring to the Mexican holiday. “If you walk in the doors of a plant, you’re going to see … the United Nations.”

Nice way to end. Rely on a little trusty anti-Mexican feeling to close out. Whew…no more Cinco de Mayo (very much a US holiday, actually!) Now it’s all “United Nations.” United once more. A mix of everyone, and thank god that this group is no longer dominated by one group—Mexicans.

Well, we let Gomez use his tainted Tanton stats. Let’s now open the door to reality and get a blast of fresh, though damp, air in here.

On July 13, The New York Times editorialized on “The Shame of Postville, Iowa” in a rare show of outrage against abusive police state tactics. It referred to “abusing and terrorizing undocumented workers,” described their shameful treatment, and deplored the the sending of “desperate breadwinners to prison” and driving their families into deeper poverty and despair. It cited Spanish-language court interpreter and Florida International University professor Erik Camayd-Freizas’ “Personal Account” titled: “Interpreting after the Largest ICE Raid in US History.”

Below is his account in which he said nothing could have prepared him for the prospect of helping government officials imprison hundreds of “innocent people.” He went public to expose it and began with the 10AM May 12 raid involving 900 agents at the Postville, Iowa plant. At the same time, 26 federally certified interpreters headed to neighboring Waterloo with no idea why they were sent. Camayd-Freizas was one of them.

He was taken to the National Cattle Congress (NCC) and arrived early for work. It’s a 60-acre “cattle fairground” that was transformed into a “concentration camp or detention center.” Echoing his own thoughts, another interpreter said: “When I saw what (this) was, my heart sank.” Then began “the saddest procession (he ever) witnessed,” suppressed from public view, because “cameras were not allowed past the perimeter of the compound,” and only a few journalists came to court the next day.

Camayd-Freizas explained: “Driven single-file in groups of 10, shackled at the wrists, waist and ankles, chains dragging as they shuffled through, the (plant) workers were brought in for arraignment, sat and listened through headsets to the interpreted initial appearance, before marching out again to be bused to different country jails, only to make room for the next row of 10.”

They were mostly “illiterate Guatemalan (Spanish-speaking) peasants with Mayan last names….some in tears, others with faces of worry, fear, and embarrassment.” They stood out “in stark racial contrast (to) the rest of us as they started their slow penguin march across the makeshift court.” They all “waived their right to be indicted….hoping to be quickly deported since they had families to support back home.” Instead, they were “criminally charged with ‘aggravated identity theft’ and Social Security fraud – charges they did not understand” and neither did Camayd-Freizas.

He sought more information, and here’s what he learned. Of Agriprocessor’s 968 employees, about 75% were apparently undocumented. Nearly 700 warrants were issued but only about 400 were arrested, including 76 women. Some were released on humanitarian grounds – 56 mothers with unattended children, a few for medical reasons, and 12 juveniles temporarily with ankle monitors or directly turned over for deportation. Over 300 were held for prosecution. Five alone had prior criminal records, and 270, in fact, were charged.

The raid devastated Postville (population 2273). Businesses were empty, and concerns grew that it might shutter the town. Besides those arrested, many fled in fear. It affected American parents as well who complained that “their children were traumatized by the sudden disappearance of so many of their friends.” The school principal reported the same reaction in classrooms saying that “for children it was as if ten of their classmates suddenly died.” Counselors were enlisted because they had nightmares that their parents might be seized like the workers. Even the school superintendent reacted saying “This literally blew our town away,” and its future is unclear.

As for workers, here’s what happened. In some cases, husbands and wives were arrested leaving small children unattended for up to 72 hours. Some mothers were then released on humanitarian grounds with ankle GPS monitors, pending prosecution and deportation, while husbands were swiftly imprisoned. The situation was desperate. Mothers had no incomes and no means of support. Sometimes one parent was documented, the other wasn’t, and in many cases children were US citizens. In all cases, hundreds of families were torn apart, and the Postville economic impact was devastating.

There was more. Scattered news reports and blogs contained bigotry and racial epithets – “poorly disguised beneath an empty rhetoric of misguided patriotism (as well as) insults to anyone (showing) compassion…safely (hidden) behind cowardly nickname(s). One could feel the moral fabric of society coming apart” as a result.

—The Largest Ever ICE Terror Raid

The Divide and Conquer is of course an age-old genre, but black, brown, red, gold, peach: we all have to be on the lookout for this. It is stepping up a lot lately as the Becks and Wilsons and Limbaughs of the world begin to feel their world get slippy slidey sloppy, like the oily fearfarts that grease their well-padded chairs.

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Regarding Gomez’s USA Today article, I quote: To report corrections and clarifications, contact Reader Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification.