Frightened by raids last year at six Swift & Co plants, illegal immigrants in US meatpacking towns are preparing for their possible arrest.
For years, immigrant rights groups had been confident the meatpacking giants were so powerful immigration agents would never raid them.
But since the Dec. 12 sweeps at Swift plants in six states, immigrant advocacy groups have been holding workshops, teaching undocumented workers how to prepare for their arrests by doing such things as drawing up legal documents so someone could care for their children and handle their financial affairs.
In addition, the United Food and Commercial Workers union has printed a bilingual immigration rights kit it plans to distribute nationwide to workers in the coming weeks. The kit includes practical information, legal documents and sample letters.
"We want to make sure [immigration officials] don't take advantage of our people," said Martin Rosas, secretary-treasurer for UFCW in Dodge City.
Among those making preparations since attending a workshop is the family of a 43-year-old man who works under a false identity at the National Beef plant in Liberal. Two of his four children, ranging in ages from 4 to 18, were born in the United States, where he's lived on an off for 21 years.
His wife, a 39-year-old illegal immigrant, asked not to be identified for fear the family would be arrested. The family is writing documents so her brother, a legal resident, would have custody of the children if the parents are deported. They have put their few possessions in another person's name and are trying to save what little money they can.
"It is the expected response of people that are terrified, that have to keep working in order to live," said James Austin, a Kansas City, Missouri, immigration attorney who has taught at such workshops in Kansas.
Ed Hayes, Kansas director of the Minutemen Civil Defense Corps, an anti-illegal immigration group, said he was dismayed by those who are helping illegal immigrants.
"Those people ought to be arrested because they are helping people break the law," Hayes said. "We have churches that are aiding and abetting people breaking the law. We have chambers of commerce who want them to do it, politicians who want them to do it. What happened to our nation of laws?"
Immigration informational meetings are not new, Austin said, but only recently have organizers begun distributing and discussing power of attorney documents at them. He said that's a direct response by Hispanic advocacy agencies to recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids, including last year's arrests of 1,282 Swift workers at plants in Colorado, Nebraska, Texas, Utah, Iowa and Minnesota.
"I don't know what else to do, other than have people prepare as much as they can in case that happens here,'' said the Reverend John Fahey of St. Anthony Catholic Church in the southwestern Kansas town of Liberal, where a recent workshop drew 250 workers from meatpacking plants in southwest Kansas.
The Hispanic advocacy group Hispanos Unidos of Liberal and United Methodist Mexican American Ministries helped organize the meeting, said Arturo Ponce, a former meatpacking plant worker who helped found Hispanos Unidos of Liberal.
Immigrant families are also being urged to set up a savings accounts with $3,000 to $10,000 per family to pay bail bonds and other costs.
RSS