Terrorizing the Vulnerable

8/7/2019 Terrorizing the Vulnerable

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Terrorizing the vulnerable: La Migra comes to Mississippi

On August 25, ICE agents (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) conducted one

of the single largest immigration raids in the country at Howard Industries just

outside of Laurel, MS. Across South Mississippi, a community of immigrant workers

has flourished since Hurricane Katrina three years ago, including both peopleworking under H2B visas and those lacking proper legal documentation to live

and/or work in the United States. In response to this, a violent nativist campaign has

also made itself known, with anti-immigrant rhetoric propagated via local and state-

wide radio stations. One of the main tactics used by this movement is legislative

pressure, and throughout 2008, nearly 40 House Bills and Senate Bills were

proposed in Mississippi to target all elements of life within the undocumented

community.

These bills ranged from citizenship verification in higher education, and passing

laws against sheltering and harboring undocumented people under the Taxpayer

and Employment Protection Act of 2008 (House Bill 0949); to criminalizing theofficial resistance or noncooperation of sharing information regarding immigration

status under Senate Bill 2823; and allowing local police to work as ICE agents

under Senate Bill 3035. Each bill is justified by immigration undermining the

security of our borders, and impermissibly restrict[ing] the privileges and

immunities of the citizens of Mississippi. The one bill to pass the Senate was

Senate Bill 2988, the Mississippi Employment Protection Act, which both provides

protection for employers who did not knowingly and willfully accept false

documents from the employee while strengthening anti-worker enforcement

measures., thus creating the legal framework which shields Howard Industries and

the capitalist leaders from legal penalties while castigating and terrorizing workers,

their families and communities.

Working class organizing appears to be gaining traction in Mississippi. This police

action came just a few months after a group of Indian H2B visa workers on the MS

Gulf Coast stood up for their legal working rights, walked off the job, and are

challenging the legality of the conditions under which they were brought to the

United States to work. This call for justice in the Mississippi Gulf Coast was met with

resentment and anger among the leaders of the nativist movement. Also

importantly, Howard Industries was under contract negotiations just as the raid

occurred.

It seems unclear at this point how the union organizing played into the timing of the

immigration raid, but many on the ground feel there is a connection. Fear of

unionization is also currently being played out in senatorial election campaign

rhetoric, a definite change from what has seemed to be persistent and cynical

silence on the issue in this right-to-work state.


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Economic strain and a violent racist history (which continues today) are the social

realities that set the scene for this humanitarian crisis. Racial segmenting of the

workforce and management ploys of using race as a division wedge in the working

class are well known strategies of consolidating the power of the capitalist class,

and such tactics seem to have been in full swing throughout the region. It has been

reported that some non-Latino workers cheered as their coworkers were divided outbased on skin color, interrogated, and detained by ICE agents.

The realities of racism and persistent racial segregation have impeded

understanding of other communities on all levels. It seems to be the case that

immigrant Latinos, coming to the United States generally out of dire necessity to

find work, have little understanding of racial oppression encountered by Black

workers for hundreds of years, and the same racist lines which have historically

been used to divide working class white and Black people are now being utilized to

undermine workplace unity among Black and Latino workers. Anti-immigrant and

racist anti-Latino rhetoric also seems to resonate within many sectors of the

working class as reactionary responses to competition for manufacturing and

construction jobs, and generally unfounded fears of competition for public services.

Within the white community, this has resounded in a feigning respect for

protection, which is often a thinly veiled call for protecting Anglo cultural

hegemony.

At the center of this crisis, however, are the lives being disrupted by an

enforcement-centered immigration policy which criminalizes the workforce on which

the local economies depend. Within one school district, almost 200 children had no

parent or guardian to come home to or to pick them up from school. Some of those,

mainly women, with family needs have been released with electronic tracking

devices, which serve as a constant physical reinforcement of stigma, criminalization

and fear for those directly affected and the entire community. The few bonds which

have been set for those detained have been around $5,000, far outside the

economic means of most working class families. Families are also left with no

economic lifeline, and the strains of caring for basic needs is pressing directly on

those facing the aftermath of this police action.

As Mississippi is an impoverished state, and the rise in the immigrant population

seen as a relatively new phenomenon, social services which could help with the

direct aftermath of the raid are severely lacking. While the current police action has

directly attacked the immigrant community, the ideological work of criminalizingimmigrant workers has laid the foundations of mistrust and isolation for years. One

major difficulty with the pro-immigrant movement today is the basic idea that we

can make capitalism work for everyone, when in fact this has never been the case,

and is contrary to the internal logic of capital. Many in the movement seem to

understand the relation between "free trade" agreements, immigration, and the

creation of a highly vulnerable work force. During a direct crisis, obviously, the work

of supporting workers and communities to use whatever channels they have to fight


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for their rights and for human dignity take precedence. However, without

recognizing the schism between business and xenophobic movements as a

fundamental contradiction of U.S. capitalism, we risk becoming mired down in and

issue-by-issue, crisis-by-crisis operating strategy. We must advocate within our

movements the basic nature of capitalism (exploitation and class war) of which the

current immigration struggles are one manifestation.

This has ultimately been tied to the larger nativist movements and rhetoric which

has gripped the nation in response to current economic fears and has resounded

clearly throughout the region, and the humanitarian crisis which is now the reality in

South Mississippi seems to be unfolding with little resistance among the United

States born population.

-Enku Ide

Documents

Terrorizing the Vulnerable