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 people
working 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 the
“official 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.
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 out
based 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 criminalizing
immigrant 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
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