Immigration Raid Thwarted in Flagstaff??? : AZ IMC

On Thursday, November 20th, 2008 an amazing thing happened in Flagstaff. With only about an hours notice, 50 people from the Flagstaff community, including folks from the Repeal Coalition, Flagstaff Copwatch, FACT, and the NAU Peace and Justice Center came together to protest a raid by the Department of Homeland Security – Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Killip Elementary School.

This event was an amazing example of organic solidarity in action. There were people from every ethnic and socioeconomic background distributing ICE raid information and pamphlets on Constitutional Rights, folks patrolling on foot, looking for ICE vehicles or activity, legal observer, foot patrol and escorts. Considering that many of the folks involved met each other that day, the coordination was extremely successful for an ad hoc mobilization.

The people converged at the Sunnyside Center, in the park's picnic shelter around 2:45pm, and remained until 5:00pm. There were no ICE officers who showed up, other than a couple driving by in their minivans when I left the scene. The coalition had an impromptu meeting using consensus process, and decided to continue the rally in solidarity with 12 of the 40 people ICE is targeting currently who have already been detained and are being held in the Coconino County Jail, as well as to continue to work together as a coalition and improve the ability to contact folks more quickly and efficiently should this happen in the future.

ICE is targeting the school because they would be able to apprehend the most people at one time while they are there to pick up their children after school is dismissed for the day.

Therer will be more updates as iniformation becomes available. This is a developing story.

There are some key errors in the above report. First, ICE did not raid Killip School. ICE isn't allowed to raid schools. Rather, they raided homes of parents and loved ones of students of Killip. The Repeal Coalition mobilized after hearing about these raids from Killip staff.

Second, as much as I'd like to take credit, the Repeal Coalition did not stop the ICE raid. The raid happened late Wednesday night, and raids are still happening. I've heard that 12 people have been capture so far, and that ICE has warrants for about 30 more. We DID mobilize a strong effort (30-40 people) to escort families to and from Killip School on Thursday so that people could pick up their children with an ally, in the hopes that this would inhibit ICE from nabbing people. We also organized a demonstration Thursday evening, in which over 100 people showed up on 5 hours' notice.

Third, this was NOT an "organic" or "ad hoc" mobilization. I think the author may be letting her/his ideology cloud her/his analysis of what happened here. It's true that 30-40 people were mobilized at Killip in 2 hours and that 100+ people were mobilized to protest in 5 hours. BUT THIS WAS ONLY POSSIBLE BECAUSE THE REPEAL COALITION HAS BEEN ORGANIZING ON THIS ISSUE FOR NINE MONTHS. The RC is the one who had a phone list of people to call, the RC made the calls, the RC helped organize the escorts and the protest and the RC helped locate a lawyer to help those in jail. Further, the very night before the raid (Wednesday), the RC held a mass community rally in Sunnyside Neighborhood on immigration reform. Over 100 people showed up to share their stories on the awful effects of AZ's anti-immigrant laws and to discuss ways to fight them.

I want to emphasize: The Repeal Coalition has not done all the work, not at all. Everyone who came to any of these events really helped the cause. But I do want to point out again that these events did not come together "organically" but due to the patient and deliberate work of political organizers.

And we need a lot more organizers!

The struggle to abolish ICE and AZ's anti-immigrant laws is going to be a long and serious one. It will require the help of lots of folks. Please consider joining the Repeal Coalition if you are in Flagstaff. If you live elsewhere in Arizona, we can help you start up a RC in your town. Please contact us to get involved.

The Repeal Coalition of Flagstaff works for the repeal of all laws—federal, state, and local—that degrade and discriminate against undocumented individuals and that deny U.S. citizens their lawful rights. We demand that all human beings—with papers or without—be guaranteed access to work, housing, health care, education, legal protection, and other public benefits, as well as the right to organize. Please join us in this struggle to protect U.S. citizens’ rights, to preserve the dignity of all migrants, and to defend the freedom of all people to live, love, and work wherever they like. Please sign the Repeal Coalition’s petition to repeal Arizona’s anti-immigrant laws. And please consider joining the Repeal Coalition or making a donation.

http://www.myspace.com/repealcoalition
repealcoalition@gmail.com

Hey a quick question about the Repeal Organization. Has/or is there any work being done to deal with the other problems the immigration crisis has brought, mainly the ones where undocumented folks get exploited by hirers? Or maybe the criminals (a good 70% of coyotes) that hold these folks hostage for ransom? The ideology of this movement seems to be centered around "no human is illegal" and I agree with that, but maybe the focus can broaden a bit as to not running in circles around single-issue politics? Seems commies are always "organizing" and have a "target" and really just chase clouds when it comes to political action. Good intentions, but those methods of 'organizing' are outmoded and outdated. Look at the security model that was leaked for the RNC convention, they used cell-based groups, and a lot of tenants of mutual-aide, in fact creating the "ad-hoc" type methods of organization that seems to be more cohesive and mailable in this crazy new techocratic environment we live in...just food for thought. keep up the good work, compañeros!!!!!

'heya' wrote;

"Has/or is there any work being done to deal with the other problems the immigration crisis has brought, mainly the ones where undocumented folks get exploited by hirers?"

Thanks for bringing this up, in the rush to bring over more people from south of the border without any legal documentation, there is a constant and steady exploitation by many corporations who take advantage of below minimum wage labor offered by undocumented immigrants..

Someone should look further into IBP meatpackers in Garden City, Kansas to discover the extent of workplace violations that place undocumented immigrant workers in dangerous life threatening situations daily.

Neither ICE nor the "pro-immigrant" crowd seems too concerned with these workplace abuses of undocumented immigrants, and the labor unions are as always on the sidelines..

The sheer foolishness of ICE raiding policies is not so much in deportation of undocumented immigrants, it is in letting the corporations that illegally profit from undocumented labor and are then not accountable for workplace injuries off the hook!! When have any of the corporations that profit from undocumented labor been held accountable in a meaningfull way??

What is the point of deporting people if they can soon return and get the same jobs at the same corporations as before!?

So long as the myths of immigration perpetuate themselves, neither the ICE nor the "pro-immigrant" crowd can solve the problem of undocumented workers beings exploited by corporations..

Again, look into WTO/NAFTA and the creation of a permanant class of low wage landless undocumented workers being exploited by agribusiness, meatpacking and mining industries indefinitely..

Not so long ago most of these immigrants had farmland and a decent living wage in their country of origin, though NAFTA/WTO policies worsened the gap between rich and poor in south/central America and used free trade market forces to drive the small farmers off their land and into the immigration stream..

Here's an example of the problems faced by undocumented workers in IBP, and why corporations like IBP prefer hiring undocumented workers;

from; Great Plains Studies, Center for
Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural
and Social Sciences

University of Nebraska - Lincoln Year 2000

"Death and Disability in the Heartland:
Corporate (Mis)Conduct, Regulatory
Responses, and the Plight of Latino
Workers in the Meatpacking Industry"

Ann-Maria Wahl Steven E. Gunkel
University of Nebraska - Lincoln Doane College, Crete, NE
Thomas W. Sanchez
University of Nebraska-Omaha

"Despite the great risks and minimal rewards of meatpacking work,
"segmented labor markets" have provided employers with an abundant
supply of immigrant labor poorly situated to contest the corporate practices
that fuel rising injury rates (see Gordon et al. 1982; O'Connor 1984; Fink
1995; Frehill1996; Aponte 2000). In the Midwest, meatpacking plants have
turned primarily to Mexican immigrants as well as Central Americans displaced
from their own countries by poverty and civil strife (Gouveia and
Stull 1995). In some plants, 90% to 95% of the labor force is Latino. Many
of these immigrants are undocumented, have few employment options, and
may be recruited precisely because they are vulnerable (Walton 1999). The
vulnerability of Latino immigrants who work in meatpacking plants is
further compounded by the decline of unions. Without union representation,
Latino workers have few options but to keep up with the ever-increasing
line speeds and quotas imposed by management. In short, workers must
"pull full count" or lose their jobs."

full report found @;
http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1516&context=greatplainsresearch

Here's the conclusion; the "pro-immigrant vs. anti-immigrant" debate is a great smokescreen from discussing corporations profiting from labor of undocumented workers, and also how WTO/NAFTA free trade policies drive the conditions that coerce people to come to the north from their homes without obtaining documentation..