Immigration Raid Makes a Ghost Town

Immigration Raid Makes a Ghost Town

By RUSS BYNUM, AP

STILLMORE, Ga. (Sept. 15) - Trailer parks lie abandoned. The poultry
plant is scrambling to replace more than half its workforce. Business
has dried up at stores where Mexican laborers once lined up to buy
food, beer and cigarettes just weeks ago.



This Georgia community of about 1,000 people has become little more
than a ghost town since Sept. 1, when federal agents began rounding up
illegal immigrants.

The sweep has had the unintended effect of underscoring just how vital
the illegal immigrants were to the local economy.

More than 120 illegal immigrants have been loaded onto buses bound for
immigration courts in Atlanta, 189 miles away. Hundreds more fled
Emanuel County. Residents say many scattered into the woods, camping
out for days. They worry some are still hiding without food.

At least one child, born a U.S. citizen, was left behind by his Mexican
parents: 2-year-old Victor Perez-Lopez. The toddler's mother, Rosa
Lopez, left her son with Julie Rodas when the raids began and fled the
state. The boy's father was deported to Mexico.

"When his momma brought this baby here and left him, tears rolled down
her face and mine too," Rodas said. "She said, `Julie, will you please
take care of my son because I have no money, no way of paying rent?"'

For five years, Rodas has made a living watching the children of
workers at the Crider Inc. poultry plant, where the vast majority of
employees were Mexican immigrants. She learned Spanish, and considered
many immigrants among her closest friends. She threw parties for their
children's birthdays and baptisms.


The only child in Rodas' care now, besides her own son, is Victor. Her
customers have disappeared.

Federal agents also swarmed into a trailer park operated by David
Robinson. Illegal immigrants were handcuffed and taken away. Almost
none have returned. Robinson bought an American flag and posted it by
the pond out front - upside down, in protest.

"These people might not have American rights, but they've damn sure got
human rights," Robinson said. "There ain't no reason to treat them like
animals."

The raids came during a fall election season in which immigration is a
top issue.

Last month, the federal government reported that Georgia had the
fastest-growing illegal immigrant population in the country. The number
more than doubled from an estimated 220,000 in 2000 to 470,000 last
year. This year, state lawmakers passed some of the nation's toughest
measures targeting illegal immigrants, and Republican Gov. Sonny Perdue
last week vowed a statewide crackdown on document fraud.


Other than the Crider plant, there isn't much in Stillmore. Four small
stores, a coin laundry and a Baptist church share downtown with City
Hall, the fire department and a post office. "We're poor but proud,"
Mayor Marilyn Slater said, as if that is the town motto.

The 2000 Census put Stillmore's population at 730, but Slater said
uncounted immigrants probably made it more than 1,000. Not anymore,
with so many homes abandoned and the streets practically empty.

"This reminds me of what I read about Nazi Germany, the Gestapo coming
in and yanking people up," Slater said.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Marc Raimondi would not
discuss details of the raids. "We can't lose sight of the fact that
these people were here illegally," Raimondi said.

At Sucursal Salina No. 2, a store stocked with Mexican fruit sodas and
snacks, cashier Alberto Gonzalez said Wednesday that the owner may
shutter the place. By midday, Gonzalez has had only six customers.
Normally, he would see 100.

The B&S convenience store, owned by Keith and Regan Slater, the mayor's
son and grandson, has lost about 80 percent of its business.

"These people come over here to make a better way of life, not to blow
us up," complained Keith Slater, who keeps a portrait of Ronald Reagan
on the wall. "I'm a die-hard Republican, but I think we missed the boat

with this one."

Since the mid-1990s, Stillmore has grown dependent on the paychecks of
Mexican workers who originally came for seasonal farm labor, picking
the area's famous Vidalia onions.  Many then took year-round jobs at the
Crider plant, with a workforce of about 900.


Crider President David Purtle said the agents began inspecting the
company's employment records in May. They found 700 suspected illegal
immigrants, and supervisors handed out letters over the summer ordering
them to prove they came to the U.S. legally or be fired. Only about 100
kept their jobs.

The arrests started at the plant Sept. 1. Over the Labor Day weekend,
agents with guns and bulletproof vests converged on workers' homes
after getting the addresses from Crider's files.

Antonio Lopez, who came here two years ago from Chiapas, Mexico, and
worked at the Crider plant, said agents kicked in his front door.
Lopez, 32, and his 15-year-old son were handcuffed and taken by bus to
Atlanta with 30 others. Because of the boy, Lopez said, both were
allowed to return. In his back pocket, he carries an order to return to
Atlanta for a court hearing Feb. 2.

But now, "there's no people here and I don't have any work," he said.

The poultry plant has limped along with half its normal workforce.
Crider increased its starting wages by $1 an hour to help recruit new
workers.

Stacie Bell, 23, started work canning chicken at Crider a week ago. She
said the pay, $7.75 an hour, led her to leave her $5.60-an-hour job as
a Wal-Mart cashier in nearby Statesboro. Still, Bell said she felt bad
about the raids.

"If they knew eventually that they were going to have to do that, they
should have never let them come over here," she said.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press.


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September 7 Camp Democracy: Immigrants' Rights Day
Washington D.C.

Sponsored by National Immigrant Solidarity Network
Location: Between Mall and Constitution Avenue, Between 14 and 15 Streets,
Washington D.C.

For More Information: http://www.immigrantsolidarity.org/CampDemocracy/

Tel: (202)595-8990

Yesterday We Marched
Today We Organized
Tomorrow We'll Achieve Our Dreams and Goals!

===================================================================
National Immigrant Solidarity Network
No Immigrant Bashing! Support Immigrant Rights!

webpage: http://www.ImmigrantSolidarity.org
e-mail: info@ImmigrantSolidarity.org
New York: (212)330-8172
Los Angeles: (213)403-0131
Washington D.C.: (202)595-8990


Please consider making a donation to the important work of National Immigrant
Solidarity Network

Send check pay to:
National Immigrant Solidarity Network/AFGJ

and mail to:
ActionLA/The Peace Center
8124 West 3rd Street, Suite 104
Los Angeles, California 90048
(All donations are tax deductible)


*to join the immigrant Solidarity Network daily news litserv, send e-mail to:
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or visit: http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/isn

*a monthly ISN monthly Action Alert! listserv, go to webpage
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workers information and alerts, send e-mail to: nyc-immigrantalert-subscribe@lists.riseup.net


or visit: http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/nyc-immigrantalert

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or visit: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Border01/
 

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=======================================================================

for lots more articles, actions, events, movie suggestions, etc., see:


http://peaceandjustice2005.blogspot.com/

 

http://groups.google.com/group/peaceandjustice2005

[the movie suggestions part needs some work...stay tuned! AB]

================================================
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Attached Message

From: lesliecagan @ someemailaddress To: lesliecagan @ thesameemailaddress
Subject: Good News! Sept.19th antiwar/anti-Bush protest set to go!! Date: Sat,
16 Sep 2006 12:57 PM


Please share this widely...and quickly! We are getting a very positive response
to this demonstration, but there are still many New Yorkers who don't know about
it. Please do what you can to help us get the word out. Send this email to your
own lists, make calls, announce this at any events you might attend between now
and Tuesday. Let's give George W. Bush the kind of welcome he deserves!!

If you can help out at the demonstration on Tuesday please be sure to call the
UFPJ office on Monday - 212-868-5545 - we'll be there from 9 a.m. to well into
the evening.

Thanks for whatever help you can give us...and I hope to see you on at the demo
on Tuesdsay!

peace,
Leslie

--------------------------------------

We Won! We're Marching!

In a stunning turn of events, the NYC Police Department has reversed its
previous decision to deny United for Peace and Justice a permit to march near
the United Nations on this Tuesday, Sept. 19th.

When the NYPD told us there would be no marches in the vicinity of the UN that
day, we announced that we would march anyway, even if it meant we went to jail.
We have just learned that we are being given a permit for a march and rally that
morning to call for an end to the war in Iraq.

Date: Tuesday, Sept. 19th

Assemble: 9 am at 6th Avenue and 37th Street

March: Begins at 9:30 am
We will march north on 6th Avenue to 47th Street, then east on 47th Street to
Dag Hammarskjold Plaza between 2nd and 1st Avenues (across the street from the
UN). Bring your signs and banners, your chants and songs. Let's be visible and
loud! Please note: We have agreed to march on the sidewalks for this
demonstration.

Rally: 11 am to 12 noon at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza

Let's make this a large and loud call for an immediate end to the war and
occupation in Iraq -- all the troops must be brought home, and brought home now!

If you can't make it on Tuesday you can still help build this protest. Send this
email along to others, call your friends, come by the UFPJ office for leaflets,
or download them from the UFPJ web site  - www.unitedforpeace.org

And, of course, you can always helo by making a financial donation. Protests
like these don't just happen. We need your support now to keep doing this work
and expanding the antiwar movement. Go to the UFPJ web site to make your
donation. Thank you so much for your support!!

Subscribing:
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where listname is the name of the list. Alternately, you can login, click 'Your
Subscriptions', click on the name of the list, then click 'Unsubscribe'.

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