New Gestapo ICE Raid in Ohio: “This is about decimating the Latino community”

June 25, 2018 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

ICE agents carried out their largest workplace raid in a decade on June 19, Brooklyn Heights, Ohio. A local church official said the arrests caused “fear and heartbreak” among families of those detained. Above, processing center where people arrested in the raid were taken initially. Photo: AP.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents carried out their largest workplace raid in a decade on Tuesday, June 19, arresting 146 allegedly undocumented workers at four meatpacking plants in Ohio. It was the second time in less than two weeks that ICE had raided an Ohio business. Most of those arrested on June 19 are from Guatemala. ICE officials said those arrested will be detained at facilities in Michigan and Ohio while they await deportation proceedings.

The impact on the community was immediate and terrifying. A local church official said the arrests have caused “fear and heartbreak” among families of those detained. She estimates about three-quarters of the 60 families she works with were directly affected by the raid. One man, whose wife was taken in the raid and who has two children under the age of two, said, “I feel like my heart is being pulled out.” A woman who was taken and later released is the sole adult at home—she has five children.

Veronica Dahlberg, executive director of the immigrant rights group Hola Ohio, told the Washington Post, “This is about decimating the Latino community.” Her group is helping families get in touch with relatives who have been arrested. Already about 200 children have been affected by the raid two weeks ago, and that number will only rise. Dahlberg said bluntly, “We’re quite sure that a majority of them will end up deported. We’re quite sure that a majority of them will end up separated from their children. This is an unfolding catastrophe that will be felt in the weeks and months and years to come.”

As we wrote after the earlier workplace raid in Ohio:

These vicious anti-immigrant attacks are a key link and battering ram in the Trump/Pence regime’s moves toward consolidating fascist rule. “Making America White Again,” the real underlying meaning of “MAGA,” the rallying cry mobilizing tens of millions of Trump’s white supremacist supporters, goes hand in hand with their message on undocumented immigrants—and really, ALL immigrants of darker skin: “You are NOT Americans, you don’t belong here—expect to be treated that way.” This is a program of ethnic cleansing: aiming to deport immigrants in record numbers; creating an atmosphere so ugly that others will be convinced to leave; and increasing the dangers facing those seeking to come to this country across the southern border.