[act-ma] 2/4 Save the Date! Steve Early, Camilo Vivieros, and Immigrant Worker Organizers & Supporters Speak! (e5, 7:00 p.m.)

[Suren Moodliar]

Join Camilo Vivieros (RI Jobs with Justice - www.rijwj.org). Steve
Early (labor organizer and writer), and immigrant worker organizers &
supporters will be addressing the crisis, economic and political
attacks on workers (with special attention to the recent ICE raid on
Foxboro workers) on Thursday, February 4, 2010 at 7:00 p.m. at
encuentro 5 (33 Harrison Ave, 5th floor, Boston, MA 02111 - see
http://www.encuentro5.org for directions) in Chinatown.

The event is organized by the Boston May Day Committee (see
http://www.BostonMayDay.org) and co-sponsored by Mass. Global Action
and Socialist Alternative (list in formation). Details to follow. For
more information, contact us by e-mail: info at bostonmayday.org

http://bostonmayday.org/sn_display1.php?row_ID=106

Statement: Boston May Day Committee (BMDC) condemns targeting of
immigrant workers by ICE agents and Foxboro police department

BMDC calls for legalization of all undocumented workers now

Build May Day 2010

On January 6, Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) agents and
police officers from Foxboro, Massachusetts, detained 58 immigrant
workers at a road block near Gillette Stadium. They targeted a caravan
of four passenger vans traveling from Providence, Rhode Island. The
workers had been hired to shovel snow off the seats at Gillette
Stadium where the New England Patriots football team would be playing
the coming weekend.

An ICE spokesperson said five of the workers detained had been
previously deported but had re-entered the United States illegally.
Those five workers face up to 20 years in prison if convicted of the
felony of re-entering the country without permission after
deportation.

The other workers were taken to a nearby police station where they
were fingerprinted, photographed and released with orders to report
back to ICE to determine their legal status in the country.

Most of the detainees are Guatemalan immigrants living in Rhode Island.

When they were released federal officials offered rides to Gillette
Stadium for those who wanted to go to work.

The Boston May Day Committee condemns this ICE action. ICE officials
said they were only targeting “fugitive aliens” and or “criminals” but
that is not fact. They’ve arrested dozens of workers who were not
“targeted” and they sent a direct threat in their message to the
millions of workers who are in this country seeking jobs and to work
that they could be next.

The Obama Administration has continued its policies to raid factories,
to raid immigrant communities, places of business, and private homes
depicting many detained workers as criminals. By doing this, the US
government hopes to undercut support for legalization of undocumented
immigrants. The Administrations has also stepped up the persecution of
workers through “quiet” means, such as the massive crackdown in the
Twin Cities (Minneapolis/St. Paul) in October, where 1,200 janitors
were fired from their jobs as the Obama Administration follows its
policy to “punish” employers who hire undocumented workers.

Last year ICE deported 387,000 immigrants - the highest in US history.

During the recent Foxboro detentions, in perhaps one of their most
cynical moves yet, ICE officials drove those they had previously
detained to work, underlying the fact that the bosses want to keep the
supply of immigrant workers coming in but with more control over the
labor supply in this time of economic crisis.

They want to reserve and maintain a supply of super exploited layer of
workers, as a reserve army of labor that they can tap at will. By
keeping millions of immigrant workers “illegal” they hope to
intimidate them, undermine their self-confidence, keep them from
joining and revitalizing our unions, and lower the value of the labor
power of all workers.

The BMDC believes and states the exact opposite and welcome all
immigrant workers with or without “papers”. They are not “illegals”
they are our fellow workers. This is why the message of the May Day
2010 rally is, ALL WORKERS UNITE, NATIVE AND IMMIGRANT ALIKE!

Boston, January 17, 2010.
www.bostonmayday.org