Meyer on Demmer: BFF!
The Worthington Globe reports that three-legged race contestant Randy Demmer and his new BFF Mark Meyer visited town in Republican hoping to unseat Walz visits Worthington. Demmer on the issues:
Demmer called for serving in a government that “keeps its place” by setting priorities and “sometimes saying no,” and said curbing illegal immigration begins with border security.
“Until we have some orderly process at the border, we have a problem that won’t go away,” Demmer said. “Some places we need a physical barrier, some places we can use technology. … Border security and border control, it all starts there.”
In Mankato, KEYC-TV focused on Demmer's position of the Iraq War in First District GOP Race in Flux:
. . .Demmer isn't shying from one issue that's posed a problem for Republicans namely, the war in Iraq. Randy Demmer says, "I think that it's very important that we have the will and the intestinal fortitude to do that as leaders. It may not always be the popular thing but in the end, when you look long-term, it's the right thing to do." Not to be outdone, today fellow candidate Brian Davis received the endorsement of former Minnesota Senator Rudy Boschwitz. State Senator Dick Day of Owatonna is also in the race.
One year annniversary of Worthington ICE raids
It's a year to the day since ICE raided the Swift plant in Worthington, so it's no surprise Demmer concentrated on immigration in his pitch to the GOP base while visiting Southwestern Minnesota yesterday. The raids took place on Our Lady of Guadalupe day,
In the city's daily paper, Community torn apart, brought together again looks at the consequences of the raid:
Sister Karen [Thein with St. Mary’s Catholic Church] referred to the raid as being a double-edged sword for the Hispanic community.
“The confidence broke down, and at the same time, they saw people reaching out to them,” she said. “After the raid, there was such a great and warm response here in Worthington, and I think people saw a really caring heart here — so many people just reached out to the Latino population.”
In the months following the raid, Sister Karen said the Latino population had “a really great hope” for immigration reform. When that didn’t happen, she said people became discouraged.
“I think as far as talking about today, I think it took some time again to rebuild trust and confidence among the people, especially with their workplaces and … in general with the Worthington community,” she said.
[Jerry] Fiola also witnessed the loss of trust and the subsequent rebound.
In the first couple of months following the raid, attendance at ESL classes had dropped significantly, he said. By February, class attendance had returned to the pre-raid level, and those numbers continue to climb.
At Manna Food Pantry, hit with many requests for aid a year ago, the needs also leveled off within a couple of months.
Gene Foth, coordinator of the food pantry at Westminster Presbyterian Church, said he still sees some of the ramifications.
“Swift did have to hire a lot of new people, and sometimes, they just didn’t have food … until they could get their first paycheck,” Foth said. . .
Bonilla and Fiola said they continue to work with people in the Hispanic community on issues relating to immigration law. The Immigrant Law Center of Minneosta has a representative in the community on a bi-weekly basis to help with those efforts.
“For (some), immigration status is front and center in their lives, and they deal mostly with the Immigrant Law Center,” Fiola said.
Back at Swift, [ Pedro Lira, secretary-treasurer of United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local Union 1161] said seeing the support from the community meant a lot following the raid.
“Fortunately, we’ve got good leaders in this community,” he said. “We got support from a lot of people we didn’t even know — people from St. Paul and Minneapolis who brought 7 tons of food, toys and clothes.”
While some will look back on the Dec. 12, 2006, ICE raid with anger and sadness for what it did to people — to families — Sister Karen prefers to see the day — today and in the future — in a different light. Each year in the Catholic Church, Dec. 12 is a day to celebrate Our Lady of Guadalupe.
On this first anniversary, she said, “For me, it’s a miracle of the Lady of Guadalupe — she really does bring all people, communities, together.”
The paper also looks at the government's actions in ICE defends action and outcome of investigation. The Globe reports [ emphasis added]:
On Dec. 12, 2006, agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) executed civil search warrants at six Swift & Co. meat plants across the nation, including the plant in Worthington. Agents interviewed plant workers, detained many until documentation could be produced and arrested others, taking them from their families and rocking the community.
From 239 administrative arrests at the Worthington plant, 20 people were arrested criminally, according to the numbers issued by ICE in March. The total number of arrests at the six plants reached 1,297 administratively and 274 criminally. By March, at least 649 people had been removed from the country. The March totals were the most recent ICE was able to provide.
At the time the warrants were executed — a worksite enforcement investigation dubbed “Operation Wagon Train” — ICE officials had been investigating what they called a “large scale identity theft scheme” since February 2006.
The article considers the the long-term consequences:
John Keller, executive director of the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota (ILCM), said he was surprised when ICE labeled the operation the result of an identity theft scheme.
“I was surprised that was the way the action was defined,” he clarified. “That was how they wanted to focus America’s attention in this issue — a way to stop identity theft. It was part of their messaging and how they wanted to make it more palatable.”
[ICE spokester] Counts insisted the threat of identity theft is a very real and serious one, adding that for each undocumented employee detained, there was probably someone being victimized because their identity had been stolen. . . .
. . .Keller acknowledged the seriousness of identity theft and said it is not something he condones, but said if a solution is not reached, people will do what they have to do.
“These are desperate people, poor people,” he said.
The backlash of the arrests in Worthington one year ago was felt throughout the state. In the days after the operation, calls for police, ambulance — any kind of emergency service — were down to almost none, but gradually returned to normal within the weeks that followed, according to Worthington Public Safety Director Mike Cumiskey.
“Looking back, it was certainly the defining moment of this last year from my point of view,” Keller stated. “I don’t think I will ever be able to say we are closer to a solution about immigration because of what happened Dec. 12.” . . .
. . .Keller said the illegal immigration problem has been bubbling for many years, and he thinks it will get worse before it gets better, mainly because there are no political leaders talking about a comprehensive plan.
. . .Cumiskey said he has noticed more people relocating to Worthington to work at Swift.
“The minority community is still thriving in Worthington,” Cumiskey said. “I think Worthington is still a welcoming place. In my opinion, (minorities) would not be opening businesses and sending their kids to school if they didn’t feel welcome.”
The most recent official operation before Dec. 12 was in the early 1990s and involved several locations in Worthington. There have been several investigations in recent years regarding document vendors, but local authorities do not pursue investigations with primary purpose of determining whether a person is legal.
“That is up to the U.S. government as it is federal civil law,” said Worthington Police Detective Kevin Flynn. “Our contact comes from the people arrested for criminal activity if during the booking process they are determined to be here without documentation.”
Additional coverage of the anniversary at MPR and the Pioneer Press. MPR notes:
Latinos in Worthington are not the only ones unhappy with the ICE raid and its aftermath. Ruthie Hendrycks heads a group called Minnesotans Seeking Immigration Reform. The group advocates strict enforcement of immigration laws. Hendrycks says there should be more raids like the Swift action.
"We were hopeful that this process would continue. Now in retrospect, I'm not so sure if it was more for show," says Hendrycks.
Hendrycks says companies hiring illegal immigrants should be prosecuted.
Many Latinos in Worthington take the opposite position. They say the Swift raids are symbolic of a broken immigration system. They say instead of solutions, the system only generates bad feelings, on all sides of the issue.
It's clear that immigration policy needs to be repaired. We hope that it goes the direction of securing the border and discouraging the hiring of undocumented workers, while reforming the process for hard workers to enter the country legally with the prospect of citizenship. Policies that help eliminate poverty in developing countries would also help people do the right thing.
We at BSP aren't in favor of temporary guest worker programs, since they do not provide a path to citizenship for those who enter the country legally to contribute their labor. They also continue one of the pitfalls of having undocumented workers in the country: a relatively powerless group that's vulnerable to management's demands, while weakening the bargaining position of other employees. Why not reward hard work for those who can follow the rules?
In other Our Lady-related news, the Catholic Church is building a major shrine church dedicated to Our Lady of Guadalupe near LaCrosse, the Winona Daily News reported yesterday in Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine Church could bring international spotlight to La Crosse, Wis.
In the Owatonna People's Press, news of a Somali refugee's efforts at Closing the gap. Ali Dahir Nur, who had been a teacher for 40 years in Somalia, will be presenting a lecture about his native culture at Friday at the Owatonna Art Center. Nur sees the educational process as a two-way street, with his fellow refugees needing to learn more about American ways as well.
An anti-global warming RX
In There is a prescription for solving global warming, the Minnesota Field Organizer for Environment America and two doctors thank Walz for supporting the Safe Climate Act:
We want to thank Congressman Tim Walz for his decision to support the Safe Climate Act, H.R. 1590, a bill that mandates the reductions in global warming pollution that science tells us are necessary to protect future generations. That's a prescription we can live with.
The letter appeared in the Rochester Post Bulletin.
Walz voted to strip earmarks from Intel Bill
Last night, The Hill posted House Republicans press on in attack on earmarks. The lead:
With House Democrats making new threats to eliminate billions of dollars of earmarks in its endgame sparring with the White House, a decision to ignore an inconvenient vote on pork in negotiations over the intelligence bill last week could come back to haunt Democrats.
Amid final House and Senate conference negotiations on the fiscal 2008 intelligence authorization measure, most Democrats voted Dec. 4 against a non-binding motion instructing members to eliminate all earmarks from the bill and redirect the money toward human intelligence capabilities. But 62 Democrats defected and backed the GOP motion, which passed 249-160. . . .
. . .The non-binding measure, offered by Intelligence ranking member Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.), was a motion to instruct House conferees to work “to the maximum extent possible” to remove earmarks from the intelligence measure.
A surprising number of prominent Democratic committee chairmen, including Appropriations’s David Obey (Wis.), Ways and Means’s Charles Rangel (N.Y.), Budget’s John Spratt (S.C.), Transportation and Infrastructure’s James Oberstar (Minn.) and Energy and Commerce’s John Dingell (Mich.), joined 15 vulnerable Frontline Democrats in voting for the Hoekstra motion.
Walz joined Oberstar in voting yes. We're puzzled how this vote will work against Walz, as the Hill lead suggests, but then, we're just not as smart of the Beltway press corps, which typically reports everything as being good for Republicans.
As we look back one year ago to the ICE raids in Worthington, we should also remember the other “immigration”-related new story at that time … Virgil Goode’s fearmongering letter “I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America”.
It’s that mentality that is driving immigration as an issue. The borders have been broken for decades, but it’s the thought that these people – (be them Hispanic, Muslim, Indian, or Oriental) will become voting citizens and may jeopardizes the existing power structure that concerns too many.
Posted by: MinnesotaCentral | December 12, 2007 at 10:40 AM