Picture Courtesy of The Militant

Providence, Westerly, Newport, RI—

On the 14th of June, several agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (or ICE as they are so aptly referred to) assigned to the Boston Headquarters of the Department of Homeland Security raided downtown Newport Rhode Island. Official numbers released to the Providence Journal cited 42 captures of which the greatest numbers were Brazilian, Guatemalan, and Mexican nationals. According to Paula Grenier, the official spokesperson for the Boston ICE department, a number of these foreign nationals “ignored final deportation orders” and a number of them had re-entered the country even after being officially deported.
An official statement to reporters from the Boston ICE Detention Field Director said, “[ICE] is committed to restoring integrity to our nation’s immigration system, and one way to do that is to ensure removal orders are carried out. The United States welcomes law-abiding immigrants, but foreign nationals who violate our laws and who commit crimes against those in our communities will not be allowed to stay. Rest assured, ICE will use all available resources to remove from the country those not legally allowed to be here.”
By “all available resources” ICE included the search for “foreign looking people”–according to a local landscaping business owner whose employee claimed that while refueling at a Petrol station, ICE agents recorded the registration number for the truck and proceeded to argue as to who in the truck was an “illegal”. As a result, flocks of people began to hide, whether here legally or illegally. Rev. Hugo Carmona the Pastor of St. Joseph’s Church, where previous open discussions were facilitated in which members of the community claimed to be openly targeted by police and Immigration Agents, said to the Providence Journal, “People are going into hiding. People right here don’t feel comfortable. Some families are completely broken. They feel very scared. People are not going to come out. They’re not going to go to work. They’re staying home.”
When interviewed, many local residents viewed the raid as nothing more than Waffen-Schutzstaffel style prisoner rounding. As months go by, many immigrant rights advocates are forecasting more and more raids on industries located here in Rhode Island as well as the whole of the United States. Until Congress can pass new legislation for immigrants and their families, the Department of Homeland Security will continue to raid businesses and towns, detaining violators, cutting families, and fining business owners.
In the United States, specifically in the Midwestern states, detention centres are being filled with immigrants awaiting deportation hearings. These centres are privately owned and run, with Dept. Homeland Security Federal contracts for billions of dollars. In fact, in the early to mid-1990’s these private detention centres were failing, the industry almost bankrupt says Michele Deitch, a prison-privatisation expert from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, “The private prison industry was on the verge of bankruptcy in the late 1990s, until the feds bailed them out with the immigration-detention contracts.”
Until the push for Immigration Enforcement from the DHS, only illegal immigrants who were found guilty of crimes were focused on for deportation. Now, with the dwindling economy, high fuel prices and a heightened fear of terrorist attacks a focus has been placed on foreign workers.