Recently, ICE removed about 160 mostly undocumented female workers from Action Rags, a used clothing and rag exporting factory in East Houston.
A protester from SEIU asks a crucial question in this video: How does putting a working woman in jail keep this country safer?
What does society gain from imprisoning working women, wives, mothers and sisters who are not criminals?
As usual, there have been NO arrests of Action Rags or Shipley managers or company officials and ICE has not provided details of any sort of criminal investigation against the company.
As President of the Migration Policy Institute, Demetrios Papademetriou states,
"It's much easier and gets more headlines to arrest a lot of people," Papademetriou said. "To make a case against an employer requires time and significant investments of investigative resources. Sometimes it takes half a year, or a year."
What does society gain? It gains by sending a clear message that the law will be upheld and enforced. It sends a message that if you are undocumented, you will be arrested and deported.
I hope that the risk of remaining here undocumented and in violation of US law will increase.
I also agree that it is unfair that employers so far are getting away with hiring undocumented migrants without fear of penalty. The key is to remove the word "knowingly" in the law. Just employing undocumented should be enough for them to lose everything and go to jail.
As for the marches/protests....yawn...seen it all before....who cares? It hasn't worked before and only serves to motivate the anti-base.