Say Anything Blog

You may not have heard, but yesterday federal agents made sweeping raids at several packing plants in Texas, Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska and Minnesota that resulted in the arrest of many illegal immigrants.  Today the whining begins from illegal immigration apologists, and the people who are perhaps whining the loudest are the unions as evidenced by this press release:

WASHINGTON, Dec. 12 /U.S. Newswire/—The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) is seeking an immediate injunction in federal court, today, on behalf of workers employed by Swift and Company packing operations in Texas, Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska and Minnesota.

The workers were subjected to a wholesale round up, including detention, by Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.

“Essentially, the agents stormed the plants, many of them in riot gear, in an effort designed to terrorize the workforce,” said Mark Lauritsen, director of the UFCW Food Processing, Packing and Manufacturing division.

The UFCW represents workers at the Swift and Company plants, as well as other major packers around the country.

“This kind of action is totally uncalled for,” said Lauritsen. “It’s designed to punish workers for working hard everyday, contributing to the success of their companies and communities. They are innocent victims in an immigration system that has been hijacked by corporations for the purpose of importing an exploitable workforce.”

Innocent victims?  The truth of the matter is that these raids took place because the illegal immigrants working at these plants stole the identities of lawful U.S. citizens in order to get their jobs.

Federal agents raided six Swift & Co. processing plants in six states on Tuesday in search of illegal immigrants who stole the identities of lawful U.S. residents and used their Social Security numbers to get jobs at the beef and pork company.

Agents from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency executed search warrants at Swift’s processing facilities in Greeley, Colo.; Grand Island, Neb.; Cactus, Texas; Hyrum, Utah; Marshalltown, Iowa; and Worthington, Minn.

ICE officials didn’t give the total number of people arrested but said workers were being apprehended on administrative immigration violations and in some cases, existing criminal arrest warrants. The warrants allow federal agents to arrest anyone at the plant who is in the United States illegally.

You have to ask yourself why the unions put the interests of illegal immigrants - who have broken the law both by thumbing their noses out our established immigration policies and stealing the identities of lawful U.S. citizens (among other crimes) - over an interest in law in order.  And the answer to that question is that the unions are more interested in the dues they were collecting from these workers than anything else.  Money, and not concern over workable immigration laws, is what these unions are worried about.

The rest of us, who don’t have a financial interest in illegal immigrant criminals working American jobs, should be happy about these raids even if they are too little too late in terms of immigration enforcement.