Posted on 06/30/2004 11:17:16 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
GREENFIELD, Calif. (AP) - One hundred farm workers are beginning the second day of a five-day march up the Salinas Valley, stopping in small farming towns like Greenfield, to protest immigration raids in Southern California and the intimidation they said affects immigrant workers all over the state. The workers are also trying to build support for a bill which would allow undocumented field laborers to earn work permits after years of farm work, organizers said. The federal AgJobs bill is also backed by the agriculture industry.
The United Farm Workers are leading the march, which started in King City on Tuesday and will end in Salinas on Saturday.
Many of the farmworkers have work schedules that only allow them to attend evening rallies, so the number of protesters doubles by nighttime, said Jocelyn Sherman, a spokeswoman for the UFW.
Border Patrol agents have carried out sweeps in recent weeks in Southern California, arresting more than 420 people around Temecula.
But immigration authorities said they are not staging raids on undocumented immigrants in the Central Valley, although reports of raids continue to come in.
On Tuesday, for the second time this week, the San Joaquin Valley Border Patrol denied that there have been immigration sweeps in the area, and warned people to be aware of government agent impostors.
"We have not been in that area, period," said Mario Villareal, a spokesman for the Border Patrol, told the Modesto Bee.
The U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement - the agency that incorporates what used to be the Immigration and Naturalization Service - also denied staging any raids on undocumented immigrants in the area.
"We're not doing anything of the sort," Mark Shaffer, resident agent in charge of the investigations office in Stockton, told the Modesto Bee. "There's been nothing going on."
Still, rumors continue to crop up, and immigration and border patrol offices are getting many calls on the subject, officials said.
"People are going around really scared," said a 33-year-old woman who reported some kind of raid at a Riverbank construction site last week. She wanted to withhold her name because she does not have legal permission to work in the United States.
She said "people started shouting" that an immigration raid was under way. "The carpenters started to run," she said.
Since then, she told the Modesto Bee, she has been too scared to go back to her $7-an-hour job cleaning the finished homes, though she doesn't get paid while she's away.
"People are going around really scared," said a 33-year-old woman who reported some kind of raid at a Riverbank construction site last week. She wanted to withhold her name because she does not have legal permission to work in the United States.
She said "people started shouting" that an immigration raid was under way. "The carpenters started to run," she said.
"Really scared" ---- that's kind of a joke. Hyperbole for sure. No Mexican is really scared to go back home.
When someone shouts "la migra", those running aren't usually the sharpest minds around. It's like when a border agent enters a restaurant to get something to eat and some people jump up from their tables or throw down their bus-boy trays and take off running --- they just look pretty suspicious.
A Day Without a Mexican would mean for that one day, Americans would go back to doing all of the jobs that we used to do before the massive illegal immigration invasion. Not only that, but for that one day, there would be no Mexicans to suck the American taxpayer dry with free public school education, free medical care for the whole family, food stamps, welfare, WIC, subsidized housing, etc. Our jails and prisons would see a very noticeable drop in the number of inmates housed there. Gang activity in many cities would decrease by 50%-75%. A Day Without A Mexican? How about A Month Without A Mexican? Just think of all the money that we would save!
In the birth announcements in my local paper, Mexican births outnumber non-Mexican births by about four to one.
What's Spanish for "Arrrrgggghhhhh?"
One caller to a local show was a legal immigrant from Mexico. The host asked,"What can do we to correct these people?". Caller," Give them a dictionary, with " Illegal" highlighted.
Another sign of pandering:
The San Diego Union has an entire section in the Sunday issue of the paper devoted to Mexico and events in Mexico.
The great groups that are doing all they can do to prevent INS and Border Patrol from doing their job:
Catholic Church, Labor Unions, Democratic Party, and "service" industries.
Ping.
There's so much I can say about that picture.
LOL! Me too.
Arrrrgggghhhhh
I got news for these Azteclanders. Not every American citizen works in a suit or dress. The machine shop I work in here in St. Louis County was built before WW2, has no AC so its hot as hell in the summer, has terrible ventilation, roof leaks, smells of cutting fluids, average lighting, filthy dirty, and somewhat dangerous. There is not one illegal working in this building. This movie is a slap in the face to all of us working/middle class Americans. Screw these leftist filmmakers and screw those self-hating nativist actors who participated in this movie.
Yup!
LOL! I LIKE that!!
Dittos to your entire post! My husband and the guys on his construction crew work long, hot days out in the broiling sun in the summer, and freeze their butts off in the winter, working building bridges here in the Midwest. Not one member of their crew is an illegal. I despise these people and their whining "jobs Americans won't do" mantra. There are plenty of Americans still working at "those jobs". The only difference is that now the Americans' wages are stagnant, thanks to the illegals!
A Day Without Liberals
I feel lucky compared to your husband. I least I'm out of the sun.
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