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Meat plant arrests near Amarillo leave families of 100 children separated
AVALANCHE-JOURNAL AUSTIN BUREAU ^ | Thursday, December 14, 2006 | ENRIQUE RANGEL

Posted on 12/14/2006 8:15:55 AM PST by WestTexasWend

First it was the chaos. Then it was the confusion as to who was arrested and where they would be taken.

Now, the Spanish-speaking residents of Cactus, Dumas and other neighboring communities who escaped Tuesday's raid because they either are here legally or do not work at the Swift meat plant, face an even bigger problem: what is going to happen to the more than 100 children whose parents were rounded up and arrested?

"Right now the children are being taken care of by relatives or friends of those who were deported," said Orlando Gajardo, spokesman for the St. Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Dumas.

The church is actively helping the families of the hundreds of suspected illegal immigrants who were busted Tuesday morning by U.S. immigration agents at the Swift and Company plant in Cactus, which is about 60 miles north of Amarillo.

"But we are worried about their future," Gajardo added. "We are afraid that if they are not reunited with their parents soon, some may end up in foster homes."

The children of those busted, whose ages range from a month to 18 years, are for the most part U.S. citizens, according to residents and volunteers helping the families of those arrested.

"Their parents may be here illegally, but those children are American citizens," said Eric Perez, a Dumas resident who owns El Jacalito, a combination of a convenience store and a Mexican fast food restaurant.

"Many of those children were left without their father and mother," said Lorena Adame, an El Jacalito employee who, like her boss, witnessed the early morning raid because the store is across the U.S. 287 from the meat plant. "There were many cases in which both parents were arrested."

Like others, Adame, Gajardo and Perez don't know for sure how many Swift workers were arrested Tuesday and how many children had a parent or both parents busted.

Some estimate that the number of workers arrested may be as high as 520, and the vast majority were either natives of Mexico or Guatemala.

"We don't have official figures but we are told that 220 Guatemalans were arrested," said Jose Barillas-Trennert, the Guatemalan Consul in Houston. "We're obviously worried because we don't know what is going to happen to our fellow citizens and because we don't know what is going to happen to their children."

Immigration authorities have been secretive about the number of arrested and where they were taken, Barillas-Trennert said.

In Cactus and Dumas it is widely believed that the arrested were bused to detention centers in Amarillo and Lubbock, the Guatemalan consulate has been told, also, that some of the detainees might be taken to New Mexico and other states, the Consul added.

Although the fate of the children of the detainees is the main worry for the immigrant community in Cactus, Dumas and surrounding communities, some fear another major headache - burglaries.

"We already heard stories that the homes of those who were arrested were burglarized Tuesday night," Gajardo said. "The thieves went looking for money, jewelry and other valuable objects."

Cactus Mayor Luis Aguilar and Police Chief Tim Turley could not be reached to comment on the unconfirmed reports.

An additional worry, though flatly denied by Gajardo and Perez, is that some immigration officers knocked on some doors looking for suspected illegal immigrants.

However, in Grand Island, Neb., where Swift also owns and operates a meat packing plant, The Independent, a sister publication of The Avalanche-Journal, filmed some agents going inside the house of a suspected illegal immigrants, said Editor Bill Dunn.

Dumas resident Socorro Rodriguez, whose wife Mercedes has been helping the families of those deported, said the immigrant community in the area was shocked and saddened by the massive immigration raid.

"I've been here for 47 years and I've never seen anything like this," said the 65-year-old Mexican immigrant. "And we are also very upset because the agents chose one of the most sacred days for Mexicans: the Day of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

"If the (immigration) agents had been planning this raid for a long time, why couldn't they wait a little longer, like January," he added. "They spoiled our Day of the Virgin of Guadalupe and our Christmas."


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Foreign Affairs; Government; US: Texas
KEYWORDS: aliens; amarillo; bordercontrol; cactus; crymeariver; illegalenablers; illegalinvasion; illegalproblems; illegals; illegalworkers; immigrantlist; immigration; nationalsecurity; swift; texas; tx; waaaaa
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To: WestTexasWend; All

IMO, you're all a bunch of heartless b*st*rds....and you give conservativism a bad name.


41 posted on 12/14/2006 8:53:18 AM PST by DCPatriot ("It aint what you don't know that kills you. It's what you know that aint so" Theodore Sturgeon)
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To: WestTexasWend

Send the kids back too then.


42 posted on 12/14/2006 8:53:46 AM PST by RockinRight (Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. He's a Socialist. And unqualified.)
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To: Oldexpat

It's not quite that simple, the fact is those companies WOULD suffer and those $17/hr jobs might not be around long.

I'm not saying keep the illegals, not at all. Just that the solution isn't quite that simple.


43 posted on 12/14/2006 8:56:04 AM PST by RockinRight (Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. He's a Socialist. And unqualified.)
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To: DCPatriot

What else CAN you do? It's not always an easy, feel-good solution.


44 posted on 12/14/2006 8:58:17 AM PST by RockinRight (Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. He's a Socialist. And unqualified.)
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To: Rakkasan1

My wife and I stopped at a Brach's ice cream shop in Dumas. We asked the girl at the counter how the name was pronounced. She said, "Do you want the real pronunciation, or what all of the kids here call it?"


45 posted on 12/14/2006 8:58:50 AM PST by hoppity
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To: DCPatriot

I know, right? Upholding the law is so cruel and mean-spirited and narrow-minded.


46 posted on 12/14/2006 9:01:47 AM PST by Xenalyte (Anything is possible when you don't understand how anything happens.)
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To: WestTexasWend
There was an article posted here just a month or so ago regarding the Mayor of Cactus. He supplied the labor to the Swift plant, which allowed them to pretend like these people were citizens.

The article claimed that more than half the population of Cactus was illegals and mentioned the strain on the school system in the normally very small town.

Maybe someone with better skills can find the article and link it to this one.

47 posted on 12/14/2006 9:04:10 AM PST by WhyisaTexasgirlinPA (Remembering Beirut Vets 1983 American Embassy April 1983/Marine Headquarters Oct.1983)
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To: RockinRight
You are ensuring that the Republicans will NEVER be the majority again.

In fact, they will be an endangered species.

What most Freepers need is an economics lesson.

And hopefully, you'll do better than your civics lessons which you're failing miserably.

48 posted on 12/14/2006 9:06:29 AM PST by DCPatriot ("It aint what you don't know that kills you. It's what you know that aint so" Theodore Sturgeon)
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To: DCPatriot

I acknowledge the economics a few posts up.

Allowing 12 million illegals to be citizens is a sure way to create a permanent Democrat majority, too. How do you think those people are going to vote?


49 posted on 12/14/2006 9:07:40 AM PST by RockinRight (Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. He's a Socialist. And unqualified.)
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To: Oldexpat
Get those meat packing jobs back up to $17 per hour..or whatever it takes. We will just pay more for beef, pork and chicken.

Too many fat, happy politicians who've read books about the French Revolution and have nightmares about it at night.

50 posted on 12/14/2006 9:08:00 AM PST by hispanarepublicana (Funny, but I don't remember pressing 1 for English in 1994.)
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To: RockinRight

Well, once the MSM gets through running with this event, it won't be for the GOP.


51 posted on 12/14/2006 9:10:38 AM PST by DCPatriot ("It aint what you don't know that kills you. It's what you know that aint so" Theodore Sturgeon)
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To: politicalwit

This is all so simple. Reunite all the families and deport them together.


52 posted on 12/14/2006 9:11:01 AM PST by Enterprise (Let's not enforce laws that are already on the books, let's just write new laws we won't enforce.)
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To: DCPatriot

That's the point I'm trying to make.

Most non-illegals support doing something about illegal immigration.

Most illegals, if citizens, would vote Democrat. They were (for the most part) the poorest of Mexico's poor and already rely on government in Mexico, so they'll do the same here. That's hard to dispute.

So eliminating illegals should HELP the GOP. I don't see where you're coming from.


53 posted on 12/14/2006 9:12:30 AM PST by RockinRight (Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. He's a Socialist. And unqualified.)
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To: WestTexasWend

If it was such a sacred holy day, why were they at work? Shouldn't they have been in church?


54 posted on 12/14/2006 9:14:37 AM PST by skimask (People who care what you do don't matter.......People who matter don't care what you do.)
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To: WestTexasWend

I'm for family reunification ...

IN Mexico!!!


55 posted on 12/14/2006 9:14:43 AM PST by CPT Clay (Drill ANWR, Personal Accounts NOW.)
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To: WestTexasWend; All
"Many of those children were left without their father and mother," said Lorena Adame, an El Jacalito employee

And many more are left behind in their home countries, but noone seems concerned with them!

http://www.usbc.org/

" Eva Albavera Viveros is a Mexican woman who, like many of her neighbors, lost her husband when he went to America looking for work. Eva and her friends in Tecalpulco established a cooperative and are working very hard to provide for themselves.

They produce fine jewelry and try to market it through the internet. Click here to learn more or to buy their jewelry. Even more amazing than their jewelry, which looks quite good, is their attitude. One of the pages on their website is called "Wetback Wives" and it carries a message to the United States Border Patrol, urging them to send their husbands home -- even if it means rounding them up and deporting them!

The reality is that our immigration policies are really destroying two countries, not just ours. Although it feels like all of the Mexicans have moved here, Mexico is being drained of its manpower, the people who should be helping to build and shape their own country.

Editor's note: Eva's closing words to me in her email were "Please CLOSE THE BORDER to Illegal Migration and send our men back to Mexico where we need them to help us with our jewelry production. We did not want them to go to the United States. They said they wouldn't be gone so long, that they were going to get money and come right back, but they have been gone for a long time and we want to ask for your help in sending them back to their homes and families."

56 posted on 12/14/2006 9:16:02 AM PST by WatchingInAmazement ("Nothing is more expensive than cheap labor," prof. Vernon Briggs, labor economist Cornell Un.)
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To: WestTexasWend

My grandmothers Dairy Ranch was in Dumas, our family sold the rest of it off about ten years ago... none of us had any desire to move back there, it has changed so drastically over the years.


57 posted on 12/14/2006 9:19:38 AM PST by Arizona Carolyn
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To: RockinRight
Ronald Reagan gave them amnesty.

And so should President Bush.

As hard as it is to swallow, that's the only long term solution, IMO.

Turn off the spigot to keep new ones from getting here...if that's what will keep conservatives happy.

But anyone here should get processed for residency and citizenship as quickly as possible.

The immigration department and system are broken. Too many local, state and federal governments don't give a damn...in fact...go out of their way to protect illegal immigrants.

Ask why?

58 posted on 12/14/2006 9:19:53 AM PST by DCPatriot ("It aint what you don't know that kills you. It's what you know that aint so" Theodore Sturgeon)
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To: WatchingInAmazement

The dirty little secret is that the White, European elites that run Mexico want nothing more than to foist as many indigenous people on the US, so that they can keep their power.

Mexico is the Latin American version of Apartheid-era South Africa.


59 posted on 12/14/2006 9:21:30 AM PST by dfwgator
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To: 1_Inch_Group; 2sheep; 2Trievers; 3AngelaD; 3pools; 3rdcanyon; 4Freedom; 4ourprogeny; 7.62 x 51mm; ..

ping


60 posted on 12/14/2006 9:21:56 AM PST by gubamyster
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