And so should President Bush.
As hard as it is to swallow, that's the only long term solution, IMO.
No it's not. There's always the Clinton Precedent.
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."
They put their children first and aren't going to risk getting arrested and imposing that situation on their children.
I have a dear friend who went through a wicked divorce and a 4 year custody battle. He finally won that battle. He smoked pot and did not drink. He gave up pot when he entered the battle and has never started using again. His children worship him and he is probably the best father to his children that I know of.
FMCDH(BITS)
Those are family values. You don't have to agree with the laws but you obey them for the sake of family.
It isn't a law. It's an egregious misinterpretation of the 14th Amendment by the Supreme Court. It will take a change in the Court to fix it.
OH! DON'T CRY POOR LITTLE BABY. YOUR PARENTS WILL BE BACK SOON.
Almost the same story here in MN; of course, it involved all of the Swift companies across the country...
www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/16234251.htm
Wanna reunite yer families?
Pack 'em up and move 'em back to Mexico!
Congratulations, you read the article. I am surprised that nobody else picked up on this.
"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."
If the Republican Party becomes as fiscally and socially Liberal as the Democrat Party, who cares?!!!
There is no birth right citizenship for the children of illegal aliens in the United States! It's a fallacy! It does not exist!
Enforce the laws!
They will deport themselves!
Meat plant arrests near Amarillo Consequences of parental criminal activity leave families of 100 children separated
So why did they bring them along [or have them] while they were engaged in committing crimes in another country?
No it's not. There's always the Clinton Precedent.
In fact, they will be an endangered species.
Wouldn't be the first time the Republican party has abandoned its principles and sold out, either for the benefit of a few lining their own pockets, or as part of an agenda found nowhere in the party's platform.
In the '92 election Bush 41 enraged the party's base with his betrayal of his *no new taxes* promise, and enraged Second Amendment supporters with his ban on foreign-made rifles and shotguns. And so 10 million gunowners stayed home or backed Perot in that ellection, and Bush deservedly got no second term as one American in five voted for Perot.
In 1912 the Republican string-pullers figured the party faithful had nowhere to go and gutted the reforms and policies that previous President Theodore Roosevelt had worked to bring forth. The enraged Roosevelt ran as a third-party candidate, and the Republicans came in as a distant third-place finisher; in a couple of states, they finished fourth, behind Socialist Eugene Debs.
Of course, no third party candidate could possibly emerge this election cycle....
If you take your family along with you when you jack someone's car and you get caught, you can't expect to keep your family with you as you begin your prison term.
How insensitive of Swift to force Mexicans to work on Guadalupe Day.
They learned their lesson, right?
The Republican Party never made this mistake again, right?
Certainly not again here in 2006?
LOL!
Yes, you don't see many Mexicans who look like Vicente Fox working at meat plants or mowing lawns in the US.
My sentiments exactly.
How illegal of Swift to have hired so many hundreds of illegal aliens.
After the illegals are deported, Swift's executives should be given 20 years hard labor for allowing these criminal activities to continue.
Don't tell me that they "didn't know." Corporations in the US are more and more resorting to criminal actions by hiring illegals, because they know so few get caught.
That's what often happens when the parents of minor children are arrested. If the parents were selling drugs out of the house, operating a prostitution ring out of their house, or engaging in othr types of illegal activity, social serviced would remove the children and place them in foster homes. I see no difference.
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."
Let me guess: The burglarers are also illegals just doing the burglaries that Americans won't do.
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