Postville

Three months ago, the little town of Postville, Iowa, got hit by the largest immigration raid in US history. Nearly 400 workers were arrested in the raid—more than a quarter of the town’s population.

For those left behind, namely the wives and children of the men taken away, the town has been turned into what some have described as an open-air prison. Dozens of immigrant women remain in Postville without status or a means of support. Many of them are even forbidden from leaving and have been made to wear electronic monitoring bracelets (story covered by Democracy Now!)

Meanwhile, one of the court-appointed interpreters who was flown into Iowa for the trial broke the code of confidentiality among legal interpreters to describe the workers’ predicament. The interpreter, Dr. Erik Camayd-Freixas, has written a scathing account of the trial, called “Interpreting After the Largest ICE Raid in US History: A Personal Account.”

Dr. Camayd-Freixas talked with Democracy Now! about his experience:

• “Well, it was a unique experience for me in my 23 years as a federal interpreter. It started with waiting around in the courtroom until they started bringing in the defendants, and they were shackled at the waist, wrists and feet and coming in in rows of ten. Then they sat down to be arraigned. And one of the first things that struck me is that there didn’t seem to be a presumption of innocence. The presumption of innocence became kind of like empty words, because they were shackled. They were on an immigration detainer, so they didn’t have any right to bail, like normally defendants would. And so, that’s how it started.” (more)

In a related story, the ACLU has uncovered a government “manual” on how to expedite guilty pleas from the undocumented immigrant workers. The manual was issued to their defense lawyers and contained:

• “prepackaged scripts for plea and sentencing hearings as well as documents providing for guilty pleas and waivers of rights that were used to push the more than 300 Postville workers through mass criminal proceedings as quickly as possible.” (more)

'Virtual fence' work is halted
"Work on 'virtual fences' planned for Arizona's stretch of the US-Mexican border has been brought to a halt. The Interior Department has not granted the Homeland Security Department permission to use the land for constructing the surveillance towers that form the backbone of the virtual fences," said Barry Morrissey, spokesman for US Customs and Border Protection in Washington, DC. "Without authorization to use the land, no work could begin, which prompted agency officials to instruct the lead contractor on the project, Boeing Co., to suspend activities until further notice," Morrissey said. No date has been set to resume work. [Arizona Daily Star, Aug. 19, 2008]

Cancer-Stricken 34-Year-Old Chinese Computer Engineer Dies After Being Denied Care in Private US Immigration Prison
Coverage by Democracy Now! of the case of Mr. Hiu Lui Ng, the thirty-four-year-old Chinese computer engineer who died earlier this month in a Rhode Island immigration detention center. For this story, which aired yesterday, Democracy Now! interviewed Joshua Bardavid, an immigration attorney in New York, who is representing Hiu Lui Ng’s family; Rep. Zoe Lofgren, Democratic Congress member from California, who serves as Chair of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law; and Renee Feltz, investigative journalist based in NYC. Click on the link to watch or listen to the interviews online, or read the transcript.

Immigrant son lives American dream

"Henry Cejudo, the son of illegal immigrants from Mexico, completed his American dream by crushing Japan's hopes of their first Olympic men's wrestling gold medal in two decades." (found on Bender’s Immigration Bulletin)

Advocacy office says small firms deserve break on E-Verify

"The Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy is urging federal acquisition councils to consider exempting small firms from a regulation that would force contractors to verify workers' employment eligibility using a Homeland Security database." (found on Bender's Immigration Bulletin)

ICE Raids at Dulles Airport

Yesterday, ICE arrested 42 workers at Dulles Airport under the auspices of guarding our nation’s airports.

“There’s no indication that any of the aliens were involved in any terrorist activity at all,” said Mark McGraw, deputy special agent in charge with the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

So, thanks guys, sounds like you really saved us from something potentially dangerous. What would we have done if those hard-working people continued to dry-wall and weld to maintain our airport?

To make matters worse, ICE refused to allow attorneys to speak with the detainees. (more)

Are Cities Warming Up to 'Don't Ask Don't Tell' Immigration Policies?

Hartford, CT is joining cities across the country who are taking steps to integrate their undocumented immigrants. (more)

Ill and in Pain, Detainee Dies in U.S. Hands

Mr. Ng’s death follows a succession of cases that have drawn Congressional scrutiny to complaints of inadequate medical care, human rights violations and a lack of oversight in immigration detention, a rapidly growing network of publicly and privately run jails where the government held more than 300,000 people in the last year while deciding whether to deport them. (more)

Visual Resistance

A series of posters created by artists of Justseeds/Visual Resistance Artists’ Cooperative for use by international immigrant rights organizations. These 5 posters illustrate very beautifully and powerfully how immigrant rights are really nothing more than just human rights.

Lowell rally rails against raids
by Jack Minch in The Lowell Sun online 8/09/08

As thunder and lightning crackled overhead last night, Linda Pream broke down into tears as she spoke about her boyfriend, Sokon Cheurem, who is being detained on a federal warrant and facing possible deportation. Pream spoke at a rally sponsored by Deported Diaspora and other community groups at Clemente Park on Middlesex Street in the Lower Highlands neighborhood last night. The groups protested the roundup of about 16 immigrants in the city, including Cheurem, on Monday and Tuesday. (more)

Dream for immigrant teens

The Minnesota Immigrant Freedom Network (MIFN) is a nonprofit advocacy group with the mission of improving educational opportunities for immigrant youths, changing the language used in the news media to describe immigrants, and lobbying for reform at the state Legislature. (story by Bill ward in the Star Tribune) (more)

Ensuring Due Process: The National Immigrant Bond Fund

Today, in Silver Spring, Maryland, the National Immigrant Bond Fund kicked off its fundraising campaign. The fund assists immigrants swept up in ICE raids to post bond quickly in order to secure a fair hearing in America’s courts.

No More I.C.E.!
Massachusetts Jobs with Justice announces a standout in Boston.
Wednesday August 13, 2008

We reject the presence of ICE in our communities.
Urgent Action in solidarity with the immigrant
community and respect the humanity and dignity of immigrants.
Join us Outside the JFK Building, at Government Center Plaza
starting at 10:30 a.m. Sponsored by: La Colaborativa de Chelsea,
Centro Presente and Jobs with Justice. If your group or
organization wants to support this action please contact
Patricia Montes pmontes@cpresente.org Edwin Argueta
edwin@massjwj.net or Gladys Vega gladysv@chelseacollab.org.

Hometown Associations: An Untapped Resource for Immigrant Integration?

WASHINGTON – With global migration rates at historic highs, the informal associations that immigrants create for social, economic development and political empowerment purposes are becoming more numerous and better networked. Though much of the policy and research focus on the immigrant organizations, known as hometown associations, is on their development potential for their home countries, a new Migration Policy Institute (MPI) report concludes that the groups play an important – and underexamined – role in immigrant integration.

As Valley border fence work begins, questions resurface
"You may find that there could be an individual on the job site that is not legal even though you went through various processes to check," Vaughan said. Vaughan also said that E-Verify, the government's electronic system for checking Social Security numbers, can't be trusted to weed out illegal workers." Austin American-Statesman, Aug. 11, 2008.

Nebraska: Grassroots Leaders in Training

(posted 8/8/08 on FIRM

On August 2nd and 3rd, a group of 15 Nebraska grassroots leaders participated in their first-ever Democracy School program. Democracy Schools, which are a project of FIRM, aim to develop basic leadership skills among new grassroots immigrant leaders across the nation....(more)

No volunteers yet in San Diego for self-deportation
There were no takers in San Diego Tuesday for a trial self-deportation program initiated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement." San Diego Union-Tribune, Aug. 5, 2008.

Both of My Grandfathers Were Illegal Immigrants (and Lou Dobbs' Would Be Today)
by Steven Wishnia, AlterNet

My grandfathers, like many other illegal immigrants, helped usher in the world's greatest period of working class prosperity.

Unauthorized Immigrants Getting Railroad Justice in Flashy ICE Raids
by Kathleen Walker, New American Media, AlterNet

Federal immigration officials swept into Postville, Iowa on May 12 and detained nearly 400 workers at a meat processing plant. This new high-speed judicial railroad required extensive planning and coordination between the U.S. Attorneys' office in Iowa, the Department of Homeland security, and the Federal Judiciary. The tracks laid down to carry this new enforcement train were designed to force rapid guilty pleas under the threat of serious jail time, avoid the inconvenience of trials, limit access to immigration counsel, eliminate the prospect of all future relief, and impose criminal sentences and removal orders simultaneously. (This op-ed piece, written by a past president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association expresses the group's deep concerns with the process.)

No Human Being Is Illegal
Peter Rachleff, July 26, 2008. Peter Rachleff is a Professor of History at Macalester College in St. Paul, and a specialist in labor and immigration history.
http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/18264

Menendez to tour immigrant detention facility in Elizabeth

U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez is planning to tour an immigrant detention facility in Elizabeth today as part of his push to improve detainee health care.

Menendez (D-NJ) is proposing a bill that would mandate better health care for those held in immigration custody. The measure is in response to nationwide reports of immigrants receiving substandard health services or dying in custody.

link to article

Imagine 2050: Smell Something Burning? It’s Probably Arizona

Great posting about what is happening in Arizona.

With over 181 bodies recovered in the deserts in 2007, fifty five pieces of anti-immigrant legislation to be submitted in 2008, and a local Sheriff who resembles Bull Connor (a southern police officer and KKK member in the 1960's) more than Wyatt Earp, Arizona is becoming to immigrants rights, what Mississippi was to the 1960s civil rights movement—a defining moment in which each of us will be called to either embrace inhumanity or redeem the soul of America.

Imagine 2050: Smell Something Burning? It’s Probably Arizona

Detained Documentary in Amherst

Food for Thought Books and
Western MA Coalition for Immigrant & Worker Rights present:

DETAINED: THE NEW BEDFORD IMMIGRATION RAID
A film by Jenny Alexander

On March 6, 2007, US Immigration officials raided a New Bedford, MA factory that makes vests and backpacks for US soldiers. Many of the 361 undocumented immigrants who were detained in the raid were women with small children.

Showing:
Wednesday
July 16, 2008
7 pm
Food for Thought Books
106 N. Pleasant St.
Downtown Amherst

The free film screening will be followed by a discussion on efforts to organize around immigration issues in our local communities.

For more information, please contact:
Javiera at 413-253-5432, javiera@foodforthoughtbooks.com
or Cecilia at wmciwr@gmail.com

This event is cosponsored by Casa Latina, Enlace Latino, The International Language Institute, SAGE, Western MA American Friends Service Committee, Western MA Copwatch, Western MA Jobs with Justice and Greenfield Community College Peace and Justice Studies Program

Four on the Fourth Road Race

The Center for New Americans is holding their Third Annual Four on the Fourth Road Race on Friday, July 4 at 8:30 am. The four mile course tours downtown Northampton. Early registrants will receive a t-shirt.

All proceeds will benefit CNA's free educational programs for immigrants and refugees in the Pioneer Valley.

For more information call Northampton Running Company at 413.517.0059 or log on to http://www.cnam.org/4onthe4throadrace.html

News Digest - June 19, 2008

Topics

• Local News
• Criminalization of Undocumented Immigrants
• Crimes Against Immigrants
  
• Enforcement
• Detention
• Immigration Maze
  
• Elections
  
• State Immigration Enforcement
  
• Federal Legislation - Update
  
• General

Local News

Ortiz, pride of Sox Nation, joins US as a citizen (Boston Globe)
Ortiz joined 226 immigrants from 57 countries as they raised their right hands and took the Oath of Citizenship at the John F. Kennedy Library in Dorchester.

Workers at former Bianco factory seek union help (South Coast Today)
Eagle Industries, a Missouri-based, military equipment manufacturer, took over the former Michael Bianco Inc. factory last November, inheriting a Department of Defense contract for backpacks used by troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Workers say that while the sweatshop conditions outlined by the U.S. Attorney's Office in court documents have improved under new ownership, they need more rights. They want to see higher wages, paid sick leave and more affordable health care — and to do so, they say they need to unionize.

Immigration sweep nets 42, provoking outcry (Providence Journal)
At a news conference in Washington Square, half a dozen speakers said agents for Immigration and Customs Enforcement had gone into restaurants, stores and apartments during the sweep, but in some cases appeared to be targeting people because they appeared foreign and were driving landscaping trucks.

Criminalization of Undocumented Immigrants

More Illegal Crossings Are Criminal Cases (New York Times)
Criminal prosecutions of immigrants by federal authorities surged to a record high in March, as immigration cases accounted for the majority — 57 percent — of all new federal criminal cases brought nationwide that month, according to a report published Tuesday by a nonpartisan research group.

Homeland Security's Enemy Next Door (Tom Barry, Americas Program)
Faced with failure, the Bush administration's stated resolve to dismantle international terrorism has devolved into an attack on a far more vulnerable and proximate target—Latin American immigrants.

Immigrant Victims of Crimes

Rush to Prosecute Leaves Immigrant Victims of Crimes Without Protection (AlterNet)
Immigrants across the country are facing more aggressive enforcement tactics and it seems that victims of human trafficking and other crimes are no exception.

Crimes against immigrants go unreported (Truth in Immigration)
Criminals, armed with knowledge that their crimes are likely go unreported, have begun targeting anyone who may appear to be "illegal," whether they be undocumented, legal residents, or U.S. citizens of foreign descent. The local laws, instead of reducing crime, have only served to increase the amount of immigrant-targeted burglaries in these communities.

Enforcement

Sen. Menendez denounces raids on migrants (North Jersey Record)
Sen. Robert Menendez on Thursday said the top officials responsible for immigration enforcement proved to be "in denial" about constitutional violations by federal agents in a meeting he had with them.

Detention

Locked and Loaded (Nashville Scene)
The apathetic treatment of Hutto's immigrants was hardly an anomaly. CCA also operates a detention facility in San Diego that drew a separate ACLU lawsuit last year. In the complaint, the group claims that CCA routinely denied basic medical care to immigrant detainees with hepatitis, diabetes and other serious illnesses. One man from Ghana died from heart failure after the center's staff allegedly asked him to fill out some paper work—even though he was seen kneeling on the floor of his cell and complaining of chest pains.

Opportunity to Fix Shameful Detention System (AlterNet)
Now armed with hundreds of pages of evidence, the time has come for Congress to restore and protect the basic human rights of the 311,000 men, women, and children held in the detention system every year. The Secure and Safe Detention and Asylum Act calls for improved detention conditions and better oversight of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities. Additionally, it would allow immigration judges to review the cases of asylum seekers and release those individuals who pose no threat to society.

Immigration Maze

Visa backlog adds years to immigrants' wait (Houston Chronicle)
When they flew home in September, U.S. immigration officials at the Atlanta airport ordered his wife to return to Israel because her tourist visa had expired while he was waiting for citizenship. That lapse means Mama's wife now faces a penalty of up to 10 years before she can again enter the country legally.

Dying to be a U.S. citizen (Baltimore Sun)
Army Spc. Kendell K. Frederick, a native of Trinidad ... had left his base near Tikrit in October 2005 to get fingerprinted for his application for U.S. citizenship. The errand was necessary because the immigration service wouldn't accept the prints he gave when he enlisted. The 21-year-old was driving back to his base when a roadside bomb exploded near his vehicle.

Elections

Will Obama or McCain Halt our Growing Police State? (open letter, AlterNet)
Senator McCain and Senator Obama should both condemn these raids and declare that, their first day in office, they will put an end to them. Because Postville, like America, has bigger problems to deal with that require all of us working together -- not immigration raids tearing us apart.

Obama and McCain on Immigration: Life vs. Death (AlterNet)
So, in the netherworld of the immigrant gulag growing on our shores, the small differences around the minutiae of immigration law can mean the difference between life and death, a difference that can win the hearts and minds of many voters this year.

State Immigration Enforcement

Legality of Immigration Laws Questioned Across U.S. (Suffolk Life - Riverhead, NY)
The court's decision may raise questions about similar legislation in Suffolk County aimed at placing verification responsibilities in the hands of employers. Last week, the county Legislature gave the green light for an 18-month pilot program, which requires contractors doing business with the county to use E-Verify, even though officials both here and across the nation have blasted the system for its error potential.

Federal Legislation Update

Bush signs bill to provide troops with tax rebates (Mercury News)
To be eligible for the rebates, taxpayers had to provide Social Security numbers, lawmakers decided. But legislators inadvertently penalized about a million legal immigrants - and U.S. service members stationed overseas - whose foreign spouses are ineligible for Social Security cards.

Single-family immigration bills face great difficulty in Congress (Arizona Daily Star)
The legislation Feinstein introduced on Arreola's behalf — a so-called private bill — has languished in committee and might never be approved. Feinstein has reintroduced it to keep it alive and could do so again in January. As long as the bill is pending, the Arreola family can stay in the United States. But until it passes, they remain in limbo, knowing that one day, they may have to leave.

General

The ID War: Do You Have Yours? (Center for American Progress)
Proponents of REAL ID and similar legislation at the local level want stricter identification systems mainly to fight terrorism and limit immigration. Others are skeptical for security, privacy, and civil liberties reasons, of programs that require proof of ID. About 20 million voting age citizens in our country right now do not have driver's licenses. And minorities are particularly at risk of being disenfranchised by these proposals.

Janitors reinstated by appeals court (San Francisco Chronicle)
A federal appeals court ordered reinstatement Monday for 33 janitors in Los Angeles who were fired because their Social Security numbers did not match the government's database, a ruling that could strengthen unions' case against a Bush administration proposal to pressure employers to get rid of suspected illegal immigrants.

Films for Thought Series

We have been fortunate to connect with Food for Thought Books, a worker-owned collective in Amherst, which has been holding a monthly Films for Thought series open to the public. Last Wednesday, June 11th, we teamed up with Food for Thought's Javiera Benavente and Casa Latina's Edgar Cancel to screen Morristown: In the Air and Sun and hold a conversation about the issues of immigration, labor, ethnicity and economics brought up in the film.

Roughly 30 people showed up to the event and most were able to stay for the discussion afterwards. Many were upset by the unfair treatment of workers, both citizens and immigrants. An interesting comment echoed by many present was that the solidarity across cultures was uplifting. Too often the mainstream media shows only images of handcuffed undocumented workers walking single file onto ICE buses while angry nativists spew hateful refrains. Morristown was refreshing in that the residents represented in the movie understood that the rights they were organizing for were for ALL workers in their community.

The solidarity was even more poignant because of the parallels between Morristown's chicken processing and Postville, Iowa's meatpacking plants. In both cases, workers were unionizing with the help of United Food and Commercial Workers to petition for more bathroom breaks, adequate pay and safer work conditions. In both cases the workers voted to unionize. In Morristown's case, the company eventually recognized the union and accepted their demands. Postville, however, is a completely different story.

In Iowa, Agriprocessors refused to recognize the union vote. Their argument in court was that since many of the workers were undocumented, the union vote didn't count. Furthermore, the company was being investigated for child labor law violations. There were also allegations of physical and sexual abuse at the plant. Then on May 12th of this year, ICE descended on this town of less than 3,000 residents and detained 390 of its workers.

Our little Morristown screening collected donations for the Postville community, which is still reeling from the May raid. It will take a long time for this town to recover. If you would like to help out, please send donations to:

El Centro Latinoamericano
500 E. 4th Street Ste. 321
Waterloo, Iowa 50703

We also collected pledges for the Welcoming Massachusetts campaign and rallied interest in working to make Northampton and Amherst official Welcoming Communities.

The next Films for Thought screening will be Detained: The New Bedford Immigration Raid, on Wednesday, July 16th, 7 pm, at Food for Thought Books, 106 N. Pleasant St., Amherst, MA. For more information, contact wmciwr@gmail.com or Javiera@foodforthoughtbooks.com.

Films for Thought - Morristown: In the Air and Sun

Films for Thought Series present Morristown: In the Air and Sun directed by Anne Lewis followed by a post-screening discussion on immigration Wednesday, June 11th at 7pm Food For Thought Books (106 N. Pleasant St., Amherst)

This event will be a fundraiser to support those affected by the recent immigration raid in Postville, Iowa.

Morristown offers a working class look at globalization from both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. This film brings forth the voices of Tennessee and Mexican workers affected by economic globalization, through plant closings, immigration, farm and factory work. It shows the hardships of these forces but also people's courageous efforts to organize to address the problems. The film screening will be followed by a facilitated discussion about how current immigration policies and economic globalization are impacting our local communities.

Postville, Iowa Immigration Raid: This event will also serve as an opportunity to raise funds for those affected by the Postville, Iowa immigration raid. We will be collecting funds for the detainees and their families as well as for El Centro Latinoamericano, which is working directly the immigrant communities affected by the raid.

This event is co-sponsored by Western Mass Coalition for Immigrant & Worker Rights, Casa Latina and Food For Thought Books.

The Western Massachusetts Coalition for Immigrant and Worker Rights is a group of organizations and community members who advocate, educate, organize, and mobilize to protect the Human, Civil, and Constitutional Rights of all workers and residents in our communities.

Casa Latina is the only Latino-led and Latino-focused organization in Hampshire County, Massachusetts. Our mission is to promote self-sufficiency and a sense of community among local Latinos. We endeavor to fulfill this commitment by working directly with Latino residents to develop educational, access, and action programming based on the community's capabilities and needs.

Food For Thought Books is a worker-owned and collectively-run not-for-profit bookstore located in downtown Amherst since 1976. We specialize in author readings, community events, hand-picked books and all manner of nourishment for the heart and mind.

For more information about this event please contact Javiera Benavente at 413.253.5432 and javiera@foodforthoughtbooks.com, or visit our website at www.foodforthoughtbooks.com.

Our Immigration Past, Present and Future

There are certain ideals we proudly carry in our collective cultural legacy.

All men are created equal...
I have a dream...
Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free...

Sadly, in many anti-immigrant arguments I've encountered, this last one has been modified to exclude those without immigration papers. In fact, if this argument had been accepted less than a hundred years ago, the great waves of Irish, Italian and Eastern European Jewish immigrants would have been placed in isolated detention centers and deported. Joshua Holland argues this more eloquently than I ever could in his article on AlterNet, Hardliners Try to White-Wash Their Own Pasts by Redefining Immigration .

Descendants of the huge waves of European immigration in the 19th and early 20th centuries make much of the fact that their great grandparents came here "legally," but they rest their case on a technicality: the only reason they were legal was that there was no law in effect restricting European immigration until the 1920s.

Furthermore, one of the few restrictions on immigration at that time was the Chinese Exclusion Act, which severely limited Chinese immigration and denied Chinese residents a path to citizenship. This first major law restricting immigration in the United States was on the books in one form or another, from 1882 to 1943.

It was enacted in response to economic fears, especially on the West Coast, where native-born Americans attributed unemployment and declining wages to Chinese workers whom they also viewed as racially inferior.

Does this argument sound familiar? It is a sad reality that United States' Immigration history is one steeped in racism. When I hear nativists declare, "The law is the law," I have to agree with them. But is every law a good law? Slavery was law. Segregation was law. Lynching was law and a national past time. The 1920 Cable Act mandated that any American woman who married an Asian should lose her citizenship. In 1923 the Supreme Court ruled that Indians from the Asian continent could not become citizens. There is a reason why laws are modified and repealed.

Laws change to better reflect our culture's growing social conscience. Immigration and Custom Enforcement's strict adherence to faulty law, while disregarding the United States Constitution and the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, does not create justice in our society. In fact, I would argue that the Enforcement-on-Steroids strategy is actually stripping away at our proud cultural legacy.

News Digest - May 22nd, 2008

Topics

• Local News
• Iowa Raid Coverage Roundup
• Enforcement
• Detention
• Economy
• Undocumented Immigrant Youth
• Immigration Law
• General

Local News

Tuition Aid for Illegal Immigrants Falters (Boston Globe)
Governor Deval Patrick has decided against taking action to allow illegal immigrants to pay resident tuition and fees at state colleges and universities this fall, an administration official said yesterday, crushing advocates who were counting on the governor to deliver on a pledge to support the students.

Welcoming Massachusetts Campaign (Welcoming MA Website)

Welcoming MA Blog is up and running!
Check out my post on Global News to Local Action, along with great postings from fellow bloggers.

Welcoming Community Initiative (iBerkshires)
In joining the statewide "Welcoming Massachusetts" campaign, CCAN is asking Berkshire County residents to pledge to make our communities hospitable, welcoming, and inclusive of diversity.

Amherst and Northampton May Day Photos (Western MA Coalition for Immigrant and Worker Rights Blog)
The rallies were diverse, interactive and festive. And now we have the pictures to prove it!

Wild: Breaking the Ice (Somerville Journal - Opinion)
You know what's most terrifying? As a taxpayer, I paid the salaries of those ICE men who forced breast-feeding mothers onto a transport plane, I paid for the jet fuel to bring those women to Texas, I paid for the ICE to terrify and humiliate them, I even paid for the chains they were wrapped in. So did you. ICE merely does what it does because the government agency believes that this is what you and I want.

Iowa Raids Coverage Roundup (Standing FIRM)

Here are three articles covering the unfolding situation in Postville, Iowa after last week's ICE raid of the Agriprocessor's meatpacking plant.

• In Postville, the community struggles to cope with the aftermath of the largest raid in national history. While some families are still not able to communicate with detainees, local religious leaders have stepped up to provide support to families impacted by the raid. Local government officials are also "taking a proactive role in using all available resources" to help those in need. Read the full article - includes information for supporting the cause.
• Immigrant advocates met with the Iowa Civil Rights Commision in order to demand more accessible communcation between detainees and their family members and loved ones. Many of the detainees' family members have been unable to contact them since the raid. This lack of communication causes serious problems in planning for deportation and also increases families' anxieties about the process. Although ICE has taken steps to help families communicate, local advocates are saying their efforts are not enough. Read full article here.
• 140 people have plead guilty on various charges in the legal proceedings following the raid in Postville. Plea bargains are being offered for reduced (or no) jail time. Meanwhile, more reports are surfacing of physical and sexual abuse allegations against Agriprocessors. Read full article here.

Enforcement

Unnatural Disaster in the Making

Hurricanes, Citizenship, and the Makings of an Unnatural Disaster (New York Times Editorial)
Winds may be howling, floodwaters rising and rescuers in McAllen and Brownsville scrambling to get 100,000 to 150,000 sick, elderly, poor and disabled people to safety as quickly as possible — but if Grandma doesn't have her papers, she isn't getting on the bus.

Border Patrol Policy Could Hinder Evacations (National Public Radio)
The U.S. Border Patrol says it will check the immigration status of people trying to ride evacuation buses near the Texas-Mexico border in future hurricane emergencies. Those evacuees thought to be in the U.S. illegally will be sent to detention facilities. Human rights advocates protest that people with illegal aliens in their families will not evacuate because they will not want to leave relatives behind.

Impact on U.S. Military

Hearing on Immigration Needs of America's Fighting Men and Women
U.S. House of Represetnatives, Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law, May 20, 2008; links to testimonies.

Margaret Stock: immigration laws hamper U.S. military readiness (PDF Document)
"Currently, many military members fighting overseas find that they must also fight their own government at home, as that government creates bureaucratic obstacles that impede military readiness by preventing family members from accessing immigration benefits, refuses to allow family members into the United States altogether, or even seeks to deport military personnel or their family members." House testimony, May 20, 2008.

Air Force pilot loses spouse to harsh immigration laws (PDF Document)
"[W]hat you hear on television from so- called experts, is not true - it is not easy to stand in line and get legal. Our application was denied and my husband was told that he was barred forever from entering the United States. I flew home the next day a single parent." House testimony of Christine Navarro, KC-135 Aircraft Commander, United States Air Force, May 20, 2008.

Impact on Children, Families and Local Communities

ICE Workplace Raids: Their Impact on U.S. Children, Families, and Communities
The Workforce Protections Subcommittee of the House Education and Labor Committee held a hearing on Immigration and Custom Enforcement workplace raids and the effects of the raids on local communities, including the impact on children, most of whom are American citizens.
Links to testimonies. May 20, 2008.

Recent Immigration Raids Have Devastating Impact on Local Communities (House Subcommittee Press Release, May 20, 2008)
"Even though ICE put into place voluntary guidelines to ensure the humane treatment of people being detained when conducting raids, they are not being followed in a consistent fashion," said Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), chair of the subcommittee. "As a result, we are still hearing heartbreaking stories of the impact on children. Unless ICE follows humanitarian procedures in conducting these raids, we are still left with traumatized children and communities."

Immigration Raids Terrify Kids, House Is Told (San Francisco Chronicle)
"When federal agents raided a San Rafael apartment complex in the early morning hours of March 6, 2007, searching for 30 undocumented immigrants, they left behind a lot of terrified children, Kathryn Gibney, the principal at nearby San Pedro Elementary School, said.

ICE Immigration Raids Are Reckless and Unconstitutional (ACLU Press Release)
During a raid last year in the San Francisco Bay Area, Kebin Reyes, a then 6-year-old U.S. citizen, was detained for 10 hours in an ICE field office after his home was raided by ICE. The ACLU, with the San Francisco Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights, sued ICE on behalf of Reyes, arguing that his detention violated his constitutionally protected civil rights. Katherine Gibney, the principal of Reyes's school, is scheduled to testify in today's subcommittee hearing.

Enforcement on Steroids: Homeland Security Emerging Immigration Police State (Part I)
Some would call it a victory for law and order. But a closer look at the showy example of "getting tough on illegals" offers some insight into what immigration restrictionists are really asking for when they call for more immigration enforcement. (AlterNet)

Enforcement on Steroids: Homeland Security's Emerging Immigration Police State (Part 2)
In reality, though, it's a Big Lie, and it's hard to overstate just how big it is. Not only does the United States attempt to enforce its immigration laws, it does so with the authoritarian zeal one would expect to find in the most repressive police states. (AlterNet)

Detention

Careless Detention: Medical Treatment of Immigrants (Washington Post) Four part series.

• System of Neglect - As tighter immigration policies strain federal agencies, the detainees in their care often pay a heavy cost.
• In Care, In Pain - Her health problems worsening as she fights deportation, U.S. resident Yong Sun Harvill struggles to get the medical care she needs.
• Suicides Point to Gaps in Treatment - Many immigration detainees endure substandard medical care, but people with mental illness are relegated to the darkest and most neglected corners of the system.
• Some Detainees Are Drugged for Deportation - The U.S. government has injected hundreds of foreigners it has deported with dangerous psychotropic drugs against their will to keep them sedated during the trip back to their home country.

DHS Will Face Questions on Care of Detained Immigrants (Washington Post)
Top lawmakers in Congress criticized the Department of Homeland Security yesterday for failing to provide adequate medical care to detained immigrants, and said they plan to demand explanations today from Secretary Michael Chertoff and Julie L. Myers, assistant secretary for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Immigration agency plans new family detention centers (Los Angeles Times)
The federal government is accepting bids for up to three new family detention centers that would house as many as 600 men, women and children fighting deportation cases.

Economy

Losing Udocumented Workers Would Cost Trillions (El Paso Times)
The U.S economy could lose nearly $1.8 trillion a year if undocumented workers left the country, according to a report released this week by a group of immigration reform proponents. The report, conducted by the Waco-based Perryman Group for Americans for Immigration Reform and released Monday and Tuesday in Houston and Dallas, concludes that undocumented workers are vital to the U.S. economy and that an enforcement-only immigration strategy is unworkable.

Bloomberg tells Penn grads to hold candidates accountable (Associated Press)
"Every year, Congress shuts the door to hundreds of thousands of doctors, scientists, engineers and artists from around the world who want to come here," he said. "This is the greatest case of national self-sabotage and attempted suicide that I can imagine."

They may be illegal but we still need them (Houston Chronicle)
Shutting down illegal immigration and deporting the undocumented workers who are here would have immediate and staggering consequences for our already battered economy. Illegal immigrants contribute almost $652 billion annually to the U.S. gross domestic product, Perryman said. Removing them would eliminate almost $1.8 trillion in annual spending from our economy.

Undocumented Immigrant Youth

Talented Student Artist Could Be Deported (Miami Herald)
His mother slipped Meynardo, then age 10, into the United States illegally from Mexico. He's now 18 years old, a senior at Broward's Coconut Creek High School.

Immigration Law

New Temporary Worker Visa Procedures to Cut Bureaucracy (Los Angeles Times)
With restaurants and resorts facing summer staff shortages, the Bush administration will announce federal regulations today to streamline the way foreign workers enter the country for seasonal jobs.

General

Fear and Loathing in Prime Time: Immigration Myths and Cable News (Media Matters)
The result is that those opponents -- seeking to foster misunderstanding about immigration and promoting views often tinged with hate -- gain critical assistance from cable news. Though on any given night Dobbs or O'Reilly may not repeat the most egregious deceptions of the nativist right, they are a critical link in the chain that keeps anti-immigrant sentiment moving forward.

Exploited Indian Immigrants Take Their Fight to Washington (Video)
One hundred Indian guest workers marched hundreds of miles from New Orleans, LA, to Washington, DC, to protest their treatment by their employer, Signal International. Brought here under the auspices of the H2B visa program, the workers were promised much and given little in return. As concerns about immigration continue to hold the national spotlight, theirs is a cautionary tale.

Immigrants are fitting in more quickly, study finds (Houston Chronicle)
A wide-ranging and provocative new study of immigrants' integration into U.S. society has concluded that newcomers today are assimilating more quickly than their predecessors did 100 years ago — with Cubans, Vietnamese and Filipinos among those leading the way.

Washington Post - Careless Detention Part 4

I know this is a little late, but please take the time to read Some Detainees Are Drugged For Deportation - Immigrants Sedated Without Medical Reason, the fourth and last of the Washington Post series titled Careless Detention.

Involuntary chemical restraint of detainees, unless there is a medical justification, is a violation of some international human rights codes. The practice is banned by several countries where, confidential documents make clear, U.S. escorts have been unable to inject deportees with extra doses of drugs during layovers en route to faraway places.

Not only is the U.S. government carrying out a policy its own Health and Human Services lawyers think "is not supported by any legal authority and raises ethical issues, " but it is also administering doses that are incredibly high.

Haldol recommended daily doses: For aggressive behavior, 0.5 milligrams twice a day to 5 milligrams three times a day, although doses of up to 10 milligrams a day may be used in a hospital emergency room.

Number of detainees who were given a total of . . .

It is also important to remember that many of these sedated deportees have petitioned for asylum and are being deported to countries where they will face prison, torture and death.

Photos of May Day Rallies in Amherst and Northampton

After some technical difficulties (the official camera of the day broke and erased all photos), we've found another source. Thanks to everyone who was able to attend. The rallies were diverse, interactive and festive. And now we have the pictures to prove it!


The Amherst noontime rally featured guest speakers including Rick Brown (Pioneer Valley Central Labor Council AFL-CIO; Western Mass. Jobs with Justice Committee Member; Vice-President/Organizer of UFCW Local 1459), Maya Winfrey (Western Mass. AFSC), Ben Grosscup (Bill of Rights Defense Committee), Arina Weissman (Western Mass. Coalition for Peace & Justice), and community members who took the mike for Speak Outs.


We were also treated to AMAZING music from Jose Ayerve and (thanks to Artists for Justice) Art Steele, Julissa and Los Callejeros.


The Northampton evening rally was also very successful!

Local college students,

activists and community members bravely took the microphone for Speak Outs on their personal immigrant experience and how the immigrant movement is related to other movements.

Thank you everyone who came up in support of Immigrant Rights! To see more photographs, click here.

390 Immigrants Detained in Raid In Iowa

Almost 400 people have been detained in a raid at the country's largest kosher slaughterhouse, in Postville, Iowa. This is more than a third of all workers in the plant, and almost 1 in 6 residents of the town. No matter what anyone says, this raid will destroy the Hispanic population and cripple the town.

The following are photos and excerpts from the Des Moines Register coverage of the raids.

Hidie Roach, a teller at Citizens State Bank in Postville, said the raid gives the town a bad name. The town needs the packing plant, Roach said. "I think a lot of people will leave." (Des Moine Register)

The local churches have been flooded with people seeking refuge and guidance.

The town is rallying, with many residents volunteering at food lines and offering everything from clothing to blood and taking care of the broken families left behind.
Another worrisome question is whether the detainees are getting proper legal counsel.

"It appears that detainees are not receiving adequate time to meet with their lawyers, and that defense attorneys are being overwhelmed by requests to represent far more clients than is advisable -- or perhaps even ethical," ACLU of Iowa President Ben Stone said in the statement. "We are concerned that the sheer size of this raid is likely to result in numerous violations of the U.S. Constitution, which protects the due process rights of all persons in this country." (Chicago-Tribune)

The Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition (MIRA) released a statement earlier today on the Iowa raids. MIRA asks some very good questions...

"Is it really in the country's best interest to be spending federal
resources to tear apart families, to traumatize young children, to devastate
small towns, and to ruin local economies, at a time when the country have
other pressing challenges and concerns? Shouldn't we instead be protecting
all working families in America from exploitation, guaranteeing the fair and
just treatment of every worker, especially the most vulnerable? Immigration
enforcement should not exacerbate the exploitation of workers, nor should it
interfere with labor laws that are vital to protect all working families in
America."

Washington Post - Careless Detention Part 3

Suicides Point To Gaps In Treatment, the third of four in a series from the Washington Post, details the psychiatric care in immigrant detention centers.

Mudey, 30, was a member of an outcast Muslim clan and, according to her political asylum application, had been tormented by dominant groups throughout her life. When she was 10, she said, an old woman cut off her genitals with a razor blade. As a teenager, she was clubbed and beaten by girls with status. When she was 19, armed men shot and killed her father and two brothers at home. At 22, five men with guns gang-raped her mother and sister, who screamed so much the men killed her. Then they attacked Mudey with a knife and bashed her head with a gun butt.

Soon after taking Risperdal at the Elizabeth detention center, she found herself in the throes of its worst side effects. Her arms and legs shook uncontrollably. Her tongue thickened and thrashed around in her mouth, which she was unable to close. She drooled constantly, vomited often and began to lactate. "I said, 'Maybe I am going mad,' " Mudey said. " 'Maybe I am going to die in here.' "

Washington Post - Careless Detention Part 2

In Custody, In Pain is the second in the Washington Post series on medical care in immigrant detention centers.

Underneath her baggy jail-issue pants, Yong Sun Harvill feels the soft lump just below her left knee. Sometimes it tingles. Sometimes it is numb. Like her cancer felt when it arrived behind the knee a few years ago.

She noticed the lump under the thin, blue cotton in August, five months after federal immigration officers, to her amazement, took her into custody to try to deport her for buying stolen jewelry more than a decade ago. The lump grows slowly. It is now three inches across. And though she keeps asking, no one has done a test to see whether her sarcoma has come back.

The thing that makes perhaps the least sense to him is that his wife is covered under a good health insurance policy that he gets through his union, the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, and she and her lawyers have asked whether she could use that policy to pay for her treatment by private doctors while she is detained. They have been told no.

Washington Post - Careless Detention Part 1

The Washington Post has a series on medical care in immigrant detention centers.
The first in the series, titled System of Neglect, is an overview of effect immigration enforcement and policies have had on detention centers.

2 Day Immigration Law Training

Date: 29-30 May 2008 Time: 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Location: Legal Assistance Corporation of Central Massachusetts 405 Main Street, 4th Floor Worcester, MA This intensive two-day training will provide an overview and update on Detention/Deportation, 287(g), VAWA, and Employment Based Immigration. Please register for the training online at www.miracoalition.org by May 16th. For registration questions, please contact Angela Amell at (617) 350-5480 x202. This training is partly sponsored by the Massachusetts Bar Foundation & the National Immigration Forum and hosted by the Legal Assistance Corporation of Central Massachusetts

Pioneer Valley Project

The Pioneer Valley Project is collecting children's clothing, toys, cribs, car seats, all other equipment for kids, and disposable diapers for immigrant families. This summer we're supporting immigrant families who pay for child care out of their own pockets because it's very difficult for many of them to qualify for subsidized child care. Families pay $50-$75 a week for each child depending on the age of the child. Most of these families work for little more than minimum wage and they pay for their child care, their rides to and from work and often support parents, children and other family members back home. Some people only have steady work for four months each year because they work on tobacco farms.

Our project was looking for ways to help families get subsidized day care but we found that many of them either didn't have the proper identification or the hours offered didn't work for them (because many go to work at 5 or 6 AM and get back late, too). We decided instead to help support these families and help them offset the cost they pay for day care.

On Sunday, May 4, we gave out 44 packages of diapers to 29 families. We bought these diapers at the Food Bank of Western Mass but they still were expensive. They cost us over $9.00 per package and each package had either 34 or 40 diapers, according to the size. We also gave out a lot of children's clothing, two car seats, a crib, and lots of toys and other equipment for kids (like baby bottles), all things donated by members of local churches.

We are asking for donations of diapers and we especially need sizes 2, 5 and 6. Please buy a package of diapers and help a family offset the cost of child care. Or, if you have toys or equipment for kids that you are no longer using please donate it. We hope to give out diapers, toys, clothes and equipment all summer long. If you prefer to donate cash, that's fine, too. We're happy to come pick up stuff!

Thanks for your support!!

Maria Cristina Cuerda

Western Mass. Legal Services

One Monarch Place, Suite 400

Springfield, MA 01144

direct line: 413-686-9033

fax: 413-746-3221

News Digest, May 5th, 2008

May 1st Rallies

Immigration rights rally takes place on Amherst town common (WWLP.com)
The pressures on undocumented workers are growing. Around the country there are a growing number of raids on farms and factories. There was a major immigration raid at one Bay State company last year---a New Bedford leather goods plant. Some 361 workers at Michael Bianco inc. were detained.

May Day march smaller, but festive (Los Angeles Times)
In Los Angeles, where about 8,500 people took part in three separate marches that merged to rally at 1st Street and Broadway, some participants said fear of government raids and growing apathy about pros pects for change had dampened turnout. About 20,000 had been expected to participate.

Crowds Smaller at Immigrant Rallies (New York Times)
"People are scared that if they march, they will be arrested by I.C.E. and taken away from their families," she said, referring to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement division of the Department of Homeland Security. But Ms. Sabo added, "It's not about the numbers — we know who we are, who we've been and where we're going."

Mayday for undocumented workers (San Francisco Chronicle)
Again this May Day, immigrant workers are filling the streets, making the same point. Yet today, the federal government is taking actions that make holding a job a criminal act. Some states and local communities, seeing a green light from the Department of Homeland Security, are passing measures that go even further. These actions need a reality check.

Immigrant Deaths in Detention

Family Struggled in Vain to Help Suffering Detainee (New York Times)
"This was the first time we ever heard our dad cry," said one, Jay Ashis Nand, 25. "He said, 'Son, if you don't get me out of here today, I'm going to die.' " Mr. Nand, a legal immigrant from Fiji who was diabetic, had been calling his family with mounting desperation over a 10-day period, the sons said. Already ailing when he was abruptly taken into custody at the family's home in Sacramento early in the morning of Jan. 13, 2005, he had deteriorated after a week at the Arizona detention center, which is run for the federal government by Corrections Corporation of America, a publicly traded prison company

Few Details on Immigrants Who Died in Custody (New York Times)
In California, relatives of Walter Rodriguez-Castro, 28, said they were rebuffed when they tried to find out why his calls had stopped coming from the Kern County Jail in Bakersfield in April 2006. Then in June, his wife went to his scheduled hearing in San Francisco's immigration court and learned that he had been dead for many weeks, his body unclaimed in the county morgue.

The Death of Boubacar Bah (New York Times Video)
The death of a detainee in the custody of U.S. immigration authorities raises questions about oversight in the immigration detention system.

Immigration Agency's List of Deaths in Custody (New York Times)
Along with 13 deaths cited as suicides, 14 as the result of various cardiac ailments and 9 related to H.I.V. and AIDS, the list includes cryptic causes of death like "unresponsive" and "undetermined." The list does not mention the immigrants' nationalities or where they lived in the United States. Some names and birth dates appear garbled.

A Government Statement on Detainee Deaths (New York Times)
Immigration and Customs Enforcement takes great care to ensure the safety and well being for each of the 330,000 detained individuals who come through our detention facilities each year. ICE has established plans and processes in place with Division of Immigration Health Services medical professionals to provide care for all those detained, including those who may encounter a medical emergency while in custody.

Immigrant Detention

As federal presence at county jail grows, so do numbers of immigrant detainees (Austin American Statesman)
"For the past 30 years, federal immigration agents have regularly popped in the Travis County Jail and other correctional institutions, combing records and quizzing inmates to identify deportable immigrants and those with criminal records. But sometime in the future — apparently for the first time ever, and with the blessing of Travis County Sheriff Greg Hamilton — the periodic visits will grow into a permanent presence, as federal agents work around-the-clock in a roughly 8-foot by 10-foot office in the downtown jail."

Detention dollars (San Diego Union-Tribune)
" "The private prison industry was on the verge of bankruptcy in the late 1990s, until the feds bailed them out with the immigration-detention contracts," said Michele Deitch, an expert on prison privatization with the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas in Austin."

Lawsuits raise questions about private prisons (San Diego Union-Tribune)
"As immigration laws have become tougher, the federal government has found itself with a logistical challenge: where to house a population that has swollen to more than 30,000 detainees. The solution? Turn them over to the private sector. Detention contracts have helped turn once-ailing private prison companies into a multibillion- dollar growth industry with record revenues, healthy stock prices and ambitious expansion plans."

Detention: Inside Edition (Texas Observer)
"The fastest-growing segment of the prison industry is for-profit detention centers housing immigrants. The Bush administration - with characteristic zeal - has given the job of holding this growing detention population — fed largely by the crackdown on illegal immigration — to prison peddlers who are dependent on taxpayer dollars. Texas has been ground zero for this growth industry."

Immigrants Challenge U.S. System of Detention (New York Times)
"Immigrants who spent time in detention while fighting deportation filed a federal suit on Wednesday against Michael Chertoff, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, demanding that the agency issue legally enforceable regulations for its detention centers. No enforceable standards now exist for the immigrant detention system, a rapidly growing conglomeration of county jails, federal centers and privately run prisons across the country."

Education

The Undocumented American Dream (The American Prospect)
A new anthology of autobiographical stories written by undocumented immigrant college students serves as a reminder that we're neglecting some of the country's best and brightest.

Raids

Immigration rights advocates protest ICE raids on local businesses (Mercury News)
Immigrant rights advocates and religious leaders are congregating today in front of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's San Francisco office to protest recent raids in the Bay Area. Labor union members, workers, students and several community organizations are also attending the protest to call for an end to the raids, which they say tear families apart and criminalize work.

After the crackdown: Raid unraveled lives and deflated dreams (Houston Chronicle)
Octavio Pacheco, a 29-year-old Mexican immigrant, came to Houston by himself when he was 18. Pacheco and his wife have a son born in Houston, and are expecting a second child. He worked at Shipley for nearly 10 years, and was earning $9 an hour and living rent-free in a company house. As agents began to round up the workers two weeks ago, Pacheco said the full impact of the raid set in. ''All the dreams you have, they come crashing down," he said. ''You feel hopeless because there is nothing you can do."

Immigration Maze

In D.C. Area, Citizenship Test Is One Of Patience (Washington Post)

"I'll vote next time, if I'm alive," said Reston retiree Apolonio Marin, 69, a Nicaraguan native who applied for citizenship last summer. He is still waiting.

Woman from Mali who underwent circumcision fights for asylum (Associated Press)
An immigration appeals court wrote in November that while female genital mutilation was "reprehensible," Traore had not proven the act was evidence that she would suffer further harm in Mali. The court concluded that like the loss of a limb, it was a one-time act that could not be repeated, and did not constitute a threat of continued harm.

Economy

Union and states try recruiting farm workers from Mexico (Associated Press)
Weary of waiting for Congress to overhaul the nation's immigration laws, the United Farm Workers hopes to recruit Mexican laborers to pick crops on U.S. farms.

Hispanic and Latino news

Latinos outraged over CBS report (Politico)
"Anti-Latino falsehoods deserve no time on our public airwaves," stated a letter to CBS by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the National Council of La Raza. The groups and others have asked to meet with CBS "to help raise the dialogue and provide the American public an honest and accurate analysis of this nation's broken immigration system." And in a separate letter to CBS, the Asian American Justice Center lodged a similar complaint against the entire four-part series that included the report.

Local News

Immigration rights rally takes place on Amherst town common (WWLP.com)
The pressures on undocumented workers are growing. Around the country there are a growing number of raids on farms and factories. There was a major immigration raid at one Bay State company last year---a New Bedford leather goods plant. Some 361 workers at Michael Bianco inc. were detained.

We're fired up, and we can't take it (Woonsocket Call)PROVIDENCE — After snarling Friday rush hour traffic in downtown Providence with a "Unity March" from the Westin Hotel to the Statehouse, a coalition of labor and community groups held a rally in support of state workers, immigrants and union labor.