It seems as if ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the new name for the INS) is out to break records as fast as the gold medal swimmers in the 2008 Summer Olympics. After undertaking the “largest single-site operation of its kind in American history” when ICE raided Agriprocessors Inc. in Postville Iowa, last May, ICE apparently decided they could best that record and did so at the Howard Industries plant in Laurel, Mississippi last week. In Postville 900 ICE agents detained roughly 400 undocumented immigrant workers. A 60 acre cattle fairground was turned into a concentration camp for the detainees, off limits to cameras and most of the media. One court interpreter, Prof. Erik Camayd-Freixas, described the scene as the detainees were brought into the trailers that served as courtrooms on the fairgrounds… “Driven single-file in groups of 10, shackled at the wrists, waist and ankles, chains dragging as they shuffled through, the slaughterhouse workers were brought in for arraignme...

Some of the most innovative and essential work being accomplished by both the labor movement and the movement for immigrant rights is, once again, happening right here in Chicago. The Chicago Committee Against No-Match Letters and the Rapid Response Network, lead by the UE (United Electrical Workers Union), Chicago Workers Collaborative, UFCW (United Food and Commercial Workers) Local 881, Interfaith Worker Justice and other Chicago area workers centers, has organized a fight back against Social Security “no-match” letters and ICE workplace raids in an effort to make Chicago a no-match and ICE raid free zone. The goal is to make the economic, political and social costs of terrorzing immigrant workers through no-match letters and workplace raids so high for employers and their friends at DHS (Department of Homeland Security) that they will be forced to back off. This is an extremely important effort, as no-match letters and ICE raids are a key strategy of the anti-immigrant forces who a...

David Bacon is one of the most insightful and forward thinking advocates for immigrant rights in the U.S. labor movement. His analysis of the relationship between trade and migration is essential to understanding the importance of the immigrant worker's struggles to the overall revitalization of the organized labor in the U.S. He has also consistently called for the most militant and thoroughgoing strategies to care the immigrant workers struggle forward. David circulated the following statement among immigrant rights groups in California last month. The type of working class solidarity, David calls for here is not only vital if we are to win the fight for migrants rights, but could lead to a radical transformation of union locals away from the type of business unionism that has dominated for decades toward a return to unions as vital organs of social change in the broadest sense… A Solidarity Campaign in Response to No-Match Letters: In the late 1980s, when anti-immigrant raci...

One of my first stops on my Summer travels in the South was Pascagoula MS., were I meet with members of MIRA! (The Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance). MIRA! Organizer Socorro Leos was kind enough to spend a day talking with me about the struggles of workers in Pascagoula, post-Hurricane Katrina. Socorro is herself an immigrant worker who was displaced by the storm and has been struggling with city officials to allow her to continue to live in this bustling industrial city. Pascagoula was the site of a major successful strike by members of IBEW at the Northrop Grumman Shipyards this past Spring. But the port city has also become famous for producing some of the most egregious cases of the exploitation of guest workers (H2B program workers) in recent years. The numbers of guest workers in the shipyards and docks of the Gulf Coast has dramatically increased post-Katrina, and so has the level of disregard for these worker's basic human rights. A recent attempt by Indian guest work...

UPDATE: VIEW THE LABOR BEAT VIDEO ON THE CYGNUS STRIKE VICTORY AT... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8bW-6kIIts After a two week strike, the immigrant workers at the Cygnus soap factory in the Chicago suburb of Riverdale, have convinced the management not to fire workers because of Social Security “no match” letters. Cygnus management had threatened workers who had asked for a wage increase, with dismissal, using Social Security “no match” letters as an excuse. As a result, the vast majority of the factory’s over 120 workers walked off the job on July 30th, demanding that all employees keep their jobs. The Cygnus workers were not union, but strong organizing by worker leaders in the plant ensured few crossed the picket line. They have since joined the IAM (International Association of Machinists). Today it was announced that management had conceded to the workers demands and the workers agreed to return to work next Monday. Proving what immigrant workers can accomplish when the fight ...

-- FLOC Organizer - Cástulo Benavides Rodríguez - Outside FLOC's Monterrey Office, recently renamed the Santiago Rafael Cruz Justice Center (top) and Santiago Rafael Cruz (bottom) FLOC organizer who was murdered last April. In this era of increased globalization and growing migrant labor, most unions are talking about organizing internationally. But making cross border organizing something real and concrete is a whole other story. FLOC (Farm Labor Organizing Committee) is putting rhetoric into practice. FLOC has setup an office in Monterrey Mexico, from which they can organize, educate and reach out to farm workers in their hometowns in Mexico. Their efforts to protect guest workers from exploitative labor recruitment agencies, has earned them the respect of many Mexican migrant laborers, and the ire of those that prey on migrants. FLOC organizers believe labor recruiters were behind the brutal murder of FLOC organizer Santiago Rafael Cruz in their Monterrey office last April. I v...

Members of immigrant rights organizations from around the country speaking out against the “immigration reform” proposals that were being discussed in the U.S. Congress earlier today at a press conference held at the Immigrant Rights tent at the USSF. We received word later in the day, that the reform proposals in Congress were defeated – to the relief of everyone here. http://www.archive.org/details/USSF-ImmigrantRightsPressConference

Gerald Lenoir of the The Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI), talks about immigrant rights as part of the larger struggle for racial justice at the Immigrant Rights Press Conference at the USSF (United States Social Forum)... http://www.archive.org/details/USSF-BlackAllianceJustImmigration