'Let them go!': Tears, shock over ICE raids at Mississippi food processing plants

[DesertRat]

U.S. immigration officials raided numerous Mississippi food processing plants Wednesday, arresting 680 mostly Latino workers in what marked the largest workplace sting in at least a decade.

The raids, planned months ago, happened just hours before President Donald Trump was scheduled to visit El Paso, Texas, the majority-Latino city where a man linked to an online screed about a "Hispanic invasion" was charged in a shooting that left 22 people dead in the border city.

Workers filled three buses — two for men and one for women — at a Koch Foods Inc. plant in tiny Morton, 40 miles east of Jackson. They were taken to a military hangar to be processed for immigration violations. About 70 family, friends and residents waved goodbye and shouted, "Let them go! Let them go!" Later, two more buses arrived.

A tearful 13-year-old boy whose parents are from Guatemala waved goodbye to his mother, a Koch worker, as he stood beside his father. Some employees tried to flee on foot but were captured in the parking lot.

https://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/local/2019/08/07/immigration-ice-raids-hit-mississippi-food-processing-plants/1945057001/

Link to tweet

[VMA131Marine]

1. So what's the problem here?

Is it that people are here and undocumented or that many businesses seem to be willing to hire workers without verifying their immigration status. Are those businesses paying these people under the table, to avoid paying taxes? Seems like the IRS should be right behind ICE to look at these companies' books.

[DesertRat]

4. I wonder if they arrested the plant operator for hiring undocumented workers?

[Rebl2]

13. Of

course not.

[Delmette2.0]

21. +1,000

[WhiteTara]

18. Theoretically the fine is $10,000 per

undocumented worker. That would be quite the dent in Koch profits on those plants.

[dflprincess]

30. They consider those fines just part of the cost of doing business

Start prosecuting the CEOs of the companies who hire undocumented workers and throwing them in jail and they'll stop doing so

[Hortensis]

6. No, the workers pay all the regular deductions, with the

entrenched understanding by all that they will not be applying for refunds, workers comp, or retirement benefits. A big chunk of their paychecks paid to the government as a sort of special giant tax for being allowed to work.

The bastards who want foreign workers here but kept illegal out of racist and nationalist spite wouldn't need all those buses if they arrested the serial-criminal employers instead, but that's not how they roll.

[DBoon]

9. Yes, they subsidize *our* social security

Some use make-believe SSNs which can never be collected. Of course teh money is deposited with the fake numbers.

[Hortensis]

10. Oh, yes, it's all built in. False ID with #s is required by the vast

majority of employers to stay "legal." This is just the way it's been for those who return year after year to employers who really need them, and now that wasn't nearly mean and dishonorable enough for these thugs.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

20. Does anyone see a problem with this RECENT NEWS:

First, I see a problem with ANY company owner(s) not being held more accountable than the people that they oppress. Why only hit them with an IRS audit, after the corporation broke numerous laws.

Haverford student, 22, who hacked the IRS for Donald Trump’s tax returns, pleads guilty
by Sam Wood and Mensah M. Dean, Updated: August 6, 2019- 10:20 PM

A Haverford College student who used a campus computer to attempt to hack into an IRS database to obtain Donald Trump’s tax returns days before the 2016 presidential election pleaded guilty Tuesday to two misdemeanor crimes in federal court.

Justin Hiemstra, 22, who finished his studies in May but will not get his degree until he completes a study-abroad program next May, told Judge Cynthia Rufe that he did not know what he would have done with the tax returns if he and classmate Andrew Harris had succeeded in obtaining them on Nov. 2, 2016.

“It was a time when Donald Trump’s tax returns were of interest,” said Hiemstra, a Fulbright Scholar who speaks fluent Russian. https://www.inquirer.com/business/trump-tax-returns-haverford-justin-hiemstra-information-guilty-plea-20190805.html

[AllaN01Bear]

2. when is the gov going to go after these employers ?

ive been asking this question for years and i dont get a single answer.

[DeminPennswoods]

3. The Kochs are big GOP donors

They won't be happy about one of their businesses being raided and might decide to sit out the upcoming election cycle.

[DesertRat]

7. Have the Kochs crossed DT?

It wouldn't surprise me if this was a retaliatory shakedown.

[DeminPennswoods]

8. IIRC, they did not support him in 2016

or at least didn't donate directly to his campaign.

[JHB]

15. Not part of the Koch Bros empire

Still owned by a billionaire, but the guy's name is Joseph C. Grendys.

[malaise]

5. Koch Foods Inc?

Help! The Con's Koch folks?

[DesertRat]

12. Edited: According to the AP it's not the same Koch co.

[JHB]

14. Nope. Tweet is wrong

The AP article he retweets specifically says

The company has no relation to prominent conservative political donors and activists Charles and David Koch.

[DesertRat]

17. You're right, I'll edit. Thanks

[FirstLight]

11. Does everyone see the fucking parallels...? This shit is coming down the pike for ANYONE

...who dares cross the Dicktator-in-Chief...

"First they came for the... and I said nothing..."

https://www.britannica.com/event/Kristallnacht


Mass shootings (seen by them as Homeland Militia doing their "job&quot
Rounding up specific communities
Attacks on the Free Press (um, even the USA Today thing today was a dogwhistle)
Attacks on Duly Elected officials

Dude, this is beyond nuts, it's downright frightening. Even Impeachment won't save us now...

[Leghorn21]

16. OMG, all these people are headed to a shithole detention camp

So bad so bad

[greyl]

19. From ACLU:

Link to tweet

[bdamomma]

22. They need to look up

to those in that 1%. What Americans are going to do that work???? Horrible. Stephen Miller should be kicked to the curb.

[maxrandb]

23. Well, let's go MAGAts

680 jobs in meat processing plants open for your dumbasses to fill.

They wouldn't last past noon.

[DesertRat]

24. That's the truth!

[bdamomma]

28. Americans will not fill those jobs.

nor will they pick vegetables from the fields. They will never do it.

[spanone]

25. Did they also arrest the owners of the plant who hired them?

[bdamomma]

26. Crimes against humanity

Jewish people were sort out too, and now these innocent people are being rounded up. I hate Stephen Miller. He needs to be focused on.

[Leghorn21]

27. And their poor CHILDREN have been left ABANDONED

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=12359204


WTF GODDAMIT

[DesertRat]

31. Evil and Heartbreaking!

This is not my America.

[Blue_Tires]

29. Don't look at me; I told everyone this was what life under Trump would be...

Did they fucking listen?

[DesertRat]

32. But her emails...

[MineralMan]

33. Most likely, many of that 680 are legal workers.

ICE tends to snatch everyone up, and look at papers later.