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Massive Racist ICE Immigrant Raids Across the Country at Post-May Day 2008 Mobilization!!

5/12 URGENT! Up to 700 Arrested in Iowa Raid!!!!

By Citizens For Legitimate Government

Up to 700 arrests estimated in Postville raid 12 May 2008 (IA) Four Homeland Security buses with U.S. Immigration and Customs tags on them have entered the Agriprocessors Inc. complex. The buses, along with a trail of SUVs and vans with Minnesota license plates, arrived at about 11:45 a.m. Tim Counts, a Midwest ICE spokesman, declined to confirm where people who are arrested will be detained. Federal officials have leased the National Cattle Congress fairgrounds in Waterloo, but they declined to explain last week whether the property was being prepared for use as a detention center.

5/24: 900 nabbed in California state on immigration charges

Federal immigration officers arrested more than 900 people in California on immigration violations this month, almost half of them in Northern California, officials said.

5/28: County Jails Welcome Immigrants

The immigration crackdown is filling county jails across the country with immigrants who have been torn away from their jobs and homes. Tens of thousands of arrested immigrants are bedding down in county jails while they await court dates and eventual deportation.

As the immigration crackdown escalates, county commissions and sheriff departments are increasingly signing contracts with the federal government to house arrested immigrants. For the most part, county governments are eager to receive immigrants into their jails.

The per diem payments they receive from two federal agencies' immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Marshals Service (USMS)'re covering shortfalls in county budgets, funding the hiring of new deputies, and paying for jail expansion projects. Although some localities are complaining of jail overcrowding and a diffusion of law enforcement priorities, more and more local governments are cashing in on the immigration crackdown.

ICE is the agency of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) responsible for the "detention and removal" of unauthorized immigrants. USMS is the Justice Department agency that transports federal prisoners, including arrested immigrants. Both agencies offer per diem payments'enerally much higher than those provided by local law-enforcement organizations, governments and private companies that house immigrants.

5/14: Some Detainees Are Drugged for Deportation

Immigrants sedated without medical reason.

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, according to medical records, internal documents and interviews with people who have been drugged.

The government's forced use of antipsychotic drugs, in people who have no history of mental illness, includes dozens of cases in which the "pre-flight cocktail," as a document calls it, had such a potent effect that federal guards needed a wheelchair to move the slumped deportee onto an airplane.

"Unsteady gait. Fell onto tarmac," says a medical note on the deportation of a 38-year-old woman to Costa Rica in late spring 2005. Another detainee was "dragged down the aisle in handcuffs, semi-comatose," according to an airline crew member's written account. Repeatedly, documents describe immigration guards "taking down" a reluctant deportee to be tranquilized before heading to an airport.

Organized by: National Immigrant Solidarity Network

On Monday, January 29, a group of us, representatives from San Francisco La Raza Legal Centro, National Organization of Women, veterans and I met with Speaker Nancy Pelosi's staff on immigration and present our open letter and exchanges ideas on the immigration issues. In addition, thank you for everyone who had visited and call your representatives at the Call-In day, at dozen states. >> Read the Congressional Lobby Day Report

More Details | More Information About the Open Letter | Endorse the Letter

May Day 2006 - We Have Made History!

Ten Millions Across the Country Take to the Streets to Demand Immigrant Rights!

http://www.NoHR4437.org http://www.ImmigrantSolidarity.org

Today was one of the most important days in U.S. history: ten millions of immigrants, activists and allies in over 200 cities from across the country chose to skip work, school, and the normal daily routine to participate in "A Day Without Immigrants." We held a national boycott, general strikes, rallies and symbolic actions in order to demand basic rights for all immigrants, and to build a new multi-ethnic united civil rights movement for the 21st century!

Report from Spirng 2006 Immigrant Mobilizations