This time they came for the immigrants

When they came for the meatpackers, what did we do? When the armed agents descended on the brown-skinned residents of our town, our state, our nation, did we speak up? What did we do when the children came home to empty houses and cried for their parents?

 

“In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. ” Pastor Martin Niemoller

 

Last week they came for the immigrants, taking them from meatpacking plants to distant jails, wrenching apart families and communities, safeguarding national security by deporting people whose greatest crime was to work and pay taxes.

 

Last month they came for the imams, removing them from the plane, refusing to allow them to explain that they were only attending a conference, that they had already informed local police—in advance—that they would be visiting Minneapolis and that they were not dangerous.

 

Before that, they dropped bombs on Iraq. They tortured prisoners at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. They arrested a U.S. citizen employee of a contractor in Iraq—a U.S. citizen who had blown the whistle on corruption and illegal activities—and held him in Iraq, incommunicado for weeks, confined to a small cell with bright lights and blaring music and frequent interrogation—for three months. They say that international rules against torture do not apply, and that only some of the Geneva Conventions on warfare apply.

 

Who are “they”? We buy the uniforms they wear. Our tax dollars pay their salaries. They serve in our military, police force, immigration service. They direct our State Department and in the Pentagon and in the Department of Homeland Security. They follow orders from our President and our Congress. They act in our name.

 

“Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist.”

 

On December 12, they came for the immigrants. They came for the brown-skinned workers, for the workers with “Hispanic surnames,” for the immigrants suspected of the crime of working in America to feed their children. Hundreds of armed officers from the Department of Homeland Security descended on Swift meatpacking plants in Worthington, Minnesota – and in Nebraska, Colorado, Texas, Utah and Iowa. They closed down operations, shut out union representatives and lawyers and confined workers for interrogation. Not all the workers, of course. Only those suspected of the crime of Working While Brown.

 

The brown-skinned workers were held until they could prove their right to work in the United States. Mexican-Americans have to prove their right to live here, over and over again. When is the last time that a German-American or Norwegian-American or Irish-American worker had to prove that right?

 

More than 220 Minnesotans were arrested, more than 1200 workers across the country. In five out of the six plants, the workers were members of the United Food and Commercial Workers. Immigration (ICE) authorities said the operation was a crackdown on identity theft.

 

“Identity theft” conjures up visions of criminals running up credit card bills and ruining the victims’ credit rating. Not these “identity thieves”—they used the Social Security numbers to get jobs. Hard, dangerous, dirty jobs in the meatpacking industry. They worked and they paid taxes on their earnings. The money that they, and other undocumented workers, pay into the Social Security system alone adds up to a whopping seven billion dollars each year. And that’s a pure contribution, because they will never be able to collect a dime in Social Security benefits.

 

“Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up.” 

 

On December 12, the ICE police came for the mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers. The ICE police held them incommunicado, refused to let lawyers talk to them, refused to tell family members whether their sister/brother/mother/father/aunt/uncle was in custody, where they were held, where they would be taken.

 

“They’re coming to our homes, they’re taking us from our homes.” An anguished Guatemalan father called his German-American friend. And she went, in her pick-up truck with a topper on the back, to rescue her friends from the ICE that chilled this December day.

 

The immigrants who cut up carcasses for Christmas hams cannot go home for Christmas. They will spend Christmas separated from their loved ones, shipped to out-of-state jails or deported. The families left behind will cry and their friends will call ICE’s designated number over and over to find out where their loved ones are—and will continue to get no answer.

 

When our neighbors locked their doors and pulled down the shades on their windows and hid in fear from the knock on the door, what did we do? When our government targeted Latinos or Muslims or Arabs, what did we say?

 

This is the time to stand up. This is the time to speak.