ICE Job Raids messing up work flow
In my hand, on my iPhone, I’m watching a disgusting video, my opinion, that shows how insane these ICE job raids have become.
The video is shot outside a home in McAllen, near Oxford and 25th. Guys doing hard work laying down a new concrete driveway. They’re both wearing kneed pads, working the concrete so that the driveway ends up well constructed, when the ICE agents arrive.
With nothing better to do, you know, arrest some actual criminals, bust up an illegal drug ring, maybe even clamp down on an illegal cock fight at night, no, these federal agents, mostly too overweight, or so it looks, to even run down a blind man on crutches, stop at this particular brick house for some immigration action.
It’s obvious that they’re driving around profiling anyone who looks brown, working a blue-collar outdoor job in plain sight where they can be seen.
Easy prey for the pickings.
It Is Unconstitutional
Yep, driving around in a government vehicle with AC, looking for guys like this, laying down a concrete driveway or doing other trade labor that requires determination and grit. In other words, the grunt work, hard work, that too many people in this country refuse to do for whatever reason. The work is too hard, they have grown too soft, who knows.
These guys in the video I'm watching are doing nothing but working … hard. Minding their own business, trying to complete a job.
Here comes ICE. On the prowl with their federal benefits and inability to pass the simplest PT. Many, not all, by the looks of the fed patrol.
The agents ask the workers some questions in Spanish, slap them in cuffs like they’re an actual risk to society, and haul them away where they’ll spend two or three months at an ICE facility.
What an immigration policy.
Arrest people working hard jobs in the construction trades so we can what? Cause delays in home construction? Shut down commercial construction sites?
“I thought that profiling is unconstitutional.”
Turns out it is, unless it involves ICE.
On Sept. 8, the U.S. Supreme Court, packed with the current president’s appointees, issued an order allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to resume immigration stops in the Los Angeles area using factors such as race, Spanish language use, and employment in certain industries (e.g. construction, landscaping, motel maids, restaurants, car washes, etc.) as part of their justification.
It looks like ICE took the LA case and is now using it nationwide to round up blue-collar people who look brown and speak Spanish, using that as a reason to question people as they did here recently at this McAllen home.
This, of course, is the same U.S. Supreme Court that does most of the bidding for the current president.
The same court that recently ruled that SNAP (food stamps) benefits could be withheld by this government while the shutdown was in place.
Dad deported, no food on the table, what’s the problem?
"They never should have been here in the first place. Don't care if they came here as kids."
Like so many Supreme Court justices gone before, the current majority just adjusts the U.S. Constitution as they see fit.
“Yeah, but the Fourth Amendment protects everyone from unreasonable searches and seizures, and the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees equal protection under the law, regardless of appearance, occupation, origin, or language.”
Or so you thought.
“One of the foundations of our democracy?”
Not anymore.
The Construction Vacuum
Some in the current administration like to argue that these undocumented immigrants, both skilled and learning a skill, arrested in the video I’m watching, which includes some of the photos accompanying this column, are taking jobs away from those with the legal right to work here.
Seriously?
Are they really that out of touch with reality?
Please, do go out and find some documented immigrants who want to work back-breaking construction, like laying a concrete driveway in the hot sun, installing a new roof when the daytime temp is 101, erecting a new cedar fence, and show them to us. They are a no-show or else local contractors wouldn’t now be screaming — these policies are killing our business.
“We can’t find enough documented people to get the work done. Or even people born in this country. Especially the big construction work.”
Same with the guys who frame homes. They’re not around anymore. Go and find the contractors some documented framers. Good luck with that.
Profiling people, asking them for their papers can’t get any more un-American if they’re not committing a crime.
But here we are, about to celebrate our 250th year as a Republic next July 4th, and frankly, I couldn’t be more ashamed of what we’ve become.
A mindless, authoritarian state that is killing the construction, ag business, here in South Texas and all across the country for that matter. Picking on people willing to....wait for it...actually work a job that is physcially taxing on the body.
Contractors tell me they’d use all documented workers if they could, but they’re not around.
In fact, I spoke to one guy this week who ran into a guy who was crying because ICE had just picked up his son at the border checkpoint on 77. He was in this country legally, but at the checkpoint, he was missing one paper even though he’d been through there numerous times working as a delivery driver.
ICE takes him into custody, and he’s been at one of the area ICE detention centers now for approximately two months. Dad had to hire an attorney.
It should be as easy as a family member delivering the one missing paper to the ICE facility, but the feds aren’t making it that easy. Somebody has to be making some money from these fed detentions. No other explanation makes sense.
Meanwhile, the guy locked up, who is in this country legally, a Cuban, has a wife at home who is five months pregnant.
No wonder the dad was crying.
If you need a handyman anytime soon, good luck. Oh, there are a few around with papers, but the work demand is so high these days, the time to do any construction job in South Texas just grew by at least a factor of four or more.
The argument used to be, the owners of a business hiring the undocumented, paying them cash under the table, are undercutting the purely legit guys, who can’t compete.
Turns out, though, in the end, the people who are documented are limited in number. The people born in this country willing to work hard labor, limited in number. Not enough around to do the work.
So instead of giving these guys pictured at this McAllen home (included in this column) some access to at least temporary legal status, which both political parties have failed to do for the past 60-plus years, they are now being hauled off the job and placed in detention facilities.
Happy Holidays.
Last but not least, the ICE agents had AC in the vans driving them around Valley neighborhoods. Maybe some snacks. A smart phone to watch some sports videos, beauty tips for the female agents.
Why not just sit a spell and at least let the guys finish the freaking driveway?
The video has since gone viral on multiple social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram and Reddit.
One media page on Facebook, Vote In Or Out, uploaded a video of the incident here: https://tinyurl.com/mvhffuyk
Other news outlets have since uploaded the video online. If interested in viewing it, visit the link posted.