After New Bedford immigration raid, voices call for mercy and justice

After last Friday's raid, townspeople reacted swiftly. Some jumped to help. The buildings of the shuttered Our Lady of Guadalupe church were opened to house a relief center. A hand-written sign on a letter-size piece of yellow paper is taped to the door. "Estamos aquí," it says: We are here.

But the split in the community is palpable, says Bethany Toure of Community Connections Coalition and coordinator of the community-based humanitarian relief. When news leaked out about who had been arrested in the raid, one landlord locked out families whose parents had been arrested. Another landlord allowed two families to move in together and said they wouldn't have to pay rent for March, says Ms. Toure. "Illegal versus legal is a question better left for another day. On the ground, these families and children are devastated."

But supporters of a tougher crackdown see the incident in a different light. As tragic as it is, they say, the workers broke the law and must face the consequences.

"At some point we have to say they are moral agents and they have to be accountable for their decisions," says Mark Krikorian, head of the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington. "They knowingly put their children in that position, and I find it hard to describe that as anything other than child abuse."

The real question raised in New Bedford is whose interests are being best served by the current policy, he says.

"We need to ask, Who is not getting a job at this leather factory because of illegal immigration? Who is paying extra taxes for these social services that they'll inevitably create?" he asks. "This isn't a preschool exercise with good guys and bad guys – this is about weighing priorities."

Supporters of illegal immigrants agree that compliance with the law is important. But they also note that there are millions of jobs Americans will not do, which is why the immigrants come.

"In order to have compliance with the laws, those laws need to be just and humane," says Carlina Tapia-Ruano, president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association in Washington. "That broken [immigration] system is in fact compelling individuals to enter the country illegally because there is no legal mechanism for them to enter."

That brings the issue back to Capitol Hill. Rep. Tom Tancredo (R) of Colorado, an advocate of immigration enforcement, says he's not sure that there are enough votes to pass a compromise bill.

"The problem is that there is so little trust on either side," he says. "People say if we do the enforcement part first, we'll never get the guest-worker program. And I know that I'm very skeptical of the administration's commitment to be consistent with enforcement" if they get a guest-worker program.

In the meantime, in New Bedford and small communities around the country, there's frustration with Washington.

"We go all over the world to protect families," says Scott Lang, mayor of New Bedford. This raid only "wreaks havoc in New Bedford" and doesn't do anything to move the debate forward, he adds. "Those kids are US citizens. Taking parents away from them makes no sense to prove a point."

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