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

The March 6 roundup of illegal migrants brings immigration reform's ethical conflicts into focus.

from the March 16, 2007 edition

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On the other side, it's directed at the millions of law-abiding middle- and working class Americans – many of whom are themselves immigrants – who have seen their wages driven down and quality of life eroded by the plentiful supply of cheap foreign labor. The challenge is to find a way to accommodate both sides.

"Clearly, these are all symptoms of a broken system that it's in everyone's interest to fix," says Michele Waslin, director of immigration policy research at the National Council of La Raza in Washington, D.C., which represents both legal and undocumented immigrants. "It also shows how putting a human face on the issue is so important to advocacy efforts, regardless of your position."

Here on the streets of New Bedford, the impact of the nation's immigration crackdown is now all too evident. An old whaling town, it's been hit hard by the loss of manufacturing jobs and federal regulations put in place in the '90s to prevent overfishing. The clapboard three-story houses lining Acushnet Street tell the story of a once thriving, now struggling, neighborhood inhabited largely by immigrant families, legal and illegal. Many work in the fisheries or the few remaining manufacturing firms.

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."

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