Our New Anahuac

I received a text message from an out-of-state friend on March 8.  The text message said, “WALMART dio autorizacion para atrapar imigrantes (sic) dentro de la tienda empieza 20 de marzo apoya el movimiento hispano no comprando en walmar (sic).”

I took it as a hoax for many reasons that many of my activist colleagues did as well.  Wal-Mart is a sick company, but they wouldn’t be dumb enough to hurt their own profits.  ICE doesn’t need permission to conduct raids.  The text technically makes no mention of ICE or deportations, but the implication is clear. 

I really just did not pay much attention to it.  I put out a post on facebook to see if anyone else had received this text.  I got information from many friends (on and off facebook) that they had spoken to people who had seen ICE, in one way or another, at various Wal-Mart locations throughout the Houston area. 

As much as I tried, I could not find an eye witness to the activity.  I went to one of the Wal-Marts in question, and I could find no first-hand accounts, but myriad second and third hand accounts y un monton de gente que ya habian oido de las supuestas redadas el dia 20 de marzo.

The closest that I got to eye-witness accounts was an account from a Wal-Mart employee who says their personnel department did confirm that they authorize ICE to “check papers.”  It’s kind of a vague statement, but after speaking to some respected organizers, I believe that the personnel employee might have been referring to the sharing of paperwork with ICE, not ICE checking workers directly for documentation.

As Dick Cheney once used the term ”new normal.”  While a mentor of mine and some respected organizers object to the term, many groups, like FIRM, are calling this “new normal” nothing less than “desk raids.”

We have to treat the text message and the recent rumors of ICE activity as Wal-Mart as two separate incidents. I don’t believe that the text message is accurate, for many reasons. However, I have heard too many second and third hand accounts of recent ICE activity to discount them completely. I was planning for a press conference today, but I feel that I need more time to check out some things before speaking intelligently. I am still not convinced that raids, even desk raids, have taken place (though I think it is possible), and I am not convinced that these are simply rumors. I am a show-me kind of guy.  I think that there is a great danger in erring on either side of the argument.  So for now, I’ll put this in the ”need more info.”

While we’re on the subject, the Obama administration released a statement suggesting that reports about increased deportations were simply an accounting error, because of the way deportations were counted. I am not buying it, and neither is Matthew Kolken, who says:

The Washington Post has reported that a DHS spokesman is trying to minimize the number of individuals “deported” by President Obama by excluding individuals who have received “voluntary departure” and who have not actually been removed from the United States under an order of removal (deportation).

This is nothing more than political spin. Voluntary departure is a euphemism for voluntary deportation. Although an individual may avoid the stigma of an order of removal if they are granted voluntary deportation by attesting to their willingness to leave the United States within a set number of days (a maximum of 120 days) and by paying for their own way home to their native country, make no mistake about it, the individual MUST LEAVE the United States, and there is nothing voluntary about it.

It’s more of the same: spin.