Try working – or protesting in – Mexico as an illegal alien

Jackson Free Press

Si Se Pueda’

Kip Caven

A group of protestors marched on the Capitol Thursday in protest of Senate Bill 2988, which makes it illegal for undocumented workers to be employed in the state.by Adam Lynch
December 10, 2008

Protestors, some of them children, marched on the state Capitol last Thursday, holding signs reading “Working should not be a crime,” “Raids tear families apart,” and “Si se pueda” (“Yes we can”). About 50 immigrants and immigrant-rights advocates protested recent raids on undocumented workers at a factory in Laurel and the passage of Senate Bill 2988, a new law making it illegal for undocumented workers to be employed in the state.

Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance Executive Director Bill Chandler called the law, known as the Mississippi Employment Protection Act, the “ethnic cleansing act.”

“The largest raid in U.S. history happened in Laurel, Miss.,” Chandler said at the rally. “Some 595 Latino workers were arrested for working, tearing families apart by sending them to jail and deporting them for the crime of struggling to support their families.”

Sen. Giles Ward, R-Louisville, said he supported the bill not for any philosophical reason, such as preserving jobs for Mississippians over immigrants. Instead, he said he needed no reason beyond the vehement demand of his constituents.

“The constituents that I serve in District 18 certainly contacted me when the bill was in debate and impressed upon me how concerned they were, and I was simply trying to reflect the will of my voters of my district,” Ward said.

Chandler called upon the “new federal government,” under President-elect Barack Obama—who drew tremendous applause at the mention of his name—to end the raids and repeal SB 2988.

Frank Curiel, vice-president of the Laborers International Union, summed up both the raids and the Mississippi law as products of racial discrimination.

“It discriminates because we don’t look like the governor; we don’t look like most of the Republicans who voted for this bill, but I tell you this much: I’m a veteran; my brothers are veterans. I grew up in a house full of veterans,” Curiel said. “We served this country. We pay more than our due, yet when times get hard, what do they do? They give us the raids.”

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