Miguel Bustillo,Richard Fausset/LAT confused about legal vs. illegal workers (Howard Industries raid)

Last week, Howard Industries in Louisiana was raided by Immigration and Customs Enforcement; as the raid was happening the legal workers at the plant reportedly cheered ICE, and the raid was initiated by a complaint from a union worker.

Needless to say, such cannot stand to those who support illegal immigration. Thus, we find Miguel Bustillo and Richard Fausset from the Los Angeles Times offering "Immigrant raid divides a Mississippi town" (link), which includes this subhed:

Many black and white residents of Laurel applaud the crackdown; it sends fear through the Latino community. Political change may end such raids.

The LAT is trying their best to racialize this issue, as well as trying to emotionalize it and make those who aren't familiar with the details of immigration feel sympathy for illegal workers. As discussed below, the last sentence shows that the LAT has been trying to fool people. Continuing with the article:

But helicopters were not what shocked [Fabiola Pena, the go-to illegal alien featured in a couple stories] the most on her last, fateful day at Howard Industries, the largest employer in this small Southern town. It was the black co-workers who clapped and cheered, Pena said, as she and hundreds of other Latino immigrant laborers were arrested and hauled away.

"They said we took their jobs, but I was working from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.," said Pena a day after the raid last week that resulted in the arrest of nearly 600 suspected illegal immigrants. "I didn't see them working like us."

So, basically she's saying that the black workers were lazy. Thank goodness she's not a Republican, or she'd end up being more than deported. And, it's interesting to see presumed "progressives" supporting Dickensian work hours, considering that that's one of the things yesteryear's "progressives" fought against.

As for the Los Angeles Times trying to fool people:

But the raids might not have much of a future after the swearing-in of Republican John McCain or Democrat Barack Obama, both of whom have staked out moderate-to-liberal stances on immigration reform.

If the next president decides to curtail or end raids similar to the one at the Howard Industries, it will not sit well with many residents of Laurel. The raid was welcomed by a number of native-born residents in this manufacturing hub of about 25,000 people that has been transformed in recent years by the influx of Latino workers, many of whom are undocumented.

One of the selling points of that "reform" is that it includes stepped-up enforcement. Yet, here the Los Angeles Times is telling us that "reform" now wouldn't include so much enforcement. Either "reform" includes magic powers, or the LAT has been trying to fool people.

The end of the last paragraph uses a stock device: an influx of illegal labor transformed an incipient ghost town. The rest of the article contains similar stock devices, such as someone saying the illegal aliens were just there to work, and so forth.

For an example of what Los Angeles Times would be if they weren't such wimps, see the Socialist Worker's "ICE brings panic to a Mississippi town" (link).

Immigration2008a · Tue, 09/02/2008 - 10:36 · Importance: 1