Life After the Swift Raid source: Salt Lake Tribune print story • multi-media posted: Feb. 11, 2008 "On Dec. 12, 2006, U.S. immigration agents poured into the Swift plant, arresting 154 undocumented Latino workers and charging all but seven with violating federal and state identity-fraud and immigration statutes." print story • multi-media

Commentary on Life After the Swift Raid
by Ricardo González

This is when it really got tough for Latino workers. This was the watershed moment. This was the moment when Latinos knew they would be randomly targeted by ICE. This was the moment that moved Latino immigrants into a deep sense of fear and retraction from the mainstream.

This was also the moment when American companies knew they would fall on the sword with their labor force. Swift did die by this sword. They had to sell this plant because they couldn't find labor after this. They subsequently had to sell the plant to a Brazilian owned company.

I would like to post a portion of my new book, Café con Milk, that will be coming out in a few months. The subtitle is, "How to Brew Wildly Successful Life and Business Relations Between Latinos and Anglos." The following excerpt is from the section on immigrations and is part of my Ten Commandment on Immigrations:

(By the way, the first commandment is "You will control our borders.")

-----BEGIN QUOTE FROM 'CAFE CON MILK'-----

Commandment #2:

You will stop harassing businesses and Latinos through ICE.

I believe that ICE should stop harassing businesses and Latinos, unless they are known criminals, until immigration reform laws are passed by the federal government.

In other words, their focus should be on criminals, not raiding legitimate businesses caught in the cross hairs of a bad system. Their focus should certainly not be mothers of small children to separate and maim the Latino family. This is inhumane and immoral.

-----END QUOTE FROM 'CAFE CON MILK'-----

I would invite you especially to watch the multi-media presentation on this. It is a little under two minutes and will give you some good perspective.

Adelante,


Ricardo González

P.S. - If you are interested in getting on a pre-order list for this ground-breaking book, just let me know.