IMMIGRATION
Información=Power
State officials say an immigration raid at a food processing plant that left 167 workers facing possible deportation highlighted unsafe working conditions that already had been the target of a state investigation and a successful lawsuit by workers.
City officials urged federal authorities Monday to suspend any more raids looking for illegal immigrants, saying an operation last week violated the law.
Early most weekday mornings, groups of immigrants from New Bedford pile into donated vans and make the journey north to Greater Boston Legal Services in downtown Boston. Fueled by coffee and doughnuts on a recent day, a dozen of them crammed into the advocacy group's tiny reception area, waiting for their harried lawyers to see them. They are among the 361 workers arrested and accused of being here illegally in a raid on a New Bedford leather goods factory March 6.
UPDATES ON IMMIGRATION ISSUES NATIONWIDE
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Orbelio Ayala and others held in the New Bedford immigration raid waited at Greater Boston Legal Services for assistance with their cases. (Jonathan Wiggs/ Globe Staff)
On a normal morning, Celia Villegas' home comes alive with the squeals and laughter of the 12 children she baby-sits for a living. But Wednesday, one day after authorities picked up 167 alleged illegal workers at a North Portland food plant, not a single child showed up.
The fight over what to do about illegal immigration is not entirely a matter of people coming to the United States in violation of the law. It's also about what they allegedly bring with them: social pathologies.
A suburban village found guilty of discriminating against Hispanic day laborers has tentatively agreed to prohibit police from routinely asking the workers about their immigration status, the plaintiff's lawyers said Monday.
...Assessing how immigration affects the well-being of U.S. natives is more complicated. This is because immigration’s economic impact is complex and may play out over generations, and because not all natives are alike in terms of their economic characteristics...
To provide for comprehensive immigration reform and for other purposes...
