Agricultural Personnel Management Program
University of California

12/8/00 News Report -- The Omaha World-Leader

Latino advocates gathered Thursday to decry the Immigration and Naturalization Service's decision to raid an Omaha packing plant, saying it split families and disrupted the community just before a presidential visit and Christmas.

An "outrageous display" of government power is what Ben Salazar, publisher of Nuestro Mundo newspaper, called the raid Tuesday at Nebraska Beef that sent some 200 undocumented workers out of the country.

"Certainly unnecessary," he said, "certainly untimely."

Salazar helped coordinate a press conference attended by more than 25 community members, social-service agency leaders and others.

Also at the event as a goodwill gesture was Jerry Heinauer, head of the INS in Omaha, the agency that coordinated the raid.

Invited to the podium to say a few words, Heinauer was questioned about why the INS searched out undocumented workers for removal if, as Heinauer said earlier, the focus was on arresting company managers who are accused of conspiring to smuggle undocumented immigrants into the city to work.

Heinauer said it would have been irresponsible for the INS, charged with enforcing immigration laws, to look the other way if it knew that undocumented workers were on the premises.

He said he was sensitive to the fact that Christmas was near but said the only choice the investigation gave him was to conduct the raid this week or next.

Milo Mumgaard, director of the Nebraska Appleseed Center for Law in the Public Interest, objected to the INS position that it was "only doing its job."

Mumgaard said a governor's 37-member immigration task force made up of a broad cross section of Nebraskans urged an end to work-site raids and recommended less "destructive" measures, such as the use of INS software to identify undocumented workers before they are hired.

The task force called on the governor and others to press for amnesty and more work visas for immigrant workers.

No one in the audience opposed the INS decision to seek out managers who smuggle immigrants or provide fake work documents, as six Nebraska Beef representatives are alleged to have done.

"Smugglers should feel the brunt of the law," Mumgaard said. "Not those trying to make a very, very basic living."

Mercedes Rosales, of the Latina Resource Center in south Omaha, said her agency has been deluged with questions about the well-being of the former Nebraska Beef workers.

The Rev. Damian Zuerlein, pastor of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, said he spent part of Thursday talking to a single mother who was afraid to go to work for the last three days for fear that the INS would pick her up.

Sarah Crawford, a public school teacher, said small children have approached her and have told her in Spanish that they are scared and don't know how their relatives are doing.

"It has impacted our schools," said Susan Mayberger, who heads the English as a Second Language program for the Omaha public schools. "There is a sense of fear."