The Mississippi Raids

Illustration by Alex Charner
Latino USA

 

For this blog post of today, I listened to a podcast from Latino USA called "After the Mississippi Raids" aired on August 7, 2020. I listened to this program hosted and produced by Maria Hinojosa and Miguel Macias on September 2nd, 2020. In this podcast both of these host were able to go to Mississippi and interview immigrants that were affected by the poultry factory raids that took place in Mississippi August of 2019. I chose to write about this subject because I come from immigrant parents and those misfortunate events could have been a shared experience.

During and after listening to this podcast, although I know how fortunate and blessed I am, I was feeling even more grateful for everything I have. I have parents that have a green card after 22 years of living in fear that they could get deported. And listening to this podcast gave me more insight into other immigrants stories and they're struggles to get to where they are now. It was amazing to learn small things like that in little towns of Mississippi there are people from Guatemala that speak the ancient Mayan language, Mam. In the program the host interviewed a 12 year old girl that is trilingual, speaking English, Spanish, and Mam. The podcast focused on a couple people, they asked why and how they got to Mississippi and asked how they've been living since the raids occurred. In the podcast the hosts' were also able to go to Sunday mass where the community of Latinx households that also work at the poultry warehouses gather to worship to see and hear about how they've been able to manage. I liked that the program really captured the life of these people a year later after the traumatic experiences they went through. I think they did a good job of telling these peoples stories while their anonymity was well kept. There wasn't anything in this podcast that they shared that I disliked. I think there could be a part 2 to this podcast where they try and share more on how or what is taking place to try and help these people be more safe in a country they thought would be safe for them.

Immigration Raid Mississippi 2019
CNN Image

When the seven raids of poultry warehouses in Mississippi occurred it was covered in all of the mainstream news and media. One article of the many articles on this subject is an article by CBS News "ICE rounds up hundreds of undocumented workers in immigration sweeps in Mississippi" by Camilo Montoya-Galvez, where the author informs us of the events that occurred and how some were affected by it all. To summarize this article, nearly 700 undocumented workers were detained and was said to be one of the largest immigration sweeps to occur in a single state in US history. I chose the article because it not only talked about what happened but it talked about how it was said that the raids were to catch and punish employers hiring immigrants but there weren't many that got arrested or even punished. It also went on to talk about the children affected and the actions that were being taken by the community to help.

(Couldn't post the video directly :/ but below is the link)

Link to CBS News video on the Mississippi raids: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmsZZTfU6_o

Mississippi Immigration Raid 2019
Rogelio V. Solis, CNN Image

Listening to this podcast and learning that after a year these people are still struggling and still living in fear is heartbreaking. The podcasts goal was to capture the affects of the raids and how these people are living now that the news media outlets are not reporting the issues and they did just that. These people are struggling even more now to get a job and live in healthy and sanitary conditions. I hope that people can get inspired to be better and do better. Treating humans different because of their skin color or based on where they were born is no excuse to hold them in cages like animals.

Works Cited

Gallagher, Dianne, et al. “680 Undocumented Workers Were Arrested in Record-Setting Immigration Sweep on the First Day of School.” CNN, Cable News Network, 9 Aug. 2019, www.cnn.com/2019/08/08/us/mississippi-immigration-raids-children/index.html.

Macias, Miguel, and Maria Hinojosa. “After The Mississippi Raids.” NPR, NPR, 7 Aug. 2020, www.npr.org/2020/08/06/899694740/after-the-mississippi-raids. 

Montoya-Galvez, Camilo. “ICE Rounds up Hundreds of Undocumented Workers in Immigration Sweeps in Mississippi.” CBS News, CBS Interactive, 13 Aug. 2019, www.cbsnews.com/news/ice-raids-in-mississippi-officials-tout-largest-single-state-immigration-sweeps-in-us-history-today-2019-08-07/.