Madison Vigil to Support Detained Iowa Workers
A show of solidarity
A show of solidarity
what the place looked like with pretty beds and computers here and computers there and clean bathrooms, it wasn’t a good place to be detained. They were
saying that the detainees were given access to attorneys and had all of the information and were given ways to be in touch with their families, we know that’s not
true. A lot of the people at the beginning didn’t have a chance to speak with an immigration attorney. And I think that was done to make people plead guilty of
whatever they wanted to charge them with and then placed in jail or be deported.”
Garcia-Sierra spoke at a vigil at St. Mark’s Church on Spruce Street May 22 to highlight the plight of the detainees and their families and to give them moral
and financial support.
The impact of the raid goes far beyond the workers themselves. “The families in Iowa are really scared,” Garcia-Sierra emphasized. “They don’t know what is
going to happen to their relatives who are detained. In a lot of cases, the one who is detained was the one who brought most of the income into the family. So a
lot of families are in churches because they are afraid of going back to their home in Iowa. That’s one of the reasons why we are holding this vigil. I think this
raid has had a big impact on this small town. About 2,800 people live there. The next day after it happened, many, many children didn’t go to school because
their parents were afraid of sending them to school. It’s really, really sad to live in a society where parents have to hide their children in fear the parents or the
children might be deported to somewhere.”
The economic and social cost of the raid will be reverberating throughout the town for months — perhaps years — to come.
The Madison Guatemalan Network was collecting personal hygiene items like toothpaste and deodorant as well as household supplies to give to the families
of the detainees. They were also creating social networks between people attending the vigil and the families in Pottsville through a card-writing initiative.
In the meanwhile, Garcia-Sierra is concerned about the fate of detainees and their families. The meat packing plant has already put more restrictive hiring
practices into place. And the detainees have been rushed through a process in which they may not have fully understood their rights. There may be little that
they can do.
“Some have been placed in prison,” Garcia-Sierra emphasized. “Most are still in the process of being sentenced. There are a whole team of attorneys from
all over the country giving their time to work with these detainees. Since most of them are from Guatemala who have these hard and painful backgrounds, they
are trying to figure out if there are some cases where they could apply for political asylum so they can stay here.”
While Pottsville is the largest example of ICE actions, according to Garcia-Sierra, it is by no means the only one. “There have been so many raids in
different parts of the country,” He said. “They have taken 25-70 people in each raid. Here in Madison, we haven’t seen this happen. But we know that there have
been some selective arrests and deportations. We also know that ICE has picked some people up in different parts of the city. I think one of the main goals of this
vigil was to raise awareness with people in the faith community so that we see there are few differences between us, but the system wants us to believe that
people come here from Guatemala not because they are sick of their families, sick of their food or sick of their language, but because there is a huge need. And
that need, in a lot of cases, has been created by the United States foreign policy.”
U.S. foreign policy has actively intervened in Guatemalan affairs. It helped overthrow the democratically-elected government in 1954 and was also actively
involved in the 30-year civil war. And as the Guatemalan families fled their poverty-stricken country, it seems that U.S. intervention has followed them, once
again, to the small town of Pottsville, Iowa.
For more information about the Pottsville, Iowa situation and the Madison Guatelaman Network, call Mario Garcia-Sierra at Mario García Sierra at 575-9811
or e-mail him at garciasierra@wisc.edu
saying that the detainees were given access to attorneys and had all of the information and were given ways to be in touch with their families, we know that’s not
true. A lot of the people at the beginning didn’t have a chance to speak with an immigration attorney. And I think that was done to make people plead guilty of
whatever they wanted to charge them with and then placed in jail or be deported.”
Garcia-Sierra spoke at a vigil at St. Mark’s Church on Spruce Street May 22 to highlight the plight of the detainees and their families and to give them moral
and financial support.
The impact of the raid goes far beyond the workers themselves. “The families in Iowa are really scared,” Garcia-Sierra emphasized. “They don’t know what is
going to happen to their relatives who are detained. In a lot of cases, the one who is detained was the one who brought most of the income into the family. So a
lot of families are in churches because they are afraid of going back to their home in Iowa. That’s one of the reasons why we are holding this vigil. I think this
raid has had a big impact on this small town. About 2,800 people live there. The next day after it happened, many, many children didn’t go to school because
their parents were afraid of sending them to school. It’s really, really sad to live in a society where parents have to hide their children in fear the parents or the
children might be deported to somewhere.”
The economic and social cost of the raid will be reverberating throughout the town for months — perhaps years — to come.
The Madison Guatemalan Network was collecting personal hygiene items like toothpaste and deodorant as well as household supplies to give to the families
of the detainees. They were also creating social networks between people attending the vigil and the families in Pottsville through a card-writing initiative.
In the meanwhile, Garcia-Sierra is concerned about the fate of detainees and their families. The meat packing plant has already put more restrictive hiring
practices into place. And the detainees have been rushed through a process in which they may not have fully understood their rights. There may be little that
they can do.
“Some have been placed in prison,” Garcia-Sierra emphasized. “Most are still in the process of being sentenced. There are a whole team of attorneys from
all over the country giving their time to work with these detainees. Since most of them are from Guatemala who have these hard and painful backgrounds, they
are trying to figure out if there are some cases where they could apply for political asylum so they can stay here.”
While Pottsville is the largest example of ICE actions, according to Garcia-Sierra, it is by no means the only one. “There have been so many raids in
different parts of the country,” He said. “They have taken 25-70 people in each raid. Here in Madison, we haven’t seen this happen. But we know that there have
been some selective arrests and deportations. We also know that ICE has picked some people up in different parts of the city. I think one of the main goals of this
vigil was to raise awareness with people in the faith community so that we see there are few differences between us, but the system wants us to believe that
people come here from Guatemala not because they are sick of their families, sick of their food or sick of their language, but because there is a huge need. And
that need, in a lot of cases, has been created by the United States foreign policy.”
U.S. foreign policy has actively intervened in Guatemalan affairs. It helped overthrow the democratically-elected government in 1954 and was also actively
involved in the 30-year civil war. And as the Guatemalan families fled their poverty-stricken country, it seems that U.S. intervention has followed them, once
again, to the small town of Pottsville, Iowa.
For more information about the Pottsville, Iowa situation and the Madison Guatelaman Network, call Mario Garcia-Sierra at Mario García Sierra at 575-9811
or e-mail him at garciasierra@wisc.edu
Mario Garcia (l) and Analucia Allie sing
during a vigil for the Pottsville, Iowa workers.
during a vigil for the Pottsville, Iowa workers.
By Jonathan Gramling
The seeds were probably planted a century or more before. The U.S. relationship with Guatemala is filled
with tales of the United Fruit Company, leaders of death squads trained at the School of the Americas, a
protracted civil war and economically ravaging effects of NAFTA have all played a part in reinforcing the
poverty of Guatemala and the immigration of Guatemalans to the United States — legally and illegally.
And it is probably no surprise that through social and family networks — much the same way that African
Americans migrated to the North in search of a better life — a concentration of Guatemalan families ended up
in Pottsville, Iowa working at a meat processing plant — legally and illegally.
On May 12, members of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raided the Agriprocessors meat
packing plant and took 389 people, suspected of being in the country illegally. Approximately 320 of those
individuals were Guatemalans.
“All of these people were detained in a provisional detention center that ICE improvised there,” said Mario
Garcia-Sierra, a member of the Madison Guatemalan Network. “They turned this cattle congress into a
detention center. ICE had been planning this for months. A lot of officials in Iowa knew about it and they were
cooperating and working with ICE on this. So even though they showed these pretty images and pictures of
The seeds were probably planted a century or more before. The U.S. relationship with Guatemala is filled
with tales of the United Fruit Company, leaders of death squads trained at the School of the Americas, a
protracted civil war and economically ravaging effects of NAFTA have all played a part in reinforcing the
poverty of Guatemala and the immigration of Guatemalans to the United States — legally and illegally.
And it is probably no surprise that through social and family networks — much the same way that African
Americans migrated to the North in search of a better life — a concentration of Guatemalan families ended up
in Pottsville, Iowa working at a meat processing plant — legally and illegally.
On May 12, members of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raided the Agriprocessors meat
packing plant and took 389 people, suspected of being in the country illegally. Approximately 320 of those
individuals were Guatemalans.
“All of these people were detained in a provisional detention center that ICE improvised there,” said Mario
Garcia-Sierra, a member of the Madison Guatemalan Network. “They turned this cattle congress into a
detention center. ICE had been planning this for months. A lot of officials in Iowa knew about it and they were
cooperating and working with ICE on this. So even though they showed these pretty images and pictures of