In Utah, DHS Raids Raise Concerns

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A troubling report from the DHS immigration raids yesterday, from the Salt Lake (Utah) Tribune. In this case, DHS agents allegedly separated workers by their skin color — light-skinned were considered citizens, dark-skinned got scrutiny. Predicatably, they swept up at least one dark-skinned U.S. citizen up with immigrant workers:

If only for a few minutes, Maria felt like an ”illegal alien” in her homeland – the United States of America.

She thought she was going on break from her job at the Swift & Co. meat processing plant here [in Hyrem, Utah] on Tuesday, but instead she and others were forced to stand in a line by U.S. immigration agents. Non-Latinos and people with lighter skin were plucked out of line and given blue bracelets.

The rest, mostly Latinos with brown skin, waited until they were ”cleared” or arrested by ”la migra,” the popular name in Spanish for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), employees said.

”I was in the line because of the color of my skin,” she said, her voice shaking. ”They’re discriminating against me. I’m from the United States, and I didn’t even get a blue bracelet.” . . .

Women were crying as they were handcuffed with plastic ties and put on the buses. Some weren’t allowed to get their belongings from their lockers. Maria, who declined to use her last name, argued with an agent because she was getting the coat for her 34-year-old niece, Blanca, who was arrested.

”She [the agent] told me, ‘Do you think it’s going to be cold in Mexico?’ ” Maria said, holding back tears.

The paper confirms that the federal agents took an undisclosed number of people away in buses away to an undisclosed location.

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