I'm sick of these shameless criminal invaders dropping anchor babies, then using them as human shields against law enforcement!!!!
Posted on 07/18/2007 3:54:50 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
WHITEWATER, WI -- Star Packaging is all but silent a year after a raid by federal immigration agents.
A lone machine clacked on a recent afternoon, a single worker sealing plastic bags around bundles of screws. Beyond him, a flank of packaging assembly lines stood motionless. Empty pallets were stacked to the ceiling, and the reaches of the 58,000-square-foot warehouse, once filled with goods received and ready to deliver, yawned wide.
The Whitewater plant that once employed 100 workers now has fewer than 10. Its founder, scheduled to go to trial Monday, faces some 30 years in prison if convicted, and Hispanic and Anglo neighbors are still trying to rebuild trust.
Crystal Petrie, the 26-year-old daughter of Star owner Allen Petrie, struggled to bite back anger and grief while talking about the fate of the business her father started.
"He's very hurt by what happened," she said. She said her father cooperated with police, providing information on any worker about whom they raised questions.
About a quarter of Star workers were taken into custody after the raid on Aug. 8, 2006, but that was just the start for the plant workers and owners.
"We lost accounts because of the negative publicity," Crystal Petrie said while walking through the empty plant on July 12.
As business dropped off, layoffs followed. Now it's a question how long the business can stay open.
"It won't be much longer if we can't recover business," said Petrie, who worked at the plant since age 18, skipping college to bet her future on the family business her father founded in the early 1980s.
She opened the doors of the family factory to a tour organized by Voces de la Frontera, an advocacy group for immigrant and low-wage workers.
At a forum at city hall that day, immigrants seized in the raid told of their experiences.
Luz Huitron, a 55-year-old grandmother, said through an interpreter that she was taken to the Dodge County Jail and did not understand what was happening. A diabetic, she was crying and vomiting, but was given no medical treatment, she said. With the assistance of the Mexican consulate, Huitron was released in nine days. Now under an order of deportation, she and a handful of others seized in the raid are trying to win the right to stay in the United States.
"Each and every one of us works to survive and support a family. People judge us but supporting a family is not a crime," she said, crying. "I cannot remain silent about this," she said.
Bianca Cruz, age 8, asked at the forum: "Why does the government say it takes care of us, then take my mother away?"
The girl's mother, Mora Cruz, 28, said later with her daughter's help, "She was really sad. She didn't know where I was."
Bianca and her younger brother were cared for by an aunt for the nine days Mora Cruz was in custody.
Christine Neumann-Ortiz, director of Voces de la Frontera, based in Milwaukee, said that, as in the past, immigration foes have pitted working people against each other. But the two groups' interests are closely aligned, she said. "If a country supports the quality of life of its immigrant workers, it will uphold the quality of life of its citizens."
"We need to change the laws so they fit reality and fit our values," she said. "We need a simple, affordable process to citizenship. Congress can do it, but the political will probably is not there."
'They broke the law':
Those speaking at the forum in Whitewater were sympathetic to immigrant workers, but other sessions have drawn proponents of stepped-up enforcement of immigration laws and deportation of undocumented workers, Neumann-Ortiz said, most notably members of the Washington D.C.-based Federation for American Immigration Reform.
Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the federation, said in an interview that the federal government should make more workplace raids and arrest more employers.
"If they get serious and go after the executive who knowingly hire illegals, it will send out the message that you can't do it and get away with it," Mehlman said.
Computer systems to quickly and efficiently verify the Social Security numbers presented by workers could easily be developed and would be if not for bureaucratic inertia and the influence of business interests that want cheap labor, he said.
Departing undocumented workers may hurt the businesses where they worked, but their presence depresses local and national economies, Mehlman argued. "We should not have an economic system that allows illegals to dictate wages -- it'll destroy the middle class."
Mehlman is unmoved by the plight of parents separated from their children, or business owners who find their life's work threatened when authorities take workers. "Whose fault is that?" he asked. "They broke the law, and there's a consequence to that."
Civic fallout:
City Manager Kevin Brunner estimates that up to 10 percent of his town's 14,000 residents are Hispanic, a group whose population in the area has been growing rapidly in the last decade. Hispanics are employed in all kinds of occupations at all levels and have begun to open their own businesses, he said.
Brunner said long-time residents and new ones mostly lived well together with a few incidents: the occasional piece of racist graffiti, the nasty letter to the local paper prompted by news of his initiative to have city staff learn Spanish.
After the raid on Star Packaging, though, the community was polarized. "There were those that felt it was justified and those who said it wasn't," he said.
He characterized Star as a medium-sized, low-wage employer, and said the loss of its jobs, and possibly the company, was "significant."
Marilyn Kienbaum runs the city food pantry, which saw a flurry of activity as workers lost their jobs at Star. "I think it could have been handled differently," she said. The Hispanics in Whitewater, she said, "are scared to death. I feel bad for them."
Tales of their treatment in local jails shocked her, Kienbaum said. "For heaven's sake, this is Wisconsin."
Police Chief James Coan said attention to the case has focused too much on the immigration issues, and not the identify theft aspects -- the basis of the charges against Petrie.
Coan said he could not elaborate of details, but alleged that some undocumented Star employees were using the Social Security numbers of legal immigrants. "Many Hispanic people themselves were victimized," he said.
Petrie's attorney, Stephen Glynn of Milwaukee, did not respond to messages seeking comment for this article. In published articles, however, Glynn has said that Petrie did not intend to violate the law.
The raid has led to some changes designed to make Hispanics feel more comfortable in Whitewater. Following meetings after the raid with members of the Hispanic community, the city changed its practice of having police officers ask drivers in traffic stops for their Social Security numbers, Coan said. "Our purpose was very benign," he said, merely a way to help collect any unpaid tickets.
"We asked everyone for it for several years, but we got a strong sense that people in the Hispanic community thought we were trying to capture information we could use for deportation. That was obviously not the case," he said.
Despite the changed policy, the damage is done, Jorge Islas, founder of Sigma America, an organization dedicated to building community, said in an interview.
"Whitewater used to be a peaceful town -- everybody working, everybody trusting the police, everybody living together. The raid created fear," he said.
The publicity after the raid sealed the popular image of undocumented immigrant workers as "criminals" for those inclined to think of them that way, he said.
At a silent protest outside city hall after the raid, "a lot of Anglos came and said they were sorry this happened, other people said, you're illegal -- go back to your country.'"
Islas said he worked for Allen Petrie at Star shortly after he came to Whitewater 19 years ago and he had no problems. Hispanics who have worked there recently also said it was a decent place to work, Islas said.
Since the raid, some Hispanics left the area. Others are out of work and having trouble paying the bills. "The immigration law is broken," Islas said.
The fissures keep moving through a community long after the raids are over and the headlines forgotten, Crystal Petrie said.
"People think life goes on -- it doesn't," she said.
Too bad we can’t “black list” Star Packaging.
I hope they do go out of business.
So tired of the success of business being based on the cheap labor prices of illegals.
And, yes they CAN be deported.
So when are they going to change the laws on employee ID so we can arrest employers of illegals?
This particular case they got the employer because the employer knew they were hiring illegals and the feds could prove it. That's almost never the case.
You better believe that other businesses in the area could care less about most of this story, but on this, they'll focus like a laser beam. Any time a company is raided and found to employ illegals, pressure companies to cease doing business with them. Tell family and friends. Since there is usually minimal penalties for companies that employ illegals, the most effective tool we have is in shutting down their customer path.
what about the other factories that this one forced out of business by hiring illegal workers?
Thats a great way to get back those customers who left because you were hiring illegals. Idiot
“City Manager Kevin Brunner estimates that up to 10 percent of his town’s 14,000 residents are Hispanic, a group whose population in the area has been growing rapidly in the last decade. Hispanics are employed in all kinds of occupations at all levels and have begun to open their own businesses, he said. “
Are they legal?
Life's a bitch...
http://www.starpkging.com/index.cfm?categoryID=C9DE5138-C09F-1D6F-F9319A85630A0919
” We also have given to the Whitewater lions Club – Aid for the homeless, Walworth County Sheriff’s Department Fund, as well as being proud supporters of the local Mothers Against Drunk Driving (M.A.D.D) chapter”
If the BATFE was put in charge of immigration there would not be an illegal alien in sight within a few months. There would be none in the country within a year.
However, if ICE was in charge of the BATFE’s duties people would be able to get away with using dynamite to fish in public fountains and would be hunting at the zoo.
The Federal government knows this as well as the rest of us do, they just have an agenda. A disarmed NAU.
Thanks Jorge.
My heart bleeds. Hire Americans and legals only.
Dumb bitch see nothing wrong with her working slave labor and having the tax payer pick up their other cost. She needs to be locked up with her dad.
I support going after businesses that know or think they have hired illegal aliens.
At the same time, I also support going after government officials that do not enforce immigration laws.
I also support going after government organizations that provide services to illegal aliens, until they stop doing so.
I'm sick of these shameless criminal invaders dropping anchor babies, then using them as human shields against law enforcement!!!!
>>Not only should Allen Petrie spend the rest of his life in jail, all of his ill-gotten gains should be seized.<<
He deserves a fair trial, and presumption of innocence, but if convicted he has to face the music.
Close the criminal enterprise down.......why prolong the agony ?
“You notice that nobody is ever concerned about the comfort of the American citizen community? There is never a meeting with the REAL residents of the area...The Americans are never asked for their opinion or input...The ones paying for everything are never consulted...”
We noticed : )
The lawyers would have it shut down within hours.
Guns aren't the source of power in the civilized world anymore, the courts are. That's why we have an illegals problem, because employers can only rarely be held accountable for hiring illegals, like in the article above where the feds could prove the factory had knowledge of illegality.
The "amnesty" bill in congress would have fixed that, but now it won't. We have ensured the status quo is maintained, with an annual growth rate of the illegal population of a million or so.
The Democrats couldn't be happier. They know their long term survival in power is now assured.
The lawyers would have it shut down within hours.
Not if they were really interested in solving the problem which they are not.
The "amnesty" bill in congress would have fixed that, but now it won't.
Giving amnesty to 40 million criminal invaders is NOT the answer either.
I lived in Corpus Christi and Harlingen, TX for three years each. I had no trouble at all telling the illegal alien criminals from the Americans of Mexican descent and neither did my employer. If they are adults and speak no English then it is evident that further questioning is required. If someone could not be interviewed in English and fill out an employment application in English they simply were not hired. If they tried to pull the discrimination crap we would simply explain that they could not converse with the other employees or customers and were then thrown out on their ear.
the criminal case against owner Allen L. Petrie, who is accused of conspiracy to commit identity theft, is humming along.
Petrie, 48, is charged with six felonies for allegedly hiring workers he knew had false or stolen identities.
Two citizens who allegedly had their identity stolen by immigrants working at Star Packaging were children ages 10 and 16, according to court records.
To date, three of Petrie’s workers were charged with identity theft. Warrants remain outstanding for the arrest of Miguel Gomez, 24, and Andres Tizapa-Aparicio, 29, both of Whitewater, according to online court records.
Former employee Rafael Cortes Reyes, 30, of Whitewater, pleaded guilty May 17 to a single charge of identity theft. He will be sentenced Aug. 8 for using the Social Security number of a retired schoolteacher,
He purchased the number to gain employment and open a bank account.
Star Packaging lost its biggest client, Nestle, after the raid because the company was concerned about the adverse publicity related to alleged illegal immigrants working for Petrie.
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