INS Raids

Keep the fear up and the help down; it's standard Repug policy. From Polizeros:

In the past week or so, the INS has been staging lightning fast raids in heavily Latino areas, swooping in, setting up roadblocks, demanding papers, then immediately deporting anyone with out papers. These traps are always in Latino areas, and frequently at swap meets, supermarkets and even outside churches on Sunday.

Organizers estimate that at least 7,000 have been deported recently in these raids, which have mainly been in SoCal, but also in northern California and Detroit. No one knows why they are happening. Maybe Bush is throwing red meat to his right flank, trying to energize them to vote in November. The INS says no raids are happening, as they continue to stage more of them.

What is clear is that that the raids are racist. I mean, I'm not hearing of INS roadblocks outside the English and Irish bars in Santa Monica, and lots of people in those bars don't have papers either. Plus the raids target the absolute poorest and the least able to defend themselves.