The writer Adam Serwer (click here) surmised the driving sentiment of the Trump era when he famously noted: “The cruelty is the point.”
While this country was coping with the trauma caused by a trio of random mass shootings in one week, the Trump administration conducted the largest one-day workplace Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid in history. More than 650 ICE agents descended upon several different meatpacking locations in Mississippi and snatched any employee who did not have proof of residency on them. 680 Mississippians were detained and forcibly removed from their jobs and families. On the first day of school in many districts, children were stranded with one or two parents suddenly missing. Several babies and toddlers were left at childcare without anyone to pick them up. Images of their devastation and grief flooded social media....
...However, none of the company executives were marched out in handcuffs or forcibly removed from their families. In fact, as ProPublica recently reported, the Trump administration has weakened legal protections for workers while easing off of enforcing rules on powerful meat companies like the ones illegally hiring undocumented workers.
Why the raids? Why Mississippi? Politics, that's why.
Mississippi Lt. Governor Tate Reeves, a Republican who is locked in a tight battle for the governor’s seat, gleefully praised the raids. "Glad to see that ICE is working hard to enforce our immigration laws," Reeves said in a Wednesday tweet....
This is a release from Barr's DOJ:
...As part of HSI procedures pursuant to this operation, (click here) if HSI encountered two alien parents with minor children at home, HSI released one of the parents on humanitarian grounds and returned that individual to the place from which they were arrested. HSI similarly released any single alien parent with minor children a home on humanitarian grounds and physically returned that person to the place where he or she was originally detained. Based on these procedures, it is believed that all children were with at least one of their parents as of last night....
Also noted in the "Slate" article was the fact this was a round-up like cattle. The people that work in the meat processing plant don't carry personal effects into the area where the meat is processed for sanity conditions. These people didn't have their IDs on them, as a result, half were released after they were removed from their place of work.
