By Sue Weishar, Ph.D. On August 25, 2008, the small town of
Laurel, Mississippi was the site of the largest single workplace
site raid in U.S. history. Early that morning hundreds of
Immigration Control and Enforcement (ICE) agents swooped down on
the Howard Industries plant in Laurel, which produces electric
transformers, and began rounding up workers. Anyone who appeared
to be of Hispanic origin was separated from other workers and
escorted outside to a fenced yard. Roads around the sprawling
plant were blocked and ICE helicopters hovered overhead. One
resident thought there had been a terrorist attack.1 For the 595
immigrant workers that were arrested that day, there might as
well have been. By evening of that long, hot summer day, 488
immigrant workers, many in handcuffs, had been transported on
dozens of ICE buses to an immigrant detention center in Jena,
Louisiana, four hours away—ripped apart from their families and
a community they had come to think of as home. Another 107
persons, mostly women, had b