On Wednesday, August 7th, 2019, United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) conducted the single largest day of raids on undocumented workers in the nation’s history.
Decried as merely the latest act of needless cruelty inflicted upon the communities of Latin American immigrants that call the US home, the event has drawn widespread outrage towards an administration that seemingly revels in its caustic cycle of trauma following trauma inflicted on those most vulnerable.
As the ICE raids targeted Mississippi chicken processing plants, Angela Stuesse, Associate Professor of Anthropology at UNC, Chapel Hill and UC Press author of Scratching Out a Living: Latinos, Race, and Work in the Deep South, has been using her experience conducting ethnographic research among these communities to give a voice to those impacted. Collected below is a selection of Professor Stuesse’s recent opinion essays, radio interviews, and citations in works of journalism, in which she describes the conditions that initially drew Latin American immigrants to the Deep South and how to respond going forward.
Op-Eds
“The poultry industry recruited them. Now ICE raids are devastating their communities.”
– Angela Stuesse, The Washington Post
“Workplace Raids Are Not the Answer”
– Angela Stuesse, The Progressive
Interviews
“ICE Raids Hit Poultry Processing Plants That Rely On Latino Immigrant Labor”
– All Things Considered, NPR
“The Recent MS ICE Raids & Big Ag’s Exploitation of Immigrant Workers”
– Your Call, KALW
“Undocumented But In Demand: Immigration And Labor In America”
– 1A, NPR
“A History Of Hispanic Immigrants In Mississippi’s Poultry Industry”
– Here & Now, WBUR
“Mississippi’s Latino Community”
– Latino Media Collective
Citations
“Mississippi raids split families and leave children adrift: ‘I just want my mom and dad’”
– Los Angeles Times
“Why It’s Immigrants Who Pack Your Meat”
– The Atlantic
“After ICE”
– Slate
“Chicken-factory employees in the U.S. illegally work in fear. Their employers, not so much.”
– Chicago Tribune
“ICE raids cause labor decline in sector already seeking to fill thousands of position”
– Mississippi Today
“Across the rural South, chicken plants become a social and economic flashpoint”
– Saporta Report
