Immigration Raid Leaves Sense of Dread in Hispanic Students - Minnesota

“Such was the triumph of Operation Cross Check, the federal raid against illegal immigrants that went on for four days last month in this community of about 18,500 people. To the Department of Homeland Security, the operation was a success, catching a convicted sex offender and several welfare cheats among its 49 arrests. In a news release announcing the toll, an immigration enforcement director for Minnesota said, “Our job is to help protect the public from those who commit crimes.”

Yet more than half of those arrested had committed no crime other than being in the United States illegally, doing the jobs at Jennie-O that prop up the local economy. And, as the experience of Alex Sorto demonstrates, the aggressive, invasive style of the sweep instilled lasting fear among Willmar’s 3,000 Hispanics, many of them students born or naturalized in the United States. These young people are the political football in America’s bitter, unresolved battle about immigration.”

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