PROVIDENCE ¬ The March 6 raid on a New Bedford textile plant by federal immigration agents has resulted in a wave of international support on behalf of the 361 illegal immigrants detained following the early morning roundup of factory workers and company officials.
The raid followed an 11-month undercover criminal investigation of activities at the Michael Bianco Inc. textile plant, a manufacturer of high-end leather goods and handbags, and military gear for U.S. soldiers serving in the Middle East.
Representatives of various immigrant advocacy groups, legal and social service organizations, including Catholic Social Services of the Diocese of Fall River, rushed to the scene when they learned of the raid and continue to work with the detainees and their families.
According to John Barry, secretary for the diocesan Office of Community Services and Advocacy, the Diocese of Providence sent a check for $1,000 to Father Richard Wilson, pastor of Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish at St. James Church in New Bedford and Director of Hispanic Ministry for the Diocese of Fall River, to help the families torn apart by the raid.
Barry said he discussed the situation with staff from the Office of Immigration and Refugee Services and Hispanic Ministry. He added that when Bishop Thomas J. Tobin learned of the crisis unraveling in the neighboring Diocese, the prelate asked what was being done to help the workers.
Barry and his staff decided to offer financial support that could be used to purchase food and groceries for the hundreds of the workers' distraught family members and friends, who congregated daily at the resource center in the aftermath of the raid.
"We have offered any assistance that we can provide," Barry said, noting that several Rhode Island families were affected by the incident.
"I think that this could have been handled better," he added. "There should have been no question about families being separated. It galls me that the owners of the business, who profited both from a federal contract and from these people that they hired, were released and that these immigrants were sent all over the country."
Fall River Bishop George W. Coleman responded to the crisis by meeting and praying with families impacted by the raid.
"The sadness experienced in these families this week, especially in those which suffered the separation of mothers from their infant children, calls from a response from the heart," the bishop wrote in a letter that appeared on the Fall River diocesan Web site. "Some say that those people who have responded to this humanitarian crisis are 'bleeding hearts,' people who have no respect for law and order. And yet, was not Christ the original 'bleeding heart?' Did he not love us sinners who broke the laws of God?
"The church urges respect for civil laws, as Christ said, 'Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, give to God what is God's. Since the earliest times the church has taught that we have a responsibility to obey legitimate authority, but it has also taught that not all human laws are just, and that respect for the inalienable dignity of the human person should always take precedence over any other duties...."
Father Wilson said that following the raid, the parish hall of the historic church was turned into a resource center, where representatives of federal, state and local social service and legal agencies met with the detainees' relatives, and volunteers served meals and bagged groceries that were offered to disrupted families. The advocacy center has since moved to the site of a former convent, located a short distance from the church.
"Many of the workers are our parishioners," said the priest. "The raid decimated our Hispanic Young Adult Group and we lost two members of the choir."
Father Wilson said that most of those detained were women, many of whom left infants and young children behind. At press time, several mothers had been returned to their families.
According to the priest, the immigrant workers are being held at detention centers in Texas, Florida and Central Falls, as well as in separate quarters at correctional facilities located in Dartmouth, Plymouth and Barnstable, Massachusetts. He added that the factory workers came to Massachusetts from Central America, Brazil, Portugal and Cape Verde, and were motivated to seek jobs in this country by a need to find employment to support their families and a desire to improve their lives.
"If you have to feed your family, you'll find a way," the pastor emphasized.
"I hope that some good will come from it," Father Wilson said. "I hope that it will lead to true immigration reform."
(This story originally published in The Providence Visitor)
