Raid in New Bedford left nursing babies

[Raven]

without their mothers. This is on NPR now. Two babies became dehydrated. Most of those rounded up were mothers with young children. Boy, these hard working women must have been a real threat to our national security! What a disgrace. We have a government of thugs and storm troopers.

[acmavm]

1. Why did they become dehydrated? No one thought to try

feeding with a bottle?

Whatever.

[Raven]

2. I don't know, some nursing babies

won't take a bottle.

[madfloridian]

6. You think it is ok to take mothers from babies? That shocks me.

I thought I had seen everything at DU lately...but this is a shock.

You are so casual about it. That scares me.

[Name removed]

25. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[madfloridian]

26. It takes work to be as stupid as I am.

What can I say?

[acmavm]

29. Don't worry about it, I've done the same thing myself.

[madfloridian]

30. It was your "whatever".

That did it. The lack of concern about the babies, and the attitude.

What can I say?

[acmavm]

31. I take it back. I think maybe you should worry.

[madfloridian]

40. Well, let's see. Today I have been called "stupid" and a "traitor"

I have had a most unusual day at DU.

One never knows when one gets up in the morning just what they might be called, does one?

[blm]

7. It took my little one a few days of persistence to get her to add bottlefeeding to

her routine.

[tnlefty]

54. My nursing babies never would take breastmilk or anything else from

a bottle. They would've been in real trouble in a similar situation because they just flat out refused.

[LeftyMom]

8. It takes time to transtion a baby from breast to bottle

Some take right to it, but others either won't or can't (the sucking motion involved it totally different, and when letdown happens milk just sprays out of a breast.) Complicate that with babies used to thin, sweet breastmilk and trying to give them formula, which smells like something died and surely doesn't taste any better and in no way resembles the only food they've even known, and it's no shock that some babies would go on feeding strikes instead.

Some babies won't take a bottle no matter how hard one tries. I was one of them, according to my mother.

[wicket]

27. Thank-you for the info

:hi:

[Midlodemocrat]

32. None of mine would take a bottle.Ever.

I finally got a little relief when they started to use sippy cups at about 8 months for juice.

[etherealtruth]

38. That was my experience with my 3 n/t

[Tansy_Gold]

35. There's another important issue

When babies are weaned from the breast, there is an effect on the mother, too. If her milk dries up, she may not be able to easily nurse again when reunited with her baby. And if she doesn't have access to formula and clean bottles, her baby will go hungry.

This is one of the reasons why IIRC the Nestle company was so roundly denounced for promoting baby formula in developing nations. The mothers were seduced away from breast feeding in favor of bottle feeding, but when they couldn't afford to purchase the formula and no longer produced enough breast milk to adequately nourish their babies, they diluted the formula to make it go further and save money.

This story renews my belief in the appropriate application of capital punishment. The "personhood" of the employing corporation should be terminated at once.


Tansy Gold

[RayOfHope]

36. And before she dries up she will most likely be painfully engorged

which can lead to plugged ducts (hugely painful) and mastitis (breast infection).

[LeftyMom]

41. If I never hear the word mastitis again I will die happy.

That was quite possibly the worst I have ever felt in my life.

[LeftyMom]

39. And in some poor areas they market condensed milk as formula

Which can kill a kid from malnutrition or bleeding in the bowels. But they know the families can't afford formula, so they want to sell something there.

[gollygee]

9. My daughter flat-out refused a bottle

Babies have different personalities. Some are flexible and some dig their heels in and resist change.

[RayOfHope]

13. I had a nursing son who would not, under any circumstances, take a bottle

even with my breastmilk in it, no matter how hungry he was.

[Mass]

3. The situation is terrible and the Feds could not care less.

But you will find that some people here on DU could not care less either. Those are foreigners, so it is not important.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

4. I bet Lou Dobbs is happy.

[blm]

10. Very little reporting on this - Kerry was on it immediately, but few corpmedia

stories came of it.

From March 7 post by Mass:


http://kerry.senate.gov/v3/cfm/record.cfm?id=270300

50 are held in immigration raid
New Bedford factory employed illegals, US says

By Yvonne Abraham and Brian R. Ballou, Globe Staff | March 7, 2007

NEW BEDFORD -- Hundreds of immigration officers and police descended on a New Bedford leather goods factory yesterday , charged top officials with employing illegal immigrants, and rounded up 350 workers who could not prove they were in the country legally.

The waterfront company, Michael Bianco Inc., was using the illegal immigrants to produce safety vests and backpacks for the US military, officials said.

Workers inside the plant described a terrifying scene. At first, several hundred employees, most of them Guatemalan or Salvadoran, were told to remain at their sewing stations as officials reviewed their status. Chaos ensued, as some panicked workers tried to flee.

...

According to affidavits unsealed yesterday, Insolia hired illegal immigrants instead of legal workers because the immigrants were desperate for jobs and more willing to put up with working conditions in his factory. Federal investigators allege workers were denied overtime , docked 15 minutes for every minute they were late , and fined for talking on the job, or for spending more than two minutes in the plant's squalid bathrooms.
...


Activists said they were concerned yesterday that the children of workers would be left without care.

"This has been a total nightmare," Marques said. "I've never seen so much panic." Many of those impacted gathered last night at Our Lady of Guadalupe at St. James Church. Luis Matias came to seek help for the 9-month-old and 3-year-old daughters of his tenant, Rosa Gutierez, 26, of Guatemala, who was taken into custody.

"She's a hard worker, a good person, who came to the US to find a better life," he said in a phone interview. "She's a very good mother. It's inhumane to take a mother away from her children," he said. "She's not a criminal."





http://kerry.senate.gov/v3/cfm/record.cfm?id=270299


Kerry on New Bedford immigration raid that left dozens of children stranded



BOSTON - Senator John Kerry today released the following statement yesterday's immigration raid in New Bedford that left dozens of children stranded.

"Better preparation was urgently needed for the unintended consequences of yesterday's raid. Better cooperation and coordination with the Department of Social Services should have been included in the planning. There's no need to separate dozens of young children from their parents - many of whom are the sole caregivers -- without a back-up plan. That's a false choice that could have been avoided. The illegal hiring practices of companies that break the law should not twice victimize innocent children.

"It's incumbent upon all of us to act to address this situation. I am sending a letter to ICE seeking an explanation into why this happened, and demanding answers about what they're doing to address what those on the ground are describing as a humanitarian crisis in Southeastern Massachusetts."



http://kerry.senate.gov/v3/cfm/record.cfm?id=270300

Kerry asks ICE to reunite parents and stranded children as quickly as possible



BOSTON - Senator John Kerry today sent a letter the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement director requesting an explanation of yesterday's incident, and urging the agency to work as quickly as possible to reunite the stranded children with their parents.

The text of the letter is below:

Karyn Lang Director Immigration and Customs Enforcement

Director Lang:

I was deeply concerned to read reports today that dozens of young children were stranded-including nursing infants-when their parents were detained as part of the immigration raid at Michael Bianco Inc.'s in New Bedford, Massachusetts. (Attached) I recognize the importance of enforcing our immigration laws and cracking down on companies that brazenly violate them, but it is absolutely critical that we do so without jeopardizing the health and safety of innocent children.

I understand that you coordinated with the Massachusetts Department of Social Services (DSS) prior to the raid, and that DSS was on site during the raid. I also understand that the immigrants were questioned as they were detained in an attempt to determine whether any single parents or sole caregivers needed a humanitarian release to care for their children. The problem is that not all of the detainees indicated that they fell into this category.

It is understandable that illegal immigrants would not necessarily feel comfortable telling the truth about their children to federal officers during an immigration raid. They may not have understood the questions, they could have feared for the safety of their children, or they could have feared for their own safety.

It's clear that further steps were necessary. At a minimum, it is incumbent upon ICE to work with the state and social service agencies to ensure that children are immediately placed into safe and secure environments when they are separated from their parents.

Even if this situation was not foreseeable, ICE should have worked more closely with DSS once the problem became apparent. DSS now reports that they have been unable to get in touch with the men and women whose children have been stranded. I urge ICE to work with the Boston Detention Removal Operations and with DSS to locate the parents of stranded children and secure their release as quickly as possible.

Sincerely,

John F. Kerry

[rox63]

14. One of the things that really bothered me most about this

was how quickly they shipped them off to detention centers in other states. Don't they have a right to due process? Many of them don't even speak English. How are they supposed to get any sort of legal help when they are shipped away from everyone they know?

[blm]

16. Your answer is in your question.

They KNOW they will be severely hampered legally by doing it this way.

[Quakerfriend]

5. Interesting that these raids start in a VERY blue state!

[matcom]

11. FEDS RAID SOUTH BOSTON FACTORY - ROUND UP 300 IRISH ILLEGALS

wonder what would happen then?

[rox63]

12. Actually, there are quite a few Irish illegals in Boston

But I doubt the Feds would ever try to round them up.

[matcom]

15. i'm well aware of that fact

hence my post

[mohinoaklawnillinois]

17. There are Irish illegals all over the US, but the question is this:

Why are they not rounded up by ICE and held in detention centers?

Could the answer be possibly that they're Europeans and overwhelmingly white? Same question could be asked of Polish illegals as well.

Why is there one standard for certain groups of so-called illegal aliens and not for others? But yet we're supposed to believe that these recent roundups don't have a racial content? Yeah, right.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

33. Eastern Europeans, too

But I doubt that I'll ever see the headline, "Factory raided, 300 Polish and Ukrainian illegals arrested."

[progressoid]

51. Ha - reminds me of something I said to some RW family members

The whole imagration debate was going on and I said I doubted that so many people would be so up in arms if they were Canadian illegals (one of the family members friend married a Canadian). Then I said, "maybe we should just rewind to the good old days when we hated the Irish & locked up the Japanese" (My M-I-Law is part Irish and her best friend is half Japanese). Dead silence.

I was sort of avoided for the rest of the day. :shrug:

[KansDem]

18. Were they left on the floor to die?

Oh, wait...Wrong evil, murdering dictator...

[thethinker]

19. Wait a minute

How could these women be nursing babies and working in a factory?

[jackster]

21. easy - either the mother supplemented

their breast milk with formula while they worked, or they pumped and provided breastmilk in a bottle.

Maybe their children were older and didn't require nursing as often and they worked part time. Maybe they went home at lunch and breastfed. Maybe someone brought the babies to them and they fed them at breaks.

Where there is a will to breasfeed, there is a way.

[Raven]

22. Thanks...I detect

a lack of sympathy among some few posters here...how can you not have some feeling for young mothers trying to make a better life for themselves...working in a factory, trying to raise a family, all the things my ancestors did when they fled Ireland and worked in the mills in Fall River. I just don't get it.

[madfloridian]

42. Yes, there is a new breed here now with no sympathy.

I have seen it many times. It is scaring me for my country.

[Cleita]

23. Also, maybe whomever they left the babies with while they were

working could breastfeed more than one child while in her custody. Wetnursing is more common in Latin American countries than it is here.

[Recursion]

45. From what I hear, these "raids" just round up people on suspicion of being minorities

sort of like the infamous DWB, this is kind of like WWH (working while hispanic)

[gollygee]

56. Lots of babies "reverse cycle"

they learn not to nurse during the day when their moms aren't home, but then wake up a lot during the night when their moms are there. These are babies who would be able to go through the night without nursing - they just switch the times they nurse.

[hootinholler]

20. Were these babies born in the US?

Then they are citizens by birthright, I believe the mother is allowed to stay.

-Hoot

[Cleita]

24. It used to be that way, and this is how many illegals I knew

(some were also from England and Ireland, not just Latin America) were able to get their Green Cards. However, they changed the law and it's harder to get to stay even if you have an American kid.

[riderinthestorm]

28. Elvira Arellano

A Mexican woman with a son who was born in the US, currently residing in a Chicago church (sanctuary) in order to resist being deported, effectively separating her from her son while he remains in the US.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

34. "Give me your tired, your poor.....and, lock 'em up."

I like the original version better.

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
I lift up my lamp beside the golden door."

Emma Lazarus

[alarimer]

37. why don't they jail their employers?

Lock up the wealthy factory owners, take away their assets and all of their money and they will stop hiring illegals. Dry up the jobs, you dry up illegal immigration (at least the majority of it). But of course the factory owners are probably Republicans so they are subject to different standards.

These raids and those detention centers are inhumane.

[Colobo]

43. Good, keep arresting hard working undocumented workers

Because their hard work is a real threat to our national security.

[madfloridian]

44. I just gave this recommend # 5 because my country never used to be like this.

And we need to call attention to it.

[matcom]

46. Where are all the hard-core anti-immigrant posters?

is it different now that BABIES are left stranded?

are you rethinking your black & white stances on this issue?

are you STILL in favor of raids like this one?

c'mon! you have been so vocal here before, WHY NOT NOW?

:eyes:

[madfloridian]

47. In the woodwork...

they will soon come crawling out.

[matcom]

48. this story makes my fucking blood boil

got into it with a coworker over this today. he was PISSED that Gov. Patrick was sending DSS workers down to Texas to help.

PISSED!

fucking knuckle-draggers

"ROUND THEM ALL UP AND SHIP THEM OUT!!"

:grr:

he is Greek. I told him that I hoped the next Federal raid was on all the Greek pizza places in this state.

he shut the fuck up quickly after that.

racist fucking pigs

[madfloridian]

52. I found this page with several videos.

I am furious. Several conferences by Deval Patrick.

http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news/11213366/detail.html

[ArmchairMeme]

49. 100 children may have been left behind

Michael Bianco Inc. still has it's contract to make clothing for Iraq soldiers. Today it gave an apology.

361 people were taken in the raid. This left behind approximately 100 children some of whom were with daycare providers at the time.

Social service workers remained concerned Friday that not all the children of those detained had been identified or assured proper care.

A federal judge Friday ordered that no more people should be removed from the state of MA as some had already been moved to detention in Texas by the immigration, leaving a "humanitarian crisis"

This is not just ONE nursing baby being weaned.

[Morgana LaFey]

50. I couldn't shake the Nazi images in my mind yesterday --

NAZIS separate children from their parents, Americans don't do that.

I'm heartbroken to hear this adduitional info. What fucking barbarians. ANd they want to call themselves a "culture of LIFE?"

A culture of LIFE respects women, respects their ability to give life, respects their ability to nurture life. A culture of LIFE would never do anything remotely like this. THIS, my friends, is a culture of DEATH, which I believe was used to describe the Nazis, wasn't it (Death Cult?)?

Another striking, shocking symbol/metaphor to go with the death of Captain America yesterday.

[Virginia Dare]

53. The thugs in charge only care about babies in the womb...

once they're born, they can fend for themselves.

This is really sad, something is very, very wrong with our society that we are rounding up nursing mothers who are just trying to feed their children like wild dogs.

[frankenforpres]

59. in massachusetts?????

no, immigrant hating is bipartisan

[matcom]

55. kick

waiting for the apologists

[mohinoaklawnillinois]

57. So am I Matcom. I wonder why they're ignoring this thread?

Could it be that you brought up the cognizant point that there are white, European illegal immigrants in this country as well....

[matcom]

58. methinks so

that or the fact that they now realize there are actually PEOPLE involved, they suddenly feel bad :eyes: