Groups Gather to Support and Protest Immigration Raids

None by KCPW

(KCPW News) Competing immigration rallies in downtown Salt Lake City last night drew more police officers than protestors. About two-dozen people joined the activist - and historically militant - Brown Berets to protest immigration raids at a meatpacking plant in Northern Utah last week.

"We're here to denounce the armed raids on working people," says Brown Beret organizer Daniel Argueta. "You have workers completely unarmed and an armed for coming in - and we consider that state terrorism."

The group denounces the way the raids were conducted using armed guards and alleged racial profiling. Across the street and past more than twenty police cars, a handful of members of the Utah Minuteman Project scoffed at the notion that illegal workers and their families were treated unfairly.

"I have no sympathy for someone who enters our country illegal, steals someone's identity, brings children here and puts them in that situation," says Utah Minuteman Project organizer Alex Segura.

The Utah raid was part of a six-state investigation into identity theft in which illegal immigrants used stolen social security numbers to get jobs.

Thus far no charges have been filed against the employer, Swift and Company. Both the Utah Minuteman Project and the Brown Berets agree that employers should be held accountable for checking the citizenship status of their employees.

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