Employees had been notified orally and by letters posted in the plants that they would be fired if they missed work without authorization, the statement said.
"Many of these issues are near and dear to our hearts and can have serious effects on our lives, but Wolverine cannot allow these issues to stop our business," Mr. Bonahoom said. "When a large number of employees leave on a particular day, we cannot service our customers, and this puts all of our jobs in jeopardy."
More appropriate reactions by others:
"They were trying to exercise their right to protest, their right to have a voice," Ms. Castillo said. "I think we're going to see that this is just one incident of many civil rights violations that these workers have endured."
and
"There are two or three potential employees available for every one of these poor folks who were fired....It's better for everyone if there is a lawful protected class of workers and not this shadowy underground army of workers that are here today, gone tomorrow."
In polling news, the public is backing allowing the undocumented to earn citizenship:
The proposed Senate compromise also appears to have overwhelming support among voters. A new Washington Post-ABC News poll found that 63 percent of those surveyed backed letting immigrants who have lived in the country a certain number of years apply for legal status and eventually become citizens.
The Washington Post reports the fallout from the demonstrations over Sensenbrenner's no-sense bill may hurt Republicans in 2006.
The demonstrations are working. We need to keep them going until we get an immigration reform bill that protects the undocumented among us, allows a path to citizenship that doesn't require leaving the country and unreasonable hurdles, includes protections and benefits for workers and respect for families, civil rights and due process.
We also need to get rid of Sensenbrenner's plan to build hundreds of miles of border fences. On that and related topics, here's an excellent editorial from a University of Alaska newspaper I recommend to all.
No fences or laws imposing felonies and fines, which would cost millions of dollars in construction and court costs, will solve the problems caused by having a population that is made up of 11 percent illegal immigrants.
...In a country forged in the blood and sweat of Appalachian coal-miners, Midwest factory machinists, Great Plains farmers, Southwest ranchers and Southern migrant crop workers, it's hard to believe that there are jobs that Americans won't do. But we have only to remember our nation's history of slavery, child-labor sweatshops, chain gangs and Chinese rail-workers to know that this is true.
For Americans, a low-wage job is a step down on the ladder. For immigrants, it's a step up. The luxury that naturalized Americans now enjoy was purchased by our ancestors' hard work and fortitude. To deny others the chance to improve the lives of their children and grandchildren, we mark ourselves as astonishingly ungrateful.
The editorial continues, discussing Latinos:
Anti-immigration arguments improperly site Latino culture as a source of crime, vice, disease, increased government spending and gang violence.
To students who paid attention in History 102, these fears should sound very familiar. In the early parts of the 20th century, would-be immigrants from countries in Eastern Europe, having been "proven" inferior by the brave new world of eugenics, were packed back to their motherlands to face first Nazi, then Soviet occupation of their countries.
At that time, America adopted an immigration policy based on fear. So much for lifting our lamp to the world. But even while America looks back on this policy as an embarrassment to the ideals we strive to uphold, we find the same arguments being voiced again, a hundred years later, about a different immigrant group.
And then there's this:
A 14-year-old boy who took part in a student walkout on March 28 in Ontario, California--one of hundreds of walkouts around the country demanding immigrant rights--killed himself on March 30 after a vice principal at De Anza Middle School told him he would be punished for his truancy. The administrator said he could not attend graduation, his mother would be fined $250, and he could be jailed for three years, said attorney Sonia Mercado.
Soltero phoned his mother with the news, but before she could get home, he shot himself in the head using a gun his stepfather had hidden in the garage, leaving behind apology notes. "We have to let the schools know that they can't punish our children for exercising their rights," said his mother, Louise Corales, in a statement issued by Mercado. (Press-Enterprise, Riverside, April 8; Press Release from Civil Rights Lawyer R. Samuel Paz, April 7)
Legalization. It's the only way.
