NEW BEDFORD — The effects of the dramatic paramilitary raid on a New Bedford leather goods factory five years ago continue for the families of those involved, many of whom remain living in the shadows as they fight for citizenship.
“It has been five years and the situation continues the same,” said Reina Rivas, 34, a former teacher in El Salvador and one of the 361 workers arrested in the raid March 6, 2007. “We still don’t know what will happen.”
About 100 people marched Friday night to the site of the old Michael Bianco factory to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the raid and draw attention to the ongoing legal battle.
“There’s still a lot of fear about what’s going to pass,” said Adrian Ventura of the Centro Comunitario de Trabajadores, who helped organize the event.
Authorities detained 361 people in the raid, which prompted outrage across the country for the brutal separation of mothers and fathers from their children. They later released about 200, many of whom chose to fight for citizenship through the courts.
John Willshire Carrera of Greater Boston Legal Services, which has worked on cases for about 110 of the factory workers, said 23 of the cases had ended in asylum and he expects another 26 to be resolved the same way. Twenty people have left voluntarily or been deported. The rest of the cases remain in legal limbo — either on appeal or still awaiting a decision by the immigration court.
Rivas, who studied as a teacher in El Salvador but left at age 26 in search of a better future, is currently appealing a deportation order.
“I came here with dreams and goals,” she said.
“We were just working. … This changed my life completely.”
Since the raid, those working toward citizenship have jumped through every hoop the government has presented, their lawyers said, reporting regularly to immigration authorities in Burlington, installing land lines for phone calls, making themselves available for random at-home visits — in some cases even wearing GPS anklet bracelets.
“It makes everybody around them very nervous,” Willshire Carrera said. “I don’t understand it because these are people who comply with everything.”
The immigration reform many hoped would materialize in the months after the raid fell apart in the face of strong resistance, which has only hardened over time, observers say. Last night, three men stood outside Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish at St. James Church holding an American flag and a sign proclaiming “No Amnesty, No Excuses.”
“I’m here about the issue,” said Tim McDonald, 20, of Dartmouth, who works as a contractor in New Bedford. “These people think they have the right to be here. … But they’re bringing crime and corrupting the moral fabric of our country.”
Vicki Reggie Kennedy, the wife of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, who championed the Bianco factory workers and pushed hard for immigration reform, said she did not expect to see movement on the issue until after the election.
“Right now we’re in a political season and I think what we’re seeing is a very politically charged atmosphere, so I’m not sure that there’s a lot of real substantive legislation that’s happening,” she told The Standard-Times in a phone interview Thursday. “It’s something that we always have to talk about and keep talking about. This is an issue that doesn’t go away.”
Rivas said despite her three months in detention and her uphill legal battle, she still wants to make a life in New Bedford.
“Hope is the last thing we lose,” she said.
