On Oct. 12, about 65 people marched more than three miles from the Mills Manufacturing plant in Woodfin, NC, to downtown Asheville to protest an Aug. 12 ICE raid at the parachute manufacturing plant and the impending deportation of the 57 workers arrested there. (See INB, Aug. 16.) The march concluded at the Buncombe County Sheriff's Office. Speakers blasted what they said was overzealous or selective law enforcement by local sheriffs, particularly Van Duncan in Buncombe and Rick Davis in Henderson. Activists also criticized Asheville City Council member Carl Mumpower, who claimed some responsibility for alerting ICE about unauthorized workers at Mills Manufacturing. A group of about 200 people also marched along US 25 to the Henderson County Courthouse in Hendersonville, NC, in defense of immigrant rights. Nuestro Centro, WNC Workers Center and the Coalition of Latin American Organizations sponsored both marches. (Ashville Citizen Times, Oct. 13)

The marches were part of a nationwide day of action on Oct. 12, Indigenous Peoples Day. Other actions took place at the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Ga.; in southwest Detroit, Mich.; in San Francisco's Mission district; at a Wells Fargo bank in the immigrant neighborhood of Jackson Heights in Queens, New York City; and in the town of Sodus in upstate New York, just east of Rochester, where ICE raided a trailer park on Sept. 28. (See INB, Oct. 5.) Actions also took place in Rochester, NY; Boston, Mass.; Chicago, Ill.; Madison, Wisc.; and Minneapolis, Minn. (Workers World, Oct. 19)

From Immigration News Briefs, Oct. 21

See our last post on the politics of immigration.