On Dec. 15, a group of 18 former employees at Swift & Co. filed a $23 million lawsuit charging the company with conspiring to keep wages down by hiring undocumented workers. The plaintiffs are all naturalized US citizens or legal residents of Latin American origin who worked at the Swift plant in Cactus, Texas. (EFE, Dec. 21) The lawsuit uses the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act (RICO) in charging Swift with engaging in a racketeering conspiracy to manipulate commerce. "When the Swift plant opened in Cactus, wages were approximately $20 an hour," plaintiffs' attorney Michael Heygood told reporters in Texas. "Now, the average wage is approximately $12 to $13 an hour." (Washington Times, Dec. 19) Several union officials said Swift began improving its wages, benefits and bonuses in the weeks before the raids. "They're trying to staff up their plants and they've been raising their wages the past few weeks," said United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) spokesperson Jill Cashen. (AP, Dec. 19)

On Dec. 15, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested Mexican immigrant Martin Barrios on an outstanding deportation order at his home in the Chicago suburb of Berwyn, Illinois. A spokesperson from Centro Sin Fronteras, a Chicago-based immigrant rights group, said Barrios was arrested around 6:30 AM while still in his pajamas, in front of his US citizen wife and their three US-born children. Barrios has lived in the US for 18 years; he was ordered deported after a legal representative improperly filed an application to adjust his status.

From La Jornada, Dec. 28 via Chiapas95:

The nation's top electoral court ruled Wednesday that irregularities preceding the Oct. 15 gubernatorial election in Tabasco were not serious enough to affect the outcome.

A communique from the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) "Intergalactic Commission," Dec. 24 (our translation):

Compañer@s, Herman@s: In a few days more will be Dec. 30, 2006, the start of the "Encuentro de los Pueblos Zapatistas con los Pueblos del Mundo" (Meeting of the Zapatista Villages with the Peoples of the World), which will end Jan. 2, 2007.

On Dec. 12, nearly 300 indigenous Tupinikim and Guarani people and supporters occupied the Portocel port facilities used by the Aracruz Celulose wood pulp company at Aracruz, in Brazil's Espirito Santo state. The protesters are demanding that the Brazilian government fulfill its constitutional obligation by demarcating the traditional territory of the Tupinikim and Guarani. The company has taken over more than 11,000 hectares of indigenous land. In February 2006, after federal police violently ejected the Tupinikim and Guarani people who had retaken their land, Justice Minister Marcio Thomaz Bastos promised to demarcate the territory as soon as the government's National Indigenous Foundation (FUNAI) approved it. FUNAI approved the demarcation last Sept. 12, but Bastos has not yet signed it. Bastos is due to leave the government at the end of January 2007.

Agents from the Haitian National Police (PNH) and soldiers from the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) carried out a huge joint operation in Port-au-Prince's impoverished Cite Soleil neighborhood the night of Dec. 21-22. According to MINUSTAH spokesperson Sophie Boutaud de la Combe, the operation was intended to stop a recent wave of kidnappings in the capital and to "reopen the main road into Bois Neuf," part of Cite Soleil. She said that in this and other recent operations about 24 kidnappers had been arrested and six kidnapping victims had been freed.

Dear Readers:

In our winter fund pitch, we noted the irony that our journalism and commentary this year has won us the epithets of both "ultra-left" and co-opted "gatekeepers"; both "anti-Semites" and part of the "Zionist media." We always say there's no greater vindication than getting it from both sides, so we wear this opprobrium like a badge of pride.

On Dec. 8, Haitian and Jamaican detainees at Krome Service Processing Center outside Miami in Dade County, Florida, refused to leave their dormitory to protest delays in obtaining travel papers from their consulates, immigration officials said; these delays have delayed their stay in detention awaiting deportation. The protest led Michael Rozos, field office director for the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Florida office of detention and removal, to visit the Krome dormitory and speak to the detainees there on Dec. 8, accompanied by a "disturbance control team," said ICE spokesperson Barbara Gonzalez. She said team members were "dressed appropriately."