Chickens on ICE Raid: The Odd Luck of Peco and Koch Foods [UPDATE-2]
[NB: Note the byline, thanks. Caveat: This post contains speculative content. Updates at the bottom of this post. / ~Rayne]
I have to run an errand, can’t take the time to follow this line of inquiry further. But something about ICE raids conducted in Mississippi today set off my hinky meter.
Why Mississippi, which long-time community member earlofhuntington describes as “so reliably Republican”? Why wouldn’t ICE conduct raids in blue states as they’ve intended to twice this year in order to rattle the Latinx and other brown-skinned voters?
Why wouldn’t they conduct a raid closer to the Mexican border since the Trump administration and its state media organ Fox News have drummed up a manufactured ‘invasion’ crisis?
Why pick established businesses in a deep red state only days after mass shootings of Latinx Americans in El Paso?
This raid was planned, though, they don’t just sweep in. The two businesses, Peco Foods Inc. and Koch Foods Inc. were on somebody’s radar, earmarked in advance.
But why these two over any other businesses — say, golf courses competing with Trump org courses which likely hire undocumented personnel the way Trump’s courses did?
Would golf courses be too obvious and yield too few results? Would such raids piss off the same class of customers who frequent Trump’s courses?
There’s some other reason not obvious to the public.
Perhaps the companies are owned and operated by people who don’t fit Trump and Trump’s minions political ideology? But this is where I have to leave it to run an errand.
I’ll leave you with this (already posted in comments and on Twitter):
And with this:
What do you think? I haven’t had time to look at the other five companies raided today, including PH Food Inc., MP Food Inc., and Pearl River Foods Inc.
Does this also suggest Mississippi is at risk politically if the administration had to pick “so reliably Republican” a state, in spite of a 130-year-old state law preventing black Mississippians from holding elected statewide office if they don’t win 55% of the vote?
UPDATE — 11:10 PM EDT —
Add in unionization of workers as another factor in selection of businesses to raid:
I'm sure it's a coincidence that some of these workers had unionized and had reported sexual and racial harassment by supervisors to the EEOC. This will get the employment dynamics back the way the employers like them. https://t.co/SL0tqRusYihttps://t.co/qSeY2sbxbK pic.twitter.com/6qlX92j4Ro
— Sasha Samberg-Champion (@ssamcham) August 8, 2019
And while some folks note unhappily the workers have been detained and owners/management haven’t been arrested, I’m not certain that won’t yet happen. Somebody might be very happy to see a Democratic donor (or two) behind bars before the 2020 general election primaries begin.
UPDATE — 11:15 PM EDT —
Yeah, Mississippi is undergoing a political tectonic shift; statewide races may be in play.
It is not coincidental that ICE conducted the largest single-state raid in history in Mississippi the day after Jody Owens was elected the first Black DA of Hinds County. https://t.co/6u7aQKqwCU
— Rebecca J. Kavanagh (@DrRJKavanagh) August 8, 2019
This is an open thread. Bring all the stray cats and dogs here.