Democrat Candidate For U.S. Congress Blasts ICE Raid In Lamar County

Catherine Krantz

Democrat Catherine Krantz, of Emory, who is challenging the incumbent Republican John Ratcliff for the District 4 seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, issued a scathing statement Wednesday on the ICE raid at the Load Trail trailer manufacturing plant in Lamar County.

For Immediate release:

Democratic nominee for U.S. House Texas District 4, Catherine Krantz, issued the following statement today in response to an immigration raid that
affected over 100 employees in her northeast Texas district. 

On Tuesday over 300 federal agents and staff stormed a manufacturing plant in northeast Texas with guns drawn and helicopters flying overhead, in one of the largest workplace raids in over a decade, shocking the tiny community and alarming residents across the region. I can only imagine the expense of this military-style operation and wonder what its true goals were.

If the true goal is legal immigration, why not reform the system to make it
easier to become legal?  That can be done with paperwork and no guns
necessary. Were they really prepared to shoot people at their jobs? The
owners of this business are well-known, if the true goal was to hold the
business owner accountable, why then show up with a line of Homeland
Security Buses? One car and a subpoena should have been enough. If the true, goal is to protect American jobs and American workers, why not require more protections for workers, like raising the minimum wage, making healthcare affordable, or requiring paid leave. The majority of the workers were U.S. Citizens. I have a hard time believing this has anything to do with taking care of American employees. If the goal is to make us feel safer, I feel no safer in an overly militarized society that enforces administrative crimes
with brute force.

If the goal is to terrorize, frightened immigrant communities and randomly
deport as many as you can, then this seems to be how you do it. This seems
nothing more than a public spectacle intended to intimidate.

We can have a just and compassionate immigration system that acknowledges the economic realities facing workers and employers alike. A system that works. But as long as xenophobia and anti-immigrant hysteria lead the conversation, we will not get there. I foresee an ugly future if we
continue down this path of over-militarization of our immigration system. I,
for one, would not feel one bit safer in that America.