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About 130 protesters march past Flying Frog Café on Battery Park Avenue in downtown Asheville on late afternoon Aug. 16 on a winding route from Vance Memorial on Pack Square to Pritchard Park. They were protesting the recent arrest by immigration and customs enforcement agents of 57 undocumented workers at Woodfin’s Mills Manufacturing Co., a maker of parachutes for the U.S. military. Asheville Daily Planet Staff Photos
From Daily Planet Staff Reports
Around 130 people, mainly young and non-Hispanics, gathered late on the afternoon of Aug. 16 at the Vance Memorial and marched for almost 30 minutes on a preplanned route around downtown Asheville that ended at Pritchard Park.
The procession peacefully wound its way through the city streets, prompting only scattered catcalls from a few onlookers. In one case, a young man yelled from a second-story window, “Go back to Mexico!”
Just before the march, local resident Aaron Penland told the group it had no right to march on behalf of the undocumented workers.
When the marchers arrived at the park, a number of speeches — many impomptu — were made to the crowd that patiently sat in the amphitheater, holding protest signs.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents raided Mills Manufacturing, arresting 57 workers who they alleged had entered the country illegally and used fraudulent documents to get work.
Later, 29 workers, who had children or other pressing needs, were released on orders to appears in immigration court. The rest remain incarcerated.
Chants during the march included “No raids, no ICE. We ain’t about to ask you twice.”
Among the speakers, Alikhan Salehi, a UNC Asheville junior and co-president of the group Hispanic Outreach for Learning Awareness, who noted that the rally and march arose from a grassroots effort.
“It’s really sad to see that ICE can come in here and distrurb our community,” Salehi told the crowd. “These people are American, regardless of their legal status.”
Another speaker, Nick Ladd, UNCA’s student body president and a senior, said workers like the ones arrests in the raid are necessary to support the economy.
“If every immigrant in this country just up and left today, like a lot of people would like them to do, then our economy would crumble,” he asserted. “This has actually been a detriment to our community to take those jobs away from those individuals and scare the whole Hispanic community and keep them from feeling like they can be out here and open in the public.”
In a shot at the Republican 11th Congressional District challenger, Ladd alleged, “(Carl) Mumpower snitched just to boost himself and not for the betterment of the citizens.”
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