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A federal immigration raid that took 97 people into custody at a Tennessee meat processing plant may be the biggest employment crackdown under President Donald Trump’s administration, civil rights activists said Friday.

Eleven people were arrested on criminal charges and 86 were detained for being in the country illegally, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Tammy Spicer said in a statement Friday.

The Thursday raid on Southeastern Provision, a meat processing plant in Bean Station in eastern Tennessee, is the largest single worksite immigration enforcement action since the administration of President George W. Bush, said Jessie Hahn, labor and employment policy attorney at the National Immigration Law Center.

“This is part of the stepped-up Trump mass deportation enforcement agenda for sure,” Hahn said.

​Cracking down on employers

The current administration has promised to crack down on employers who hire immigrants living in the country illegally, and several raids have taken place across the country. A total of 21 people were arrested after immigration agents raided 7-Eleven stores nationwide in January.

A Tennessee activist said the processing plant raid is another example of the emphasis on enforcement.

“What we saw here, while it is the largest and certainly credibly egregious raid, it does fit in the larger practice and patterns of the Trump administration of targeting workers, indiscriminately arresting immigrants and really terrorizing communities across the country,” said Stephanie Teatro, co-executive director of the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition.

Spicer declined to confirm whether it is largest workplace raid under the current president.

Suspected tax evasion

Officials with ICE, Homeland Security, the IRS Criminal Investigation Division and the Tennessee Highway Patrol executed a federal search warrant on the meat processing plant Thursday morning, Spicer said. 

During the search, Homeland Security officials encountered 97 people who are subject to removal from the U.S., she said. Ten workers were arrested on federal criminal charges, and another was arrested on a state charge. Of the 86 people arrested and placed in deportation proceedings, ICE kept 54 in detention and released 32 from custody, Spicer said.

An affidavit filed with the search warrant and signed by a special agent with the IRS says the government has probable cause to believe that the company and its owners have committed tax evasion and are employing immigrants in the country illegally. An undercover police officer was hired at the company using a false name and he was paid in cash, the affidavit filed by IRS Special Agent Nicholas Worsham said.

Court records say James Brantley is the president of the business and his wife, Pamela, is listed as an employee. Public records do not list their phone number. The Associated Press left phone and email messages with company but they were not returned.

Several children saw both parents placed in detention and many did not show up for school Friday because of fear in the immigrant community, Teatro said.

Many of the people employed at the plant had worked there for years and are long-standing members of this rural community, she said.

Rights activists have mobilized to help with donations and legal assistance and people have rallied to help the workers and their families, Teatro said.

“That’s because in the face of the threats of the Trump administration, communities have been organizing and coming together to defend their rights and we’re not going to stop organizing, and the community isn’t going to stop standing with these families until they’re returned home.”

This story was written by the Associated Press.
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A federal immigration raid that took 97 people into custody at a Tennessee meat processing plant may be the biggest employment crackdown under President Donald Trump’s administration, civil rights activists said Friday.

Eleven people were arrested on criminal charges and 86 were detained for being in the country illegally, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Tammy Spicer said in a statement Friday.

The Thursday raid on Southeastern Provision, a meat processing plant in Bean Station in eastern Tennessee, is the largest single worksite immigration enforcement action since the administration of President George W. Bush, said Jessie Hahn, labor and employment policy attorney at the National Immigration Law Center.

“This is part of the stepped-up Trump mass deportation enforcement agenda for sure,” Hahn said.

​Cracking down on employers

The current administration has promised to crack down on employers who hire immigrants living in the country illegally, and several raids have taken place across the country. A total of 21 people were arrested after immigration agents raided 7-Eleven stores nationwide in January.

A Tennessee activist said the processing plant raid is another example of the emphasis on enforcement.

“What we saw here, while it is the largest and certainly credibly egregious raid, it does fit in the larger practice and patterns of the Trump administration of targeting workers, indiscriminately arresting immigrants and really terrorizing communities across the country,” said Stephanie Teatro, co-executive director of the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition.

Spicer declined to confirm whether it is largest workplace raid under the current president.

Suspected tax evasion

Officials with ICE, Homeland Security, the IRS Criminal Investigation Division and the Tennessee Highway Patrol executed a federal search warrant on the meat processing plant Thursday morning, Spicer said. 

During the search, Homeland Security officials encountered 97 people who are subject to removal from the U.S., she said. Ten workers were arrested on federal criminal charges, and another was arrested on a state charge. Of the 86 people arrested and placed in deportation proceedings, ICE kept 54 in detention and released 32 from custody, Spicer said.

An affidavit filed with the search warrant and signed by a special agent with the IRS says the government has probable cause to believe that the company and its owners have committed tax evasion and are employing immigrants in the country illegally. An undercover police officer was hired at the company using a false name and he was paid in cash, the affidavit filed by IRS Special Agent Nicholas Worsham said.

Court records say James Brantley is the president of the business and his wife, Pamela, is listed as an employee. Public records do not list their phone number. The Associated Press left phone and email messages with company but they were not returned.

Several children saw both parents placed in detention and many did not show up for school Friday because of fear in the immigrant community, Teatro said.

Many of the people employed at the plant had worked there for years and are long-standing members of this rural community, she said.

Rights activists have mobilized to help with donations and legal assistance and people have rallied to help the workers and their families, Teatro said.

“That’s because in the face of the threats of the Trump administration, communities have been organizing and coming together to defend their rights and we’re not going to stop organizing, and the community isn’t going to stop standing with these families until they’re returned home.”

This story was written by the Associated Press.
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The Catholic Easter custom of hunting brightly colored eggs and chocolate bunnies may be over now, but in the Orthodox world, Easter comes one week later. And it brings with it, its own unique traditions. One of them is the centuries-old practice of drawing elaborate patterns on Easter eggs decorated and painted using hot wax. Mariia Prus and Konstantin Golubchik produced this report from Alexandria, Virginia that is narrated by Katherine Gypson.
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The Catholic Easter custom of hunting brightly colored eggs and chocolate bunnies may be over now, but in the Orthodox world, Easter comes one week later. And it brings with it, its own unique traditions. One of them is the centuries-old practice of drawing elaborate patterns on Easter eggs decorated and painted using hot wax. Mariia Prus and Konstantin Golubchik produced this report from Alexandria, Virginia that is narrated by Katherine Gypson.
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Following the success of West Virginia teachers in securing a pay raise, educators in Oklahoma and Kentucky are walking out of their classrooms, demanding that lawmakers increase education spending in their states. Arizona teachers may soon follow suit. From Washington, VOA’s Jill Craig has more.
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Following the success of West Virginia teachers in securing a pay raise, educators in Oklahoma and Kentucky are walking out of their classrooms, demanding that lawmakers increase education spending in their states. Arizona teachers may soon follow suit. From Washington, VOA’s Jill Craig has more.
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The Trump administration on Friday announced wide-ranging sanctions against 38 Russian individuals and companies, part of what senior administration officials billed as a response “to address Russia’s pattern of malign activities” around the world.

The sanctions will be imposed on seven Russian oligarchs — including Oleg Deripaska, an aluminum magnate and close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin — and 12 companies they own or control. Seventeen senior Russian government officials, as well as a state-owned Russian weapons trading company, also will be targeted.

U.S. officials say the sanctions are “not in response to any single event or issue,” but are aimed at countering the “totality of the Russian government’s ongoing and increasingly brazen pattern of malign activity around the world.”

In a briefing with reporters, the officials cited Russia’s occupation of Crimea, the destabilizing of eastern Ukraine, support for the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad, Moscow’s “ongoing malicious cyber activity,” and “Russia’s continued attacks to subvert Western democracies.”

“Elites are not immune from accountability from the actions of the Russian government,” a U.S. official said, adding that Russian oligarchs should use their position of influence to “put an end to this cycle of destabilizing Russian activity around the globe.”

The oligarchs, the official said, have “reaped great benefits under the Putin regime and play a key role in its malign agenda.”

The sanctions will block all of the oligarchs’ assets that are subject to U.S. jurisdiction, and U.S. persons will be “generally prohibited” from dealing with the sanctioned entities, officials said. Any entities owned 50 percent or more by any of the subjects also will be subject to the sanctions.

The move comes after Britain, the United States and other NATO countries expelled more than 150 Russian diplomats in a show of solidarity over the poisoning of a former Russian spy and his daughter, who were attacked with a nerve agent in Britain.

The spy, Sergei Skripal, 66, remains in a British hospital following the March 4 poisoning that Britain has blamed on Russia. The attack on the Skripals set off wide diplomatic recriminations, between the West and Moscow, that were reminiscent of the Cold War standoffs of the 1950s.

Russia has adamantly denied involvement and expelled an equal number of Western envoys. There was no immediate Russian reaction to the latest sanctions.

This story was written by William Gallo
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The Trump administration on Friday announced wide-ranging sanctions against 38 Russian individuals and companies, part of what senior administration officials billed as a response “to address Russia’s pattern of malign activities” around the world.

The sanctions will be imposed on seven Russian oligarchs — including Oleg Deripaska, an aluminum magnate and close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin — and 12 companies they own or control. Seventeen senior Russian government officials, as well as a state-owned Russian weapons trading company, also will be targeted.

U.S. officials say the sanctions are “not in response to any single event or issue,” but are aimed at countering the “totality of the Russian government’s ongoing and increasingly brazen pattern of malign activity around the world.”

In a briefing with reporters, the officials cited Russia’s occupation of Crimea, the destabilizing of eastern Ukraine, support for the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad, Moscow’s “ongoing malicious cyber activity,” and “Russia’s continued attacks to subvert Western democracies.”

“Elites are not immune from accountability from the actions of the Russian government,” a U.S. official said, adding that Russian oligarchs should use their position of influence to “put an end to this cycle of destabilizing Russian activity around the globe.”

The oligarchs, the official said, have “reaped great benefits under the Putin regime and play a key role in its malign agenda.”

The sanctions will block all of the oligarchs’ assets that are subject to U.S. jurisdiction, and U.S. persons will be “generally prohibited” from dealing with the sanctioned entities, officials said. Any entities owned 50 percent or more by any of the subjects also will be subject to the sanctions.

The move comes after Britain, the United States and other NATO countries expelled more than 150 Russian diplomats in a show of solidarity over the poisoning of a former Russian spy and his daughter, who were attacked with a nerve agent in Britain.

The spy, Sergei Skripal, 66, remains in a British hospital following the March 4 poisoning that Britain has blamed on Russia. The attack on the Skripals set off wide diplomatic recriminations, between the West and Moscow, that were reminiscent of the Cold War standoffs of the 1950s.

Russia has adamantly denied involvement and expelled an equal number of Western envoys. There was no immediate Russian reaction to the latest sanctions.

This story was written by William Gallo
…

Did March provide another month of blowout hiring? Was pay growth healthy?

When the government issues its monthly jobs report Friday, those two questions will be the most closely watched barometers.

Economists have forecast that employers added a solid 185,000 jobs in March and that the unemployment rate dipped from 4.1 percent to a fresh 17-year low of 4 percent, according to data provider FactSet.

The government will issue the jobs report at 8:30 a.m. Eastern time.

In February, employers added a blockbuster 313,000 jobs, the largest monthly gain in 18 months. Over the past six months, the average monthly gain has been 205,000, up from an average of 176,000 in the previous six months. Hiring at that pace could help nudge the unemployment rate below 4 percent in the coming months.

Hiring defies expectations

The surging pace of hiring has defied expectations that the low unemployment rate meant employers would struggle to fill positions, which, in turn, would restrain job growth. Job gains had slowed for most of 2017. But hiring accelerated starting in October, an unusual boost for an economy already in its ninth year of recovery.

In fact, the recovery from the 2008-2009 Great Recession has become the second-longest expansion since the 1850s, when economists began tracking recessions and recoveries. Still, the expansion has been puzzlingly slow, with economic growth averaging just 2.2 percent a year, about a percentage point below the historical average. But its durability has been broadly beneficial.

For example, a rising number of working-age Americans have begun looking for a job and finding one, reversing a trend from the first few years after the recession when many of the unemployed grew discouraged and stopped looking for work.

The proportion of adults in their prime working years, defined as ages 25 to 54, who are either working or looking for work jumped to 82.2 percent in February, up one-half of 1 percentage point from a year earlier. That’s still below the pre-recession level, which suggests that steady economic growth could continue to pull more job-seekers off the sidelines.

Will wages rise, too?

An increasing need to compete for workers may also finally be lifting wages in some sectors. Average hourly earnings rose 2.9 percent in January compared with 12 months earlier, the sharpest such increase in eight years. That unexpected surge triggered a plunge in financial markets, with investors fearing that accelerating wage growth might lead the Federal Reserve to step up its pace of interest rate hikes to control inflation.

But pay growth slipped in February to a year-over-year pace of 2.6 percent, suggesting that employers are still avoiding giving broad pay raises to their workers. The influx of new workers, which gives employers more hiring options than a 4.1 percent unemployment rate might otherwise suggest, may also be holding back wage growth.

Though the economy likely slowed in the first three months of this year, the healthy pace of hiring indicates that employers anticipate solid customer demand for the rest of the year. Macroeconomic Advisers, a consulting firm, forecasts that the economy grew at just a 1.4 percent annual rate in the January-March quarter — less than half the 2.9 percent annual pace of the October-December quarter.

But the firm expects growth to rebound to a decent 3.1 percent annual pace in the current April-June quarter.

Other reports indicate that growing optimism among businesses and consumers should help propel the economy in the months ahead.

Businesses have stepped up their spending on manufactured goods, helping lift factory output.

And last month, factories expanded at a healthy pace after having grown in February at the fastest rate since 2004, according to a private survey. Government data showed that orders for long-lasting factory goods, including industrial machinery, metals and autos, surged in February.

Americans have spent less at retail chains in the past two months, after shopping at a healthy pace during the winter holiday season. With consumer confidence near the highest point in two decades, however, consumer spending is likely to rebound in the coming months.

This story was written by the Associated Press.
…

Did March provide another month of blowout hiring? Was pay growth healthy?

When the government issues its monthly jobs report Friday, those two questions will be the most closely watched barometers.

Economists have forecast that employers added a solid 185,000 jobs in March and that the unemployment rate dipped from 4.1 percent to a fresh 17-year low of 4 percent, according to data provider FactSet.

The government will issue the jobs report at 8:30 a.m. Eastern time.

In February, employers added a blockbuster 313,000 jobs, the largest monthly gain in 18 months. Over the past six months, the average monthly gain has been 205,000, up from an average of 176,000 in the previous six months. Hiring at that pace could help nudge the unemployment rate below 4 percent in the coming months.

Hiring defies expectations

The surging pace of hiring has defied expectations that the low unemployment rate meant employers would struggle to fill positions, which, in turn, would restrain job growth. Job gains had slowed for most of 2017. But hiring accelerated starting in October, an unusual boost for an economy already in its ninth year of recovery.

In fact, the recovery from the 2008-2009 Great Recession has become the second-longest expansion since the 1850s, when economists began tracking recessions and recoveries. Still, the expansion has been puzzlingly slow, with economic growth averaging just 2.2 percent a year, about a percentage point below the historical average. But its durability has been broadly beneficial.

For example, a rising number of working-age Americans have begun looking for a job and finding one, reversing a trend from the first few years after the recession when many of the unemployed grew discouraged and stopped looking for work.

The proportion of adults in their prime working years, defined as ages 25 to 54, who are either working or looking for work jumped to 82.2 percent in February, up one-half of 1 percentage point from a year earlier. That’s still below the pre-recession level, which suggests that steady economic growth could continue to pull more job-seekers off the sidelines.

Will wages rise, too?

An increasing need to compete for workers may also finally be lifting wages in some sectors. Average hourly earnings rose 2.9 percent in January compared with 12 months earlier, the sharpest such increase in eight years. That unexpected surge triggered a plunge in financial markets, with investors fearing that accelerating wage growth might lead the Federal Reserve to step up its pace of interest rate hikes to control inflation.

But pay growth slipped in February to a year-over-year pace of 2.6 percent, suggesting that employers are still avoiding giving broad pay raises to their workers. The influx of new workers, which gives employers more hiring options than a 4.1 percent unemployment rate might otherwise suggest, may also be holding back wage growth.

Though the economy likely slowed in the first three months of this year, the healthy pace of hiring indicates that employers anticipate solid customer demand for the rest of the year. Macroeconomic Advisers, a consulting firm, forecasts that the economy grew at just a 1.4 percent annual rate in the January-March quarter — less than half the 2.9 percent annual pace of the October-December quarter.

But the firm expects growth to rebound to a decent 3.1 percent annual pace in the current April-June quarter.

Other reports indicate that growing optimism among businesses and consumers should help propel the economy in the months ahead.

Businesses have stepped up their spending on manufactured goods, helping lift factory output.

And last month, factories expanded at a healthy pace after having grown in February at the fastest rate since 2004, according to a private survey. Government data showed that orders for long-lasting factory goods, including industrial machinery, metals and autos, surged in February.

Americans have spent less at retail chains in the past two months, after shopping at a healthy pace during the winter holiday season. With consumer confidence near the highest point in two decades, however, consumer spending is likely to rebound in the coming months.

This story was written by the Associated Press.
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