Mike Graves, a U.S. worker and member of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1149 who was temporarily detained during a raid at a Swift & Co. meatpacking plant, told a House subcommittee Feb. 13 that his detention and that of other citizens held during the raid was a "complete violation of our rights."
Graves told the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law that during the Dec. 12, 2006, raid he was detained for approximately eight hours and denied the opportunity to call his family or an attorney.
Similar civil rights violations "can happen at any workplace at any time in this country if we do not do something now to change the way these immigration raids are conducted," he said.
Defending the Department of Homeland Security's practices, however, Gary Mead, deputy director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement's office of detention and removal operations, told the subcommittee that ICE's core mission includes the "apprehension, detention, and removal of inadmissible and deportable aliens."
"In carrying out these missions, ICE officers are ever mindful of their sworn duty to protect the rights of all individuals to the best of their abilities," Mead said.
ICE agents raided six Swift & Co. meat processing facilities, detaining 1,282 individuals on immigration and criminal charges. Over 1,000 special agents were involved in the early-morning raids at Swift plants in Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Texas, and Utah.
ICE Agents 'Trying to Do Their Job.'
U.S. workers who are temporarily detained during worksite enforcement actions should blame the reckless employers who hire illegal immigrants and their illegal immigrant co-workers, not the ICE agents who are trying to do their job, Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), said.
"ICE agents who conduct worksite raids undergo extensive training," Mead said. Over the course of an 18-week training course, agents learn about the Immigration and Nationality Act, interviewing skills, and basic law enforcement techniques, he said.
When asked if eight hours is a reasonable period of time for a U.S. citizen to be detained during a worksite enforcement raid, Mead said "it all depends on the circumstances of the raid" and it can take "some time" to identify U.S. citizens depending on the number of workers that have to be processed during a raid.
Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) asked Mead why worksite enforcement raids seem to be targeting Hispanics over other immigrant ethnic groups. Mead said "you'll have to talk to business owners about their hiring practices, and why they employ more Hispanics."
"ICE does not racially profile," Mead said.
Raid Felt Like 'Attack.'
Graves told members of the subcommittee that he will "never forget" the ICE raid at the Swift & Co., meatpacking plant in Marshalltown, Iowa, where he works.
The raid felt "like an attack" as men in SWAT uniforms with guns and no visible identification descended upon the plant, Graves said.
Thousands of meatpacking workers "including citizens, legal residents, and immigrants in the process of legalization, were swept up in ICE raids at six Swift plants across the country," UFCW said in a Feb. 13 statement.
Graves said he was detained for eight hours and spent more than one hour in handcuffs. He said he was not allowed to contact his family, union representative, or lawyer during the time he was detained.
"I am a U.S. Citizen, born in Iowa, yet ICE agents treated me as a criminal," Graves said. "Working is not a crime, and workers do not leave their constitutional rights at the plant gate," he said.
"What happened to me--and to thousands of other U.S. citizens and legal residents on that December day--was a complete violation of our rights," Graves said.
"It is a national game of 'Wheel of Misfortune' for those who are unlucky enough to be caught in the sweeps and separated from their families," Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia, deputy director for legal affairs at the National Immigration Forum, said in a Feb. 13 statement.
"It is a fantasy to believe we can simply enforce our way out of the current situation, hoping we can catch and deport 12 million undocumented people, incarcerate an estimated one in 20 U.S. workers, or that these millions will leave on their own," Wadhia said.
"A rational system that gets our undocumented workforce into the system and on the books is needed, but with comprehensive immigration reform at a stalemate, ICE continues a course of using archaic laws to penalize immigrants, their families, and people who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time," Wadhia said.
UFCW Files Lawsuit, Forms Commission
"We have seen federal agents routinely violate the Fourth Amendment rights of workers during massive workplace raids across the country," Mark Lauritsen, UFCW international vice president, said in a Feb. 13 statement. "Until national leaders fix our country's immigration system, our local communities will be torn apart, and the constitutional rights of citizens and legal residents will be routinely violated," he said.
In September 2007, UFCW filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas calling for an injunction against the "excessive, illegal and unnecessary worksite raids conducted by ICE agents," the union said. The lawsuit alleges that federal agencies and officials violated the constitutional and statutory rights of thousands of citizens and lawful U.S. residents by detaining them during immigration raids (UFCW v. Chertoff, N.D. Tex., No. 2:07-cv-00188, complaint filed 9/12/07).
Additionally, UFCW formed a national commission to examine the policies and practices ICE uses during enforcement actions. The commission will gather independent information and analysis through a series of regional public hearings that will explore the execution and ramifications of worksite raids, UFCW said (1 WIR 16, 10/22/07 ). The first commission hearing will be held Feb. 25.