New York officials and advocates are condemning immigration raids that disrupted communities after dozens of workers were detained by ICE and Border Patrol agents Thursday.
The immigration enforcement operations took place in Cato and Fulton, New York. They come as the Trump administration has ramped up immigration enforcement operations at work sites across the country.
One of the raids, at Nutrition Bar Confectioners packaging plant in Cato, New York, was captured on video. Advocates and witnesses told Scripps News dozens of agents forced their way into the building using crowbars.
"When I got to the site, I saw it was filled with a bunch of unmarked vehicles and marked vehicles as well. There was a command unit on site. There were ATVs. There were dune buggies. I did not see the dogs, but some of the workers did report that there were dogs on site as well," Ana Mendez-Vasquez, who lives in the community and was at the scene of the raid, told Scripps News Group over the phone Friday.
"They were texting me saying that ICE had raided the place and they had them basically on lockdown. No one could get in or out, um, and they were cutting their communication, so making sure they weren't recording on their phones."
Advocates and witnesses told Scripps News Group workers were separated into two groups while locked inside the plant, one for citizens and permanent residents and the other for non-citizens.
Mendez-Vasquez, an organizer with immigrant advocacy organization Rural & Migrant Ministry, said citizens were told to leave, but non-citizens, despite having work permits, were taken into custody. She added that many of the detained have children.
"A lot of them either have children here in the U.S. or children back home in their home country that they send money to. They're the main breadwinners for their families. And it was very sad contacting the families, making sure that the children had somewhere to stay, either with a legal guardian, maybe a partner that didn't work there or a relative that could take care of them," Mendez-Vasquez said.
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New York Governor Kathy Hochul, in a statement Thursday, said she is outraged by raids which seized at least 40 adults "including parents of at least a dozen children at risk of returning from school to an empty house."
Hochul added that the raids didn't make New Yorkers feel safer but "did shatter hard-working families who are simply trying to build a life here."
The New York raids occurred the same day as Homeland Security Investigations carried out its "largest single-site enforcement operation in the history" of the agency. Hundreds of people were taken into custody from the site, a Hyundai manufacturing megaplant.
In a statement regarding the Cato raid, an ICE Homeland Security Investigations spokesperson said the operation was "court-authorized enforcement actions" and declined to comment further on "this specific ongoing criminal investigation at this time."
Principal owner of Nutrition Bar Confectioners Mark Schmidt told The New York Times that all his workers had legal documentation to work in the United States and called the operation "overkill."
The plant's general manager, Chris Massaro, told Scripps News over the phone that the plant did not receive prior notice about the raid and that the plant reopened Friday.
Advocates say workplace immigration raids have severely impacted local communities and businesses. In the past few months, there have been raids at worksites across the country, including a major commercial warehouse in New Jersey, a dairy farm in New Mexico, and a meatpacking plant in Nebraska.
Mendez-Vasquez said the Cato community, which relies heavily on agriculture and plants like Nutrition Bar Confectioners, have been bracing for these raids. She said workers and advocates had voiced concerns and were assured ICE would not allow ICE on the property without a warrant.
"Some workers are very mad that they were able to get in," Mendez-Vasquez said. "But then again, ICE did force themselves in. So there's only so much that a person can do when these agencies have complete power and complete control over buildings, over just having jurisdiction."
