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By MICHAEL HILL
CATO, N.Y. (AP) — Federal law enforcement officers forced open the doors of a snack bar manufacturer and took away dozens of workers in a surprise enforcement action that the plant’s owner on Friday called “terrifying.”
“There’s got to be a better way to do it,” Lenny Schmidt said at Nutrition Bar Confectioners, a day after officers from U.S. Customs and Border Protection and other agencies raided the family-owned business in Cato, New York, about 30 miles west of Syracuse.
The facility’s employees had all been vetted and had legal documentation, Schmidt said, adding that he would have cooperated with law enforcement if he’d been told beforehand.
“Coming in like they did, it’s frightening for everybody — the Latinos, Hispanics that work here, and everybody else that works here as well, even myself and my family. It’s terrifying,” he said.
Cayuga County Sheriff Brian Schenck said his deputies were among those on scene Thursday morning after being asked a month ago to assist federal agencies, including U.S. Homeland Security Investigations, in executing a search warrant “relative to an ongoing criminal investigation.”
He did not detail the nature of the investigation, referring questions to HSI, which he said was leading it.
HSI did not respond to requests for information.
The explanation left state Sen. Rachel May, a Democrat who represents the district, with questions.
“It’s not clear to me if it’s a longstanding criminal investigation why the workers would have been rounded up,” May said by phone Friday. “I feel like there are things that don’t quite add up.”
Briefly detained worker describes surprise raid
Video and photos from the scene showed numerous law enforcement vehicles outside the plant and workers being escorted from the building to a Border Patrol van.
A 24-year-old worker who was briefly detained said Friday that immigration agents ordered everyone to a lunchroom where they asked for proof they were in the country legally.
The worker, who declined to be named for fear of retribution, said that after showing the agents he is a legal resident, they wrote down his information and photographed him.
“Some of the women started to cry because their kids were at school or at day care. It was very sad to see,” the worker, who arrived from Guatemala six years ago, said.
His partner, who lacks legal status, was among those taken away.
The two of them started working at the factory about two years ago. He was assigned to the snack bar-wrapping department and she to the packing area. He said he couldn’t talk to her before she was led away by agents. He still doesn’t know where she is being detained.
“I could tell she was sad,” the worker said. “What they are doing to us is not right. We’re here to work. We are not criminals.”
Schmidt said he doesn’t believe his plant was specifically targeted and that immigrations enforcement agents are singling out any company with “some sort of Hispanic workforce, whether small or large.”
The raid came the same day that immigration authorities detained 475 people, most of them South Korean nationals, at a manufacturing site in Georgia where Korean automaker Hyundai makes electric vehicles.
Without his missing employees, Schmidt estimated production at the food manufacturer would drop by about half, making it a challenge to meet customer demand. The plant employs close to 230 people.
“We’ll just do what we need to do to move forward to give our customers the product that they need,” he said, “and then slowly recoup, rehire where we need.”
Dozens still held a day later
Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said she was outraged by the raid and said those detained included parents of “at least a dozen children at risk of returning from school to an empty house.”
“I’ve made it clear: New York will work with the federal government to secure our borders and deport violent criminals, but we will never stand for masked ICE agents separating families and abandoning children,” she said in a statement.
The advocacy group Rural and Migrant Ministry said between 50 and 60 people, most of them from Guatemala, were still being held Friday. Among those released late Thursday, after about 11 hours, was a mother of a newborn child who urgently needed to nurse her baby, the group’s chief program officer, Wilmer Jimenez, said. He said she was told to report in later.
Jimenez said employees were in a panic during the hours law enforcement officers were on site.
“The way they went into the factory was very aggressive,” Jimenez said. “They used crowbars to open the doors in many directions and it was just something that people were not expecting.”
The worker who was briefly detained said he has been helping to support his parents and siblings who grow corn and beans in Guatemala. He became a legal resident two years ago after working with an immigration attorney.
He said he took Friday off but plans to get back to work on Monday.
“I have to go back because I can’t be without work,” he said.
Olga Rodriguez in San Francisco and Carolyn Thompson in Buffalo, N.Y. contributed to this report.
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