Thread: Longmont reaction to ICE raids negligible

http://www.longmontfyi.com/Local-Story.asp?id=14873

Publish Date: 2/26/2007

Longmont reaction to ICE raids negligible


By Ben Ready
The Daily Times-Call


LONGMONT — Business leaders and immigrant workers in the city claim December’s immigration raids in Greeley barely raised an eyebrow here.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested 265 workers Dec. 12 at the Swift & Co. plant in Greeley as part of a six-state raid that resulted in 1,282 arrests.

At least publicly, Longmont companies and employees say that since then, they’ve done nothing extra to prevent a raid from happening here or to prepare for a raid’s aftermath.

Longmont Area Economic Council president John Cody said he hasn’t heard any concern about potential future raids from the business community.


Bob Bowman owns Human Resource Management Consultants, a company that works with 76 client companies, primarily in Boulder County. He said that irrespective of the ICE raids, businesses will continue to fall into one of two categories: scrupulous and unscrupulous.

“After seeing what happened in Greeley, that brought (the difference) to the forefront. Colorado has taken notice,” Bowman said.

Though the raids temporarily raised awareness, they probably didn’t change business practices, he said. Unscrupulous owners will continue to skirt the law, while the scrupulous ones — especially if they have the time and finances to do so — will simply continue to train staff to comply with federal and state hiring mandates, Bowman said.


Milton Carrillo, a laborer at Longmont’s Butterball turkey plant, said the Greeley raids sent an initial wave of fear throughout his circle of friends. For a few weeks, rumors flew of where ICE might strike next, he said.


“Whether it’s in this company or any other, people aren’t going to go around saying, ‘I don’t have papers’ or ‘I have a plan (for my kids) in case I’m detained,’” Carrillo said in Spanish. “If you don’t have papers or you say you have a plan, everyone will know you’re undocumented.”

Carrillo estimated that 80 percent of Butterball’s roughly 900 local employees are Hispanic, but he couldn’t say how many are immigrants. Butterball management declined to comment for this story.




El Comité of Longmont, a Latino advocacy nonprofit, said it will soon meet with the St. Vrain Valley Latino Coalition to strategize on how to help local residents if their family members are arrested in an ICE raid. El Comité director Marta Moreno said that in general, Longmont’s immigrant community hasn’t worried about a Greeley repeat.

“If they were worried, they’d be coming here (to El Comité),” Moreno said.

Fernando Rodriquez is a director of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, Local 7. The union has 23,000 members working in grocery stores, packing plants, health-care facilities and other industries throughout Colorado and Wyoming, including several hundred at the Swift plant in Greeley and hundreds more in Longmont.




“There ain’t no effect at all, period,” in Longmont after the Greeley raids, Rodriquez said.

ICE’s federal spokesman in Dallas, Carl Rusnok, said many people simply don’t understand how pervasive the problem of illegal immigrants is.

“(A raid) can happen in Greeley, it can happen in Longmont, it can happen anywhere in the country,” Rusnok said. “ICE is in the job of enforcing immigration laws, and we are especially going after employers who egregiously violate those laws ... not just with fines but with criminal arrests and criminal prosecutions.”

Ben Ready can be reached at 303-684-5326, or by e-mail at bready@times-call.com.

Carrillo estimated that 80 percent of Butterball’s roughly 900 local employees are Hispanic, but he couldn’t say how many are immigrants. Butterball management declined to comment for this story.

What a ridiculous comment to make. Hasn't Carillo heard, according to the pro-criminal aliens and their advocates we're all IMMIGRANTS. I think Carillo intended on saying, he didn't know how many of the employees were criminal aliens.