Workers' detention protested by group
'Their crime is not speaking English,' organizer says

Greg Livadas
Staff writer

(July 11, 2007) — When Monroe County sheriff's deputies were called to investigate suspicious activity at Pittsford Plaza in June, they found a dozen men who didn't speak English.

The U.S. Border Patrol was notified, and the men, who ranged in age from 20 to 40, did not have documentation to be in the United States. They were then taken to the federal detention center in Batavia pending immigration hearings.

The fact that federal agents were called simply because the men didn't speak English sparked a protest of 22 people and a dachshund Tuesday outside the Monroe County Sheriff's Office and later at the County Office Building, where they chanted, "Immigrants are welcome here, don't give in to racist fear."

"They're treating these workers as criminals," said organizer Roberto Resto of Rochester, who helped form Rochester Alliance for Immigrant Rights. "Their crime is not speaking English. They work hard to support their families."

Resto said 12 million undocumented workers, including those who entered this country illegally and those who stayed past their visa expiration, are in the United States. But it wasn't until last year that federal agents began arresting and deporting them.

"They're out to punish these people. We're here to fight for their rights," Resto said.

He said most undocumented workers are employed in the construction, hotel service and janitorial fields or are farm workers. "They are not taking any people's jobs," Resto said. "They're helping the economy."

The men were in Pittsford to lay tile for a subcontractor building The Cheesecake Factory. They were unloading material to or from vans about 3:30 a.m. when deputies were called to investigate.

Eleven of the men were from Mexico; one was from Honduras, officials said at the time. They said the men admitted entering the country illegally.

Another protester, Brian Erway of Rochester, said deputies should have called an interpreter, not Border Patrol, if they couldn't communicate.

"There is no assumption of guilt just because you speak a different language or have a darker skin color," he said. "That is no reason to presume they should be sent through immigration cops."

No one from the Sheriff's Office returned calls to comment about the incident Tuesday.

Resto said Tuesday's demonstration was the first mobilization of his group's "Emergency Response Network" that will protest what he called future injustices.

GLIVADAS@DemocratandChronicle.com

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