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Swift Disputes ICE Charges It Helped Undocumented Employees

Julie Myers, under secretary in charge of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement arm, charged that Swift & Co. undermined the agency’s planned raids on Swift plants by conducting its own investigation, thereby alerting undocumented aliens who may have been using stolen identities that enforcement was on the horizon.

At least 400 Swift employees left voluntarily earlier this month when Swift management confronted them. Others were given time to produce authentic documents, but never returned to work.

“We do wish they would have talked to us before deciding to terminate those individuals,“ Myers said Wednesday evening.

Swift, meanwhile, contends it did talk to ICE. Don Wiseman, general counsel for Greeley, Colo.-based Swift, said that the company has a response from ICE acknowledging Swift’s request to interview some of its employees.

Marcy Forman, head of ICE investigations, said in the letter that ICE would in no way object to Swift investigating the documents of employees if the company had become suspicious on its own. “At no time has anyone from ICE told any Swift official that they cannot take action against employees who Swift determines, on its own, are unauthorized,“ Forman wrote in October.

The clause “on its own“ may be the rub. ICE complains that Swift approached illegals only after ICE investigators questioned them during their identity-theft investigation.

Swift did not return calls from Meatingplace.com for further comment on Thursday afternoon.

By Pete Hisey on Friday, December 15, 2006