Thread: Union Blasts Immigration Raid Tactics

Union Blasts Immigration Raid Tactics
By OSKAR GARCIA 08.16.07, 2:57 PM ET
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/08/ ... 27466.html

OMAHA, Neb. -
The president of a food workers' union is calling for congressional hearings into tactics used by federal officials during immigration raids last year at a Swift & Co. meatpacking plant in Grand Island and five other Swift plants.

Top union officials gathered on Thursday with Swift workers from plants raided in December by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

"No water, no food for hours standing up there together. Worse than the animals that are sacrificed there every day," said Delphina Arias, a Swift worker at the Cactus, Texas, plant. "It was depressing as a U.S. citizen and as a human being."

Joseph Hansen, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, said the union will hold hearings around the county to catalog workers' experiences during the raids.

Hansen said the workers' rights are under attack and that the union will defend them.

"At gunpoint, more than 12,000 workers were herded together and systematically stripped of their rights," Hansen said. "Workers were denied access to telephones, to bathrooms and legal counsel."

ICE spokesman Tim Counts said the actions taken by ICE agents "were fully within the law."

"All rights were respected, due process was given to everyone, and these allegations are baseless," he said.

"These were criminal search warrants which gave us the legal authority to enter the plant, search the plant and question every single individual in the plant."

The union said it was planning to file a federal lawsuit against ICE for what it called military tactics that violated the workers' Fourth Amendment rights against illegal search and seizure.

"Work is not a crime. Workers are not criminals. We do not leave our constitutional rights at the plant gate," Hansen said.

Besides the raids in Grand Island and at the Texas plant, Swift plants were also raided in Greeley, Colo.; Hyrum, Utah; Marshalltown, Iowa; and Worthington, Minn.

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Aug. 16, 2007, 5:15PM
Union calls federal immigration raids 'increasingly militant'
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/5060618.html
By OSKAR GARCIA Associated Press Writer
© 2007 The Associated Press

OMAHA, Neb. — The president of the Food and Commercial Workers union on Thursday called for congressional hearings into tactics used by federal officials during immigration raids last year at six Swift & Co. meatpacking plants.

Union officials heard complaints from Swift workers in plants raided by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in December.

"No water, no food for hours standing up there together. Worse than the animals that are sacrificed there every day," said Delphina Arias, 44, who works at the Cactus, Texas, Swift plant. "It was depressing as a U.S. citizen and as a human being."

Joseph Hansen, president of the union, said workers' rights are under attack and the union will defend them.

"At gunpoint, more than 12,000 workers were herded together and systematically stripped of their rights," Hansen said. "Workers were denied access to telephones, to bathrooms and legal counsel."

ICE officials investigating identity theft arrested more than 1,200 workers at the Swift plants.

ICE spokesman Tim Counts said the union's allegations were baseless.

"Each person was treated with respect and was given full access to due process under the law," Counts said Thursday. "People were allowed to use the bathrooms. They were allowed to use telephones."

Counts said workers were allowed to use pay phones on cafeteria walls as well as company phones provided by Swift.

"In many cases, our agents handed their own cell phones to people who couldn't find a free phone," Counts said.

The union said it was planning to file a federal lawsuit against ICE for what it called military tactics that violated the workers' Fourth Amendment rights against illegal search and seizure. It plans to hold hearings around the county to catalog workers' experiences during the raids.

"Work is not a crime. Workers are not criminals. We do not leave our constitutional rights at the plant gate," Hansen said.

Hansen said he expects a lawsuit to be filed by September.

"The civil search warrants gave us the authority and the obligation to search the entire plant and question everyone in the plant," Counts said. "The techniques that were used during the Swift operation are those that have been used for decades by ICE and other law enforcement agencies and have been upheld repeatedly by the courts."

Besides the Texas plant, Swift plants were also raided in Grand Island, Neb.; Greeley, Colo.; Hyrum, Utah; Marshalltown, Iowa; and Worthington, Minn.

More than a dozen workers from five of the plants on Thursday complained about unfair treatment during the raids. Workers in the Utah plant are not covered by the union.

Orlando Nunez, 43, said he was walking in the Grand Island plant with a friend who is white when both were stopped by an ICE agent. Nunez, who is Hispanic and American Indian, said his friend was allowed to leave immediately without being questioned, but he was not.

"(The agent) said he wasn't here for people like him, he was here for people like me — people with dark skin, dark hair, dark eyes," Nunez said.

Counts said workers were never separated by race, only by self-reported legal status.

Mike Graves, 48, said there were obvious racial overtones in the Marshalltown plant as federal agents separated workers, letting some go immediately.

Graves said he was handcuffed for more than 8 hours and quizzed about the driving route from Iowa to Mississippi, where his family is from.

"I'm a black U.S. citizen," Graves said. "Been here all my life."

Others complained that federal agents degraded them during the searches.

"We all got our rights violated," said Sonia Mendoza, 30, who works in the Cactus plant. Mendoza said she was patted down in front of others by a male ICE agent, and told there wasn't a female agent available to search her when she asked for one.

Loida Cruz, 50, a Worthington plant worker, said she was not given privacy while she changed her clothes and was forced to use the bathroom in front of agents.

"They wouldn't let me close the stall door," Cruz said.

Brazilian firm JBS S.A. acquired Swift from a private equity firm for about $1.5 billion in July. The purchase made the company the world's largest beef processor.
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On the Net:

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement: http://www.ice.gov

United Food and Commercial Workers International Union: http://www.ufcw.org

Swift & Co.: http://www.swiftbrands.com

"Work is not a crime. Workers are not criminals.

Ever heard of "authorization to work" when you are from a foreign country? It's unlawful without the proper documents. Get real and lose the cliches.

Hansen sure makes a lot of money:
http://www.unionfacts.com/unions/unionO ... ame=HANSEN

I wonder if he has other skeletons in his closet.