Federal Raid for Illegal Immigrants at Swift & Company's Meatpacking Plant in Cactus, Texas
Federal
Raid for Illegal Immigrants at Swift & Company's Meatpacking Plant in Cactus,
Texas
December 13, 2006
By Dianne Solis & David McLemore / The Dallas Morning News
The federal raid that shut down the Swift
& Co. meatpacking plant Tuesday in Cactus,
Texas, left hundreds of families scattered and
the future unclear for a town that survives on
a mix of illegal
immigration and dangerous work.
The Cactus beef processing plant
– the only big thing in a very small place
– was one of six Swift plants in six states
that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents
hit during the early morning to break up what
the government called a nationwide network that
supplied illegal immigrants with authentic documents
– Social Security cards and birth certificates
of real people – to get jobs at Swift.
While agents targeted a company
that bills itself as the world's second largest
processor of beef and pork, members of Congress
praised the crackdown in the name of immigration
reform. But uncertainty and chaos engulfed the
little Moore County crossroads of about 5,000
people – many of them illegal immigrants,
according to local officials.
The Swift plant remained closed
Tuesday evening – as did Cactus, for all
practical purposes.
"El pueblo esta muy solo"
– the town is very quiet and alone, said
Celso Loya, a native of Chihuahua, Mexico, who
is now a naturalized citizen. He runs the Bandolero
Discoteque and also works at the Swift plant.
Hundreds of Immigration and Customs Enforcement
agents from across the country were at the Swift
plant, checking room by room for illegal immigrants
in an action they called Operation Wagon Train.
Agents brought 11 buses to take
detainees to local jails, where sheriffs and police
chiefs were making room.
"People are being bused out,
and people are very, very frightened," said
Jim Papian of the United
Food and Commercial Workers International,
a union with a labor contract at the Cactus plant.
"And there are reports of herding and segregating
workers."
Swift lashed out at the raids, complaining
in a prepared statement that they violated longstanding
agreements with federal officials on monitoring
the immigration status of the company's workers.
The actions also "raise serious questions
as to the government's possible violation of individual
workers' civil rights," the company said.
"Swift has never condoned the
employment of unauthorized workers, nor have we
ever knowingly hired such individuals," president
and CEO Sam Rovit said. "Swift has played
by the rules and relied in good faith on a program
explicitly held out by the president of the United
States as an effective tool to help employers
comply with applicable immigration laws."
Immigration
and Customs Enforcement agents served search
warrants obtained under federal civil law, but
they were also authorized to hold any illegal
immigrants they found on outstanding criminal
warrants. The government said it started investigating
illegal workers using stolen identities at Swift
plants in February. Criminal charges of aggravated
identity theft or other counts could come later.
Agents said they had identified
hundreds of possible identity theft victims.
The ICE raid follows a report by
The Dallas Morning News last month that workers
at the Cactus plant were using documents with
the stolen identities of legal residents.
The other raided Swift plants are
in Greeley, Colo.; Grand Island, Neb.; Hyrum,
Utah; Marshalltown, Iowa; and Worthington, Minn.
Blanca Valenzuela, a 61-year-old former Swift
worker and former union steward at the Cactus
plant, laid the blame squarely at the company's
feet.
"This is Swift & Co.'s
fault because they hired them," said Ms.
Valenzuela, one of about two dozen workers who
filed a lawsuit in a Dallas County District Court
that alleges Swift fired them after they
were injured on the job.
"If Immigration is finding
people illegally there ... why couldn't [Swift]
find them?" she asked. "That is Swift
& Co. They will do anything to keep that [meat]
line going, whether you are legal or illegal."
In October, the workers' Dallas
attorney, Domingo García, added a racketeering
allegation to their lawsuit, contending that Swift
and its owners conspired to bring cheap, illegal
workers from Guatemala
to hold down labor costs. Swift has denied all
the allegations and asked for dismissal of the
suit.
Swift's owners are Dallas-based
HM
Capital Partners LLC and Booth Creek Management
Corp. HM Capital was previously known as Hicks
Muse Tate & Furst Inc., a high-flying leverage
managementfirm co-founded by Tom
Hicks. Mr. Hicks retired from the firm nearly
two years ago.
How many held unclear ICE officials
wouldn't say how many people were in custody but
promised more details today. Johnny Rodriguez,
president of United Food and Commercial Workers
Local 540 in Dallas, said agents detained about
300 to 400 workers on Swift's morning shift. The
plant employs about 2,300 people. Union officials
were trying to get lawyers in to tell the workers
they had a right to legal counsel and to remain
silent, Mr. Rodriguez said. But "they won't
let us do that."
Agents at the scene said the people
had been detained, not arrested, said Mr. Rodriguez,
a former meat cutter.
"I don't know the difference
between being arrested and detained," he
said. "They are in handcuffs and strapped.
It's a mess." The distinction between detainment
and arrest also was unclear in ICE's statements.
Late Tuesday in Dallas, agency spokesman
Carl Rusnok, asked about delays in getting the
workers access to lawyers, said agents at the
scene "still have to process the people they
have arrested."
The union also had located at least 35 children
in the nearby communities of Dalhart and Stratford
whose parents were in custody. Mr. Rodriguez did
not know how many children were stranded in Cactus
and Dumas, a city about 15 miles from the plant.
Any of the children born in the United States
are U.S. citizens, regardless of their parents'
immigration status.
In neighboring Randall County, Sheriff
Joel Richardson said he was prepared to hold about
50 federal detainees for up to six months. "I
just brought an extra person into booking,"
he said. "Otherwise, we
were ready."
Under a contract, the U.S. government
pays the county $47.73 daily for each federal
inmate. Federal agencies hadn't asked Texas officials
for help with the workers' children, said Greg
Cunningham, a spokesman for Texas
Child Protective Services in Amarillo. "It's
our understanding that there's a mechanism in
place with the federal officials to take care
of these types of situations," he said.
U.S.
Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Clarendon, whose district
includes Cactus, said he was also worried about
the disruption of the workers' families. "At
a human level, we're all concerned about families
that get split up," Mr. Thornberry said.
"On the other hand, if someone violates our
laws, there are consequences that go with that."
He added, however, that a cycle
of need – for workers and for work –
all but ensures that problems like Swift's will
come up again and again. "These packing plants
employ large numbers of people, and it's hard
work," Mr. Thornberry said. "Not only
this one, but other packing plants employ large
number of immigrants who are trying to get a start.
A lot of people assume that a number of the people
who work in the packing industry, including at
that plant, may not be here legally."
Opposite Reactions
Food Workers' union official Mark Lauritsen called
the crackdown an attempt to intimidate people
who are willing to do dangerous jobs that others
won't take.
"It's designed to punish workers
for working hard every day, contributing to the
success of their companies and communities,"
he said. "They are innocent victims in an
immigration system that has
been hijacked by corporations for the purpose
of importing an exploitable workforce."
Others praised the government for
going after a major employer of illegal workers.
Rep.
Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., chairman of the Congressional
Immigration Reform Caucus, called for criminal
enforcement. "My hope at this point is that
the U.S. government has the courage to prosecute
the Swift & Co. executives who may have been
complicit" in the hiring of illegal workers,
Mr. Tancredo said. Swift's corporate office in
Greeley, Colo., is not in his district.
Congressman
Charlie Gonzalez, D-San Antonio, called Tuesday's
ICE action essential for aggressive enforcement
of employer immigration laws. "Illegal immigration
would not occur but for the willingness of U.S.
employers to disregard our laws and offer employment
to undocumented workers," he said. "It
should also be noted that regardless of whether
it is a flagrant violation of the law or inadvertence
on the part of the employer, the stark reality
is that the need for these workers exists and
benefits our nation's economy. Congress must reconcile
the political rhetoric with the economic reality."
Mr. Loya, the Bandolero bar owner,
said he never imagined that a redada, or raid,
would hit the sprawling, smelly Swift plant. But
at 8 a.m., his boss took all Swift maintenance
workers aside to tell them to "turn off the
machines because we were surrounded by policias."
Mr. Loya said he was taken aback
by the sight of about 200 ICE agents at the plant,
many of whom arrived in unmarked vehicles.
Without the illegal immigrant population, Mr.
Loya estimates, Cactus has shriveled to half its
former size of about 5,000 persons. And Mr. Loya
may feel the drop-off in business at his honky
tonk on U.S. Highway 287.
The long-term economic impact on
the company town wasn't clear yet. That will depend
on how much of the Swift workforce was detained,
said Cactus Police Chief Tim Turley. "The
only way it would hurt the town economy is if
they picked up all the illegal workers, and I
doubt that will happen," he said. "There's
a lot of illegals working at the plant, but they
come in from the surrounding area and as far away
as Liberal, Kansas, to work here. "I'd imagine
the afternoon and night shifts are already in
hiding, waiting to see what happens."
Staff writers Randy Lee Loftis,
Robert T. Garrett in Austin, and Sudeep Reddy
and Todd J. Gillman in Washington contributed
to this report.
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