Detainees rebut ICE

Court filings detail workers' version of immigration sweep

Myung Oak Kim, Rocky Mountain News

Published January 6, 2007 at midnight

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Sixty-one workers arrested during a Dec. 12 immigration raid at the Swift & Co. meatpacking plant in Greeley remain in a Texas jail despite a federal judge's order to keep them in local lockups.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials told lawyers representing Swift workers three weeks ago that they were sending the out-of-state detainees back to Colorado. But only five workers came back.

Complaints that these workers are being unfairly separated from family and lawyers are part of a wider dispute over the arrest and treatment of at least 260 immigrant workers detained during a national ICE sweep.

While ICE has defended its sweep in court filings as orderly and humane, workers caught up in the raid now are revealing details, including some made in a court filing Friday, that challenge ICE's description of events.

One Swift worker detained for two weeks at the Aurora immigration jail said he and other inmates had to sleep standing up because of overcrowding, according to the new court filings.

Also Friday, federal officials said the number of Swift workers charged with identity theft and other crimes has risen to 220.

Federal authorities touted the Swift raids as a crackdown on identity theft.

But authorities initially charged only 65 of nearly 1,300 workers arrested across the country with such offenses.

Fewer than 20 workers arrested in Greeley were charged with criminal offenses shortly after the raid, and no additional charges have been filed, a Weld County District Attorney's Office spokeswoman said Friday.

The United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 7, which represents the meatpacking plant employees, filed a federal civil suit after the raid alleging ICE violated the workers' due process rights.

Since then, the union and ICE have exchanged volleys in the form of court filings.

ICE officials have refused to speak publicly about details of the sweep or the civil suit.

Here's their version of that day, according to a court filing by ICE assistant special agent in charge Paul Maldonado:

ICE agents executed a search warrant at the Greeley plant at 7:30 a.m. Dec. 12 based on the "justifiable suspicions that a substantial number of Swift employees were illegally in the United States and had engaged in identity theft in order to secure employment with Swift."

ICE agents told people who were born in the United States to move to one side of the cafeteria, and the others were told to go to the other side.

Workers were allowed to use public telephones or other workers' cell phones to call relatives.

No workers requested to have a lawyer.

Arrested workers were taken by bus to a processing site at the Denver Federal Center in Lakewood.

While on buses, ICE agents who spoke Spanish told the workers of their legal rights, their ability to get a lawyer and their options in the immigration system.

ICE agents at the processing center offered their cell phones to the workers to make calls.

About 75 Mexican nationals were transported back to Mexico that night because they requested to return voluntarily.

All of the detained workers were processed at the Lakewood site by 2 a.m. Dec. 13.

After processing, workers were sent to one of three jails: the Aurora immigration jail, the Park County Jail or the Otero County Prison facility in Chaparral, N.M.

Sixty-one workers were sent from Chaparral to El Paso, Texas, on Dec. 16.

Five were returned to Colorado from New Mexico.

At least 25 workers arrested at Swift were released within the first few days for humanitarian reasons.

Union lawyer DeAngelo Starnes submitted affidavits Friday from a union member and about 20 detained workers, claiming due process violations and deportations accomplished through "coercion, intimidation and harassment."

Several workers said they were not told they had a right to talk to a lawyer.

Here's the workers' version of the raid and their treatment since, according to court filings:

Detainee Gregorio Gomez, a Mexican national, said he was handcuffed for more than 12 hours.

Gomez said ICE agents told him a voluntary departure is not a deportation and that if he signed the paper agreeing to return to Mexico voluntarily, he could return to the U.S. the next day.

Gomez said his hands were shackled to his waist, and when he was given a sandwich at 7 p.m. the day he was arrested, it was nearly frozen, and he could not bend over to eat it because he was still handcuffed.

He was released on bond Dec. 20.

Detainee Edgar Elisardo Monjaras-Lopez said ICE agents did not tell him about his right to have a lawyer, would not allow anyone to use public telephones in the cafeteria and did not offer cell phones to the workers.

He said he was put in a room at the Aurora jail with 27 other inmates when the capacity is for nine people. He had to sleep standing up.

He did not get access to a telephone until he had been in custody for four days.

He was released on bond Dec. 26.

By the numbers

260-262

workers arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents Dec. 12 at the Swift & Co. meatpacking plant in Greeley.*

25 workers were quickly released pending an immigration hearing because of humanitarian reasons, including their inability to find care for children.

61 workers are being held in an immigration jail in El Paso, Texas.

40 workers have been released on bond from the Aurora immigration jail.

40 workers are being held in the Aurora immigration jail.

75 workers were sent back to Mexico the night of the raid.

18 workers face criminal charges, including those related to identity theft, in Weld County.*Ice Said In Court Filings That 260 Workers Were Arrested. Ice Officials Also Publicly Said The Number Is 261. A Lawyer Representing Many Of The W ...

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