From the AP:

The head of meatpacker Swift & Co. said federal officials wanted a high-profile example of an immigration crackdown when they staged raids at its plants in six states, including Minnesota, in an identity theft investigation late last year.

ICE arrested 1,282 workers during raids in Colorado, Nebraska, Texas, Utah, Iowa and Minnesota. Of those, 246 now face state or federal identity theft charges and the rest face immigration charges.

President and CEO Sam Rovit said the government rejected the company's offer to help in the investigation months before the Dec. 12 raids.

"They were looking for a marquee to show the administration it was tough on immigration,'' he told the Greeley Tribune for a story published Friday.

Here's a reminder of the toll of this demonstration.

Senators angry over the recent six-state "identity theft" raids by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recently held a closed-door meeting with the agency's chief, according to AP.

Their concerns appear to center not around the arrest and detainment of the thousand or so workers who were never charged with crimes, but how DHS treated their employer, a large meat-packing company who had participated in a DHS-sponsored worker identity program, the news service reports today.

The identity program, known as "Basic Pilot," screens for workers using fake Social Security numbers. It does not verify that a valid Social Security number is being used by its rightful owner.

"I can't think of a system that would be better designed to fail," Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) told a reporter.

"[W]e need to have a clear understanding with the business community," said Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN). "I think it's very unclear now."

DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff acknowledged problems with the program, AP says.

Remember "Operation Wagon Train," the six-state operation to bust up an "identity theft" ring? The Department of Justice just posted a final tally of prosecutions.

Of the nearly 1,300 workers arrested and detained, 148 have been prosecuted on criminal charges, all for identity theft.

Good enough for government work?

The press release is after the jump.

Read more »

As more details come out about the federal raids on six meatpacking plants two weeks ago, union officials continue to voice concerns about the agents' methods.

In particular, the Feds' habit of detaining legal workers, and denying detainees access to lawyers, are drawing closer scrutiny. In their defense, a spokesman for the bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement say they followed the law to the letter.

Read more »

We're getting a better picture of the results of the federal "identity theft" raids last week. And it's increasingly clear that if the Feds were trying to protect citizens from identity thieves, they failed.

Unfortunately, while the Department of Homeland Security held a press conference immediately after the raids to announce nationwide totals for arrests, they have been less chatty about the number of detainees charged with criminal violations, and the Department of Justice has announced indictments in each state as they are handed down from grand juries.

As a result, the picture is incomplete: We know that 1,282 workers were detained in the raids ten days ago. Over 100 were charged with a variety of crimes. So far, grand juries have handed down indictments for 58 of them: 20 from Worthington, Minn.; 15 from Grand Island, Neb.; and 23 from Marshalltown, Iowa, according to reports in local papers. I have not seen indictments reported from the raids in Cactus, Texas, or Greeley, Colo.

Meanwhile, the Bureau of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement has not released a tally of the number of innocent legal workers its agents detained in the raids but later released, nor details on how long they were held before being let go.

Read more »

Following Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), Iowa Governor and presidential hopeful Tom Vilsack has also come out strongly against last week's immigration raids.

In Iowa, indictments have come down from DHS's massive immigration raid last week. Not surprisingly, the number of workers who have been charged with a crime represents a fraction of the number of workers who were arrested in the December 12th raids.

The U.S. Attorney from the Southern District of Iowa has indicted 23 workers from Swift's meat-packing plant in Marshalltown, Iowa, on "immigration and identity theft charges," according to a Justice Department press release. Ninety workers were arrested in Marshalltown last week.

As Justin has pointed out before, only a very small number of the 1,300 detainees from last week's raids of six Swift plants face criminal charges.

The Des Moines Register reports today:

Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa wrote Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff on Tuesday to say he is appalled by the process used to detain and deport workers in raids earlier this month at six Swift & Co. packing plants, including one in Marshalltown.

Harkin, a Democrat, said a telephone hot line for information for family members set up by the government has gone unanswered at times. It "provided no information of any use" at other times, Harkin said in the letter.

It has been "almost impossible" for lawyers and members of the clergy to gain access to workers who were detained, and workers were taken to other states without being granted access to lawyers, Harkin said.

Although assurances were made that parents with small children would be released to make arrangements for their children's care, "there continues to be reports of numerous single mothers remaining in custody," Harkin said.

Harkin said he hopes Chertoff shares his belief that "the failure to ensure that basic legal rights and humanitarian protections are afforded to individuals in our immigration system reflects poorly on the principles that have made the United States strong."

Update: Iowa governor Tom Vilsack also fired off an angry letter to Chertoff, criticising the agency's "information blackout" following the raids and for putting his state's National Guard at risk.

President Bush teed off on immigration reform in today's press conference. But while his point may be admirable -- the country needs comprehensive immigration reform -- his portrayal of the facts wasn't. Here's how he described the results of last week's unprecedented raids on meatpacking plants:

"I don't know if you've paid attention to the enforcement measures that were taken recently at some meat-packing plants. They found people that had been working illegally, but all of them had documents that said they were here legally — they were using forged documents."

Not exactly, as regular readers are aware. A day after the raids, ICE announced that only 65 of the nearly 1,300 detainees faced criminal charges, and only some of those involved document fraud. That number has since grown to over a hundred. Still, the vast majority of those arrested in the raids and held for days were not charged with identity theft.

Meanwhile, a number of the detainees have proven they are legal residents and workers, and didn't deserve to be arrested and detained. Some rights groups and union officials are mulling legal action in their cases. Unfortunately, the president gave no word on whether he thought the tactics of immigration enforcement are also up for some comprehensive reform.

The Department of Homeland Security is still holding and processing several hundred workers grabbed in early-morning raids Tuesday -- and finding some surprises.

Agents have charged at least 35 more detainees with criminal violations, according to DHS figures quoted in the Grand Island (Neb.) Independent. "More than 100 people nationwide have now been charged with criminal violations," the paper reports this morning. On Wednesday, that number was 65.

DHS has not said how many of those charged were accused of identity theft.

Meanwhile, agents have also identified a number of legal workers they swept up in the raids, dubbed "Operation Wagon Train," and held for days before releasing them. The United Food and Commercial Workers union has rented vans to pick up newly-released workers from government holding facilities and bring them back home.

Announcing the success of its massive "Operation Wagon Train" yesterday, DHS officials insisted the raids that netted nearly 1,300 arrests were about busting up an identity theft ring. The stats tell a different story.

According to DHS' own tally, only 65 of the 1,282 arrests were for criminal violations, including identity-theft related crimes. That means that over 1,200 of the people arrested had no connection to any identity theft rings, and were guilty only of run-of-the-mill immigration violations. That didn't temper the agency's rhetoric.

“'Enforcement actions like this one protect the privacy rights of innocent Americans while striking a blow against illegal immigration,'” an official press release quotes DHS chief Michael Chertoff.

"[H]undreds of these illegal aliens may have illegally assumed the identities of U.S. citizens," the press release goes on the explain, "and improperly used their Social Security numbers and other identity documents in order to gain employment at Swift facilities."

Read more »

The Denver Post reports at least one bogus arrest: a legal worker at the site of the Greeley, Colo. raid was cuffed, bused away and detained for the day, before being released that evening. Yesterday, a DHS spokesman told me there had been no such incidents:

Sergio Rodriguez was taking a break about 8 a.m. near his position on a production line when ICE agents approached.

"One guy showed up and said, 'Why are you hiding there?' He put handcuffs on me and I still have the marks," he said, rolling up his left sleeve and pointing to a thin red line on his wrist.

Rodriguez, who said he has been in the United States for 27 years, said he didn't have his resident alien card with him. Although his wife brought the document to the plant, she wasn't allowed to give it to him, he said.

He said the agents told him they had a warrant for his arrest. He said he was taken to Denver and held until 8:30 p.m. Tuesday and then released.

Anyone hear of others?

Another story of kids left behind by the DHS raids (earlier stories here and here). From today's Worthington (Minn.) Daily Globe:

Jesus Alcantar, a Swift employee and union representative, said through an interpreter that he had found four children knocking on doors looking for their mother.

“I took them by the hand and started knocking on doors, looking for family members who would take them in,” he said. “I saw a little girl on the street. I saw someone take her, but I don’t know who that was.”

For Washington insiders, one of the most troubling aspects of the Department of Homeland Security's six-state raids is their timing. An agency doesn't execute the largest immigration raid in U.S. history, complete with a press conference and a pretty color map for republishing, because it woke up one day and decided the weather was right.

In fact, it seems there's almost no political climate for the raid. The elections are over, Congress is in recess, it's two weeks to Christmas, the White House has no plans to talk about immigration until next year. I talked this morning with one of the top corporate lobbyists on immigration issues this morning, who echoed the sentiment.

Laura Reiff is with Washington powerhouse firm Greenberg Traurig (once home to Team Abramoff), from where she chairs the "Essential Workers Coalition" -- a bunch of corporations and trade groups which rely on low-wage labor.

Saying she was "very disappointed" with DHS for the raids, she lambasted their political sensibilities. "It makes no political sense whatsoever" to run these raids now, she told me. "I can understand doing this prior to the elections." Furthermore, everybody in power is already focused on immigration -- as an issue for next year. "I talked to the president and Karl Rove last week" about the importance of immigration reform, she said. It's a top priority for both Democratic and Republican leadership. . . You don't need to go in and do these high-profile raids."

Anybody?

The federal government continues to hold hundreds of detained workers from Tuesday's six-state "Operation Wagon Train" raid on Swift meatpacking plants, and the fallout continues.

In Iowa, governor and presidential hopeful Tom Vilsack (D) expressed displeasure with the Department of Homeland Security, which has opted to bar access to detainees by family members or lawyers. DHS is changing its policy, Vilsack's spokeswoman said.

The operation -- which was the largest federal immigration raid in U.S. history -- may not have gotten much play in the national media, but made a profound impression on the communities which lost hundreds of members overnight. "The sight of federal agents raiding the local packinghouse is nothing new. In fact, it's happened several times over the past 15 years," reports the Minneapolis Star-Tribune of the Worthington, Minn. raid. "But never quite like this. . . .

Read more »

Merry Christmas, baby:

A priest's and nun’s mission to find the mother of a nursing baby was thwarted today after they said officials from Camp Dodge would not let them inside to tell their story.

Sister Christine Feagan, from the St. Mary’s Hispanic Ministry, and The Rev. Jim Miller, who is a priest from the St. Mary’s Parish, both said they drove to Camp Dodge [an ICE detention center] this afternoon to find out the status of a nursing mother who was deported and nursing a baby. . . .

At the church’s Hispanic ministry, the baby whose mother was arrested was passed among staff and a community activist who had agreed to help care for her.

They said they don’t know when the girl, whose father is absent, will be reunited with her mother.

I just spoke with a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security's Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). While most of the 1,282 workers arrested and transported to "processing centers" have been processed in "Operation Wagon Train," their multi-state raid, Michael Keegan told me, he has not heard of anyone being released after proving their legal U.S. residency.

"So far we haven't had any reports," he said. (Union officials are complaining that workers aren't allowed to contact them or lawyers.)

I mentioned to Keegan the report from Utah that ICE agents had separated workers by skin color. "Is that right? I can't confirm that," he replied.

Read more »

The fate of children whose parents have been swept up in the government's meatpacking plant raids isn't going unnoticed by the media. As just one example, KSL-TV in Salt Lake City, Utah, reports on the fate of affected kids in its local schools:

[A]t Lincoln Elementary School in the Cache Valley School District there are dozens of children who went home with someone else yesterday, a relative or only one parent.

A similar situation in the Logan City School District at Bridger Elementary School. Yesterday, secretaries and teachers found themselves calling homes to make sure students got picked up. . . .

Just at Bridger Elementary School alone there were seven students affected by yesterday's raid. One teacher said that most of those students were not in school today.

As the principal said, one issue is the fact that they are afraid, but the other issue may be that they are literally preparing to say goodbye to their parents.

A troubling report from the DHS immigration raids yesterday, from the Salt Lake (Utah) Tribune. In this case, DHS agents allegedly separated workers by their skin color -- light-skinned were considered citizens, dark-skinned got scrutiny. Predicatably, they swept up at least one dark-skinned U.S. citizen up with immigrant workers:

If only for a few minutes, Maria felt like an ''illegal alien'' in her homeland - the United States of America.

She thought she was going on break from her job at the Swift & Co. meat processing plant here [in Hyrem, Utah] on Tuesday, but instead she and others were forced to stand in a line by U.S. immigration agents. Non-Latinos and people with lighter skin were plucked out of line and given blue bracelets.

The rest, mostly Latinos with brown skin, waited until they were ''cleared'' or arrested by ''la migra,'' the popular name in Spanish for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), employees said.

''I was in the line because of the color of my skin,'' she said, her voice shaking. ''They're discriminating against me. I'm from the United States, and I didn't even get a blue bracelet.'' . . .

Women were crying as they were handcuffed with plastic ties and put on the buses. Some weren't allowed to get their belongings from their lockers. Maria, who declined to use her last name, argued with an agent because she was getting the coat for her 34-year-old niece, Blanca, who was arrested.

''She [the agent] told me, 'Do you think it's going to be cold in Mexico?' '' Maria said, holding back tears.

The paper confirms that the federal agents took an undisclosed number of people away in buses away to an undisclosed location.

Union officials are outraged over a massive immigration sweep yesterday, which sent 1,000 Homeland Security Department agents -- some in riot gear -- to meatpacking plants in six states to round up immigrant workers suspected of using fake identification, but may have picked up legal workers in the process.

"Stormtroopers came in with machine guns, rounded [the workers] into the cafeterias, separated identified citizens from non-citizens, and then they took away all green cards and put non-citizens onto buses," regardless of the immigrants' legal status, Jill Cashen of the United Food and Commercial Workers union (UCFW) told me this morning.

Cashen said that reports from all six states confirmed that legal immigrants were among those taken away, and have not been returned. "We're still trying to find out where the buses went," she said. "Children have been left at church day cares. Nobody knows where these people are."

Recently unsealed court documents show that DHS had identified 170 identity-fraud suspects it wished to apprehend, but that the agency wanted to round up as many as 5,000 other workers because it "further expect[ed] to apprehend persons who are engaged in large-scale identity theft[.]" Union officials say the total number of detained workers may be higher than 5,000. (Update: We've uploaded those court documents to our document collection here.)

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has not released official tallies from the raids, but have promised to do so at a 10 a.m. press conference in Washington. UFCW is holding a press conference at 9:30 to discuss what they believe to be heavy-handed tactics used by the federal government.