Raid on upstate New York food manufacturer leads to dozens of detentions

Cato, ny – Federal agents have forced to open the doors of a snack bar manufacturer and took dozens of workers to the extent of the application of the surprise law that the factory co-owner described as “terrifying”.

The video and photos taken in the nutrition bar confectioners have shown many law enforcement vehicles outside the factory and the building escorted to the building to a border patrol van. Immigration agents ordered a dining room to everyone, where they asked for evidence that workers were legally in the country, according to a 24 -year -old worker who was briefly detained.

The reason for the application measure was not clear. Local law enforcement officials said the operation was led by American internal security surveys, who had not responded to requests for information. The co -owner of the confectioners of the nutrition bar, Lenny Schmidt, said that he was also in the dark about the goal of the raid.

“There must be a better way to do so,” Schmidt told the Associated Press Friday in the family business in Cato, New York, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) west of Syracuse.

The employees of the establishment had all been verified and had had legal documents, said Schmidt, adding that he would have cooperated with the police if there had been informed that there were concerns.

“Coming as they did, it’s scary for everyone-the Latinos, the Hispanics who work here, and all the others who work here too, even myself and my family. It’s terrifying,” he said.

The sheriff of Cayuga County, Brian Schenck, said that his assistants were among the people on the scene Thursday morning after being invited a month ago to help federal agencies to execute a search warrant “compared to a criminal investigation in progress”.

He has not detailed the nature of the investigation.

The absence of explanation left the senator from the state Rachel May, a democrat who represents the district, with questions.

“It is not clear to me, if it is a long -standing criminal investigation, why workers have been gathered,” said May by phone on Friday. “I have the impression that there are things that are not entirely added.”

The 24 -year -old worker, who spoke to the Associated Press under the guise of anonymity because he feared the remuneration, said that after showing the agents that he was an American legal resident, they noted his information and photographed him.

“Some women began to cry because their children were at school or at the daycare. It was very sad to see,” said the worker, who arrived from Guatemala six years ago, then became a legal resident two years ago after working with an immigration lawyer.

He said that his partner lacked legal status and was one of the people kidnapped.

Both started working at the factory about two years ago. He was assigned to the Snack-Bar packaging service and it to the packaging area. He said he couldn’t talk to her before she was taken by agents and did not know on Friday that she had been detained.

“What they are doing to us is not fair. We are here to work. We are not criminals,” he said.

Schmidt said he thought that agents from the application of the immigration law distinguished any business with “a kind of Hispanic, small or large workforce”.

The RAID came the same day as the immigration authorities owned 475 people, most of them of South Korean nationals, on a georgia manufacturing site where the Korean car manufacturer Hyundai manufactures electric vehicles.

Without its missing employees, Schmidt estimated that production with the manufacturer of food products would drop by about half, which makes a challenge to meet customer demand. The factory employs nearly 230 people.

“We are just going to do what we have to do to move forward to give our customers the product they need,” he said, “then retrieve slowly, hire where we need.”

New York Governor Kathy Hochul, a democrat, said that detained workers included parents of “at least a dozen children at risk of returning from school to an empty house”.

“I clearly indicated it: New York will work with the federal government to guarantee our borders and expel violent criminals, but we will never defend masked ice agents separating families and abandoning children,” she said in a statement.

The defense group of the rural ministry and migrants said that between 50 and 60 people, most of Guatemala were still detained on Friday. Among the people released Thursday evening, after about 11 am, there was a mother of a newborn baby who was to breastfeed her baby, said the group’s program director Wilmer Jimenez.

The worker who was briefly detained said that he had helped support his parents and siblings, who cultivate corn and beans in Guatemala.

He said he had taken the leave on Friday but planned to go back to work on Monday.

“I have to go back because I can’t be without work,” he said.

——

Olga Rodriguez in San Francisco and Carolyn Thompson in Buffalo, New York, contributed to this report.