Swift raids
The 2006 Swift raids were a coordinated effort by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to detain and deport people who are present illegally.
On Tuesday, December 12, 2006, ICE raided six Swift & Company meatpacking plants in the midwestern and southwestern United States.
The operation marked the beginning of increased workplace actions, as well as the special targeting of illegal immigrants who were also accused of crimes.
[6] ICE, a branch of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), investigated Swift for ten months prior to the raid.
[10] ICE Director Julie Myers countered these claims in a written statement submitted On December 18, 2006, to the U.S. District Court in Colorado: There were no locked doors, and no one was prevented from leaving the area.
Officers ensured that the employees entered the cafeteria in a safe and orderly fashion and had properly stored their meatpacking tools, many of which were dangerous objects.
Public telephones were available for those aliens who wanted to contact family members or friends who could bring evidence of lawful status or simply to make calls.The period of detention in the plants typically lasted between six and eight hours, after which some workers were arrested and some were told to go home.
[10] Some of the few who were later able to testify complained of further degrading treatment, unsanitary food, denial of hygiene, and isolation from friends, family, and lawyers.
[21][22] On December 13, 2006, Michael Chertoff (Secretary of Homeland Security), Julie L. Myers (Director of ICE), and Deborah Platt Majoras (Chair of the Federal Trade Commission) claimed responsibility for the raid and emphasized the importance of the identity theft charges.
Chertoff described the specific case of a man in Texas who was pulled over and arrested because his Social Security number was in use by an illegal worker.
[23] Minnesota Roman Catholic bishops condemned the raid, saying it "heartlessly divided families, disrupted the whole community of Worthington and undermined progress that that city had made toward bridging racial and cultural differences."
[24][25] A manager and a union organizer in Marshalltown, Iowa, were later convicted of helping people to get jobs at Swift without proper documentation.
[7] The raids also had a substantial economic impact on Swift, and some business commentators claim that the loss of workers led to the company's 2007 acquisition by JBS.
[6] Somalis, Burmese, and other political refugees from East African countries were hired to fill the void left by the deportations.
ICE filed a response attacking UFCW's legal standing and stating that the detainees had not been mistreated,[9] and the case was dismissed in January.
Judge Mary Lou Robinson (who had earlier denied Swift an injunction against ICE) ruled in 2009 that the class was too vague and that the union had no standing.
[31] Another lawsuit, filed by workers who were detained but not charged, accuses ICE of racial profiling and sexual harassment of detainees.
[33] Judge Ericksen confirmed the legality of racial discrimination during the raid, stating: As discussed above, the affidavit in support of the warrant indicates that Defendants had evidence that suggested that a large number of illegal aliens were employed at the Worthington plant.
