An immigration raid in western New York on Friday targeted a group of immigrants involved in a landmark statewide effort by farm workers to unionize.
On Friday morning at around 9:30 a.m., federal agents in unmarked cars and bearing no agency insignia pulled over a bus in Albion, New York, about 35 miles west of Rochester, and took 14 people of Lynn-Ette & Sons Farms into custody. All of the detainees, who hailed from Mexico and Guatemala, were year-round employees of Lynn-Ette & Sons Farms, a family-owned business in nearby Kent, New York, which has been locked in a multiyear battle to prevent workers from unionizing.
The company is one of five agricultural businesses that, together with a state growers’ association, have tried for years to overturn or chip away at New York’s 2019 farm labor law. The law enshrined protections for the right of farmworkers — whether seasonal or year-round — to seek union representation.
“This was strange because they actually had a list of most of the workers on the bus.”
Several of the workers taken into custody on Friday have been active in efforts to unionize year-round employees, including at least one who has spoken publicly in favor of joining the United Farm Workers of America, according to Elizabeth Strater, director of strategic campaigns for UFW, the storied labor union.
“We are concerned at the appearance of targeting publicly pro-union worker leaders,” said Strater.
Most of the workers detained on Friday hail from Mexico or Guatemala.
The raid did not appear to be a broad sweep but rather a targeted enforcement aimed at specific people, according to sources who have been in contact with the families and spoke to The Intercept on condition of anonymity to candidly discuss a sensitive legal situation.
“At first we thought they were enforcing a deportation order, that they had one person that they’re looking for and then everyone else got dragged in — that’s kind of standard,” said one of the people with knowledge of the raid. “But this was strange because they actually had a list of most of the workers on the bus.”
“A Different Level of Fear”
In video of the raid posted to social media, the agents could be seen dressed in civilian clothes and wearing tactical vests with patches that said “Police,” as is common in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids.
The agents did not identify themselves, said a source close to the families of the detained workers, but a spokesperson for ICE later confirmed that its agents had made the arrests.
According to the spokesperson, all 14 were in the country with authorization, and three of the individuals had pending removal orders.
Following an inquiry from The Intercept, Lynn-Ette — which grows green beans, cabbage, squash, and other vegetables and foodstuffs — issued a statement on Monday morning expressing concern for their employees.
“We are deeply troubled by the manner in which this enforcement action was carried out and the impact it has had on our team and their families. Lynn-Ette & Sons had no prior knowledge of the raid and had no contact with ICE beforehand,” the company wrote in the statement, which appeared as a sponsored post on a local news site. “We call on elected officials and community leaders to ensure that all enforcement actions are conducted with transparency, due process, and human dignity.”
As of Monday evening, more than 72 hours after the raid, the location of most of the detainees was not yet clear. ICE detention records show that at least one man is being held at the Buffalo Federal Detention Facility in Batavia, New York, and two women are being held at Niagara County Jail in Lockport, New York.
Sources close to the families said that at least two of the other men are also being held at Batavia but have not yet been logged in the system and have not spoken with lawyers. The remaining nine detainees are unaccounted for.
An ICE spokesperson did not respond to specific questions about the location of the detainees or the reason for the raid.
“ICE does not conduct raids as part of its routine daily immigration law enforcement efforts,” the spokesperson wrote. “Instead, ICE’s enforcement resources are based on intelligence-driven leads and ICE officers do not target persons indiscriminately.”
For its part, Lynn-Ette forcefully rejected any notion that the company had any role in the raid.
“We strongly reject the United Farm Workers’ (UFW) irresponsible and self-serving public claims suggesting that these workers were targeted in retaliation for union activity,” the company said in its statement. “These claims are categorically false.”
The detained workers are not part of a bargaining unit themselves — a fact highlighted prominently in the Lynn-Ette statement. The company made no mention that the detained workers were part of a group actively seeking representation with the UFW.
