Despite a well-publicized shift away from workplace raids, ICE continues to pursue failed policies that terrorize communities.Today, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations Office, Fort Morgan Police Department, Brush Police Department, Morgan County Sheriff's Office, and the Colorado 13th Judicial District Attorney's Office conducted raids across the town of Fort Morgan, looking for 20 employees of the Wildcat Dairy thought to be undocumented. This raid goes against the stated policies of the Obama administration in shifting its focus away from chasing workers to holding employers accountable. (http://articles.latimes.com/2009/mar/31/nation/na-immigration-raids31)
The following is a statement of Hans Meyer, Esq., Policy Director of the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition:
“ With this raid, ICE once again showed itself to be an agency deeply in need of reform and oversight.
“ Despite directives from the Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, Immigration and Customs Enforcement continues to employ methods that create fear and insecurity in immigrant communities and rip apart families.
“ Our allies in Fort Morgan report fear and confusion from workers and community members in the wake of this “operation”, clearly undermining local integration and community building initiatives.
“ It is certainly not worth the costs to localities to detain people for extended periods of time; and the impact in misery to families and the larger community may be immeasurable. It’s interesting to note that the prosecutorial bent of these cases focuses solely on workers trying to earn a living, and not on those who employed them.
“CIRC once again calls on ICE to cease these wildly destructive enforcement policies that target workers, destroy families, and ignore those who control the purse strings”
