ICE Raids Continue, One Today in Asheville, NC

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Advocates meet with arrested workers
asheville citizen-times

Josh Boatwright • jboatwright@citizen-times.com • and John Boyle • updated August 13, 2008 12:38 pm

WOODFIN – Latino advocates Tuesday night met with people arrested for immigration violations during a raid at a Woodfin manufacturing plant and began planning ways to help them.

Some who were released on order to appear in immigration court said they were frightened and didn’t know where to find other employment. Family members of others who were still being detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs enforcement said they were having problems contacting their loved ones, advocate Edna Campos said.

“To hear the devastation and just the fear that was instilled in them, the worry to the families, and the worry about facing unemployment,” said Campos.

“That was probably the most important thing; to give them the chance to talk in a safe place about what happened with them.”

Campos and other community members are assessing family needs and plan to hold a public vigil soon so others who are concerned can get involved.

Family members of one woman detained in the raid told Campos that she had papers proving her citizenship and had been wrongfully arrested.

Federal immigration agents raided Mills Manufacturing plant Tuesday morning, arresting 59 people on charges related to immigration violations.

Agents on the scene had put the number arrested at 57, but a statement released by ICE today put the total at 59.

The workers used fraudulent documents to get jobs at the company, a government defense contractor that makes parachutes, said Del Richburg, a special agent with ICE.

Richburg called the raid the largest ever in Western North Carolina and said it was part of the agency’s focus on homeland security issues, which includes checks on military contractors.

Mills Manufacturing is not the target of the investigation and has been cooperative, the agency said. Company officials did not know the workers were illegal, Richburg said.

Some workers taken into custody have been with the company for years, said John Oswald, Mills Manufacturing executive vice president and chief executive officer.

Workers just before the raid were told to gather in a warehouse, said Jessica Arrendondo, an employee who was not detained in the raid.

Law enforcement officers entered the warehouse from one door and immigrations moved in from another, Arrendondo said.

The workers apprehended were bused to the Henderson County Detention Center for processing with plans for some who have health or family-related issues to be taken back to the Woodfin plant under order to appear later in an immigration court, Richburg said.

Others could be moved to Charlotte or Georgia before their court appearance, he said.

A bus carrying 29 workers arrived at the plant a little before 5 p.m., with some workers declining to comment.

Teresa Lopez, a mother of two boys, said she was scared but treated well during the processing. Lopez said she did not know when she will be required to make a court appearance.

The majority of workers arrested are from Mexico. Some also are from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Ecuador, ICE spokesman Ivan Ortiz-Delgado said.

Ortiz-Delgado said the agency targets employers that provide services crucial to national security and infrastructure like airports, power plants and defense contractors.

“That doesn’t mean that we only investigate those employers, but we give priority to those because they are critical infrastructure,” Ortiz-Delgado said.

Richburg said the raid was the only one planned Tuesday, but would not comment on whether ICE expected to conduct more local operations in coming days and weeks.

Mills Manufacturing was unaware of any improperly documented workers, said Oswald, the company’s chief executive officer. His company checks all employees’ documents, which typically include driver’s licenses, Social Security cards or Green Cards, Oswald said.

It does not have experts who can detect sophisticated forgeries, he said.

Employers have to walk a fine line “between discriminating and making sure we get documented employees,” Oswald said, stressing that Mills does “everything required by law and everything allowed by the law to prevent the hiring of undocumented workers.

“It’s very, very challenging,” Oswald said. “We’re only allowed to look at so many documents. There is a new system called E-Verify, to make sure they are who they say they are. But we’re only allowed to look at the documents they give us, and if at face value they appear to be legitimate, that’s all we’re able to do.”

His company does employ the E-Verify system now, Oswald said, but that does not help with previously hired workers.

“We reject a lot of people for false documents — a lot of them we are able to reject on their face value,” Oswald said. “But some are so perfect, the forgeries are so perfect, it’s very, very difficult to tell.”

Some of the workers ICE rounded up Tuesday have been with Mills for five years. Their salaries would range from $9 and hour to $14, Oswald said, and the plant does offer retirement and health insurance.

“We’re trying to hire the best people we can get,” Oswald said. “A lot of these (applicants) come to us from the Employment Security Commission.”

Mills employs 175 people and the removal of 59 workers will affect the plant’s delivery schedule. It will not affect production, and the company remains healthy and has sufficient contracts right now, Oswald said.

In a press release Tuesday morning, Asheville City Councilman and congressional candidate Carl Mumpower took some credit for the action at Mills, saying an employee there contacted him several weeks ago and “we developed a connection with ICE in Charlotte on Mills Manufacturing. I am grateful for their follow-through and will continue to press this issue.”

“It is wrong that this company has so flagrantly ignored immigration law and the importance of employing American workers,” he said.

Oswald called Mumpower’s assertions “infuriating” and said it “speaks to a true lack of understanding of the issue.”

The raid apparently sent ripples through another north Buncombe manufacturing Tuesday morning, as several dozen workers at the Arvato Digital Services plant in Weaverville left after word spread about the Mills raid.

Andy Meltzer, a public relations consultant for Arvato, said the number of employees who left the building was “somewhat less than 50.”

“I would not classify it as a mass exodus,” Meltzer said. “Also, many of them returned to work later.”He also noted that the employees’ stated reasons for leaving were varied and that “many were involved with workers” at Mills Manufacturing and had to address issues such as child care.

Arvato staffs its Weaverville facility through Employment Staffing Inc. of Shelby, and all of the employees are temporary workers. The company has 1,197 full-time and temporary workers.

ICE agents said they are addressing humanitarian concerns about the Mills workers, such as making sure their children have someone to care for them.

Numerous people drove up to the plant in the hours after the raid trying to get information about family members who worked there.

Tim Nolan, a nurse practitioner who said he works among Asheville’s Latino community, arrived at the factory site during the raid and questioned ICE agents about targeting workers there.

“To cart them away in a bus is an injustice and to put it under the façade of homeland security is a lie,” Nolan said.

Oswald noted that the workers are “good people” trying to raise families and get by.

Family members wanting information on people arrested today may contact ICE by calling (704) 679-6140.

Staff writer Mike McWilliams contributed to this article.

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