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TechnoratiMore Immigration Arrests Made by ICE
Following a morning raid on Sun Valley Floral Farms by agents on Wednesday, they searched nine other locations in Humboldt County later that afternoon, leading to two more arrests.
![[Immigration and Customs Enforcement members gather in the Sun Valley parking lot before entering compound. (Tyson Ritter/The Eureka Reporter)]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/iceraid.jpg "iceraid.jpg")
The sweep by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents was the result of an ongoing investigation into the Sun Valley Group facility on the outskirts of Arcata, which began in November 2007.
Wednesday's raid on the company resulted in 19 arrests, while agents arrested two at residences of Sun Valley workers in McKinleyville and Eureka, said ICE spokesperson Virginia Kice.
Two more workers from Sun Valley turned themselves in at the McKinleyville Coast Guard Station, where detainees were being interviewed and processed by ICE, she said.
One other worker ICE sought out was being held by the Humboldt County Sheriff's Office on unrelated charges and would go into ICE custody following the end of the local case, Kice said.
Only three of the 24 workers are in law enforcement custody - the others were either released on their own recognizance or placed under supervision, which could include electronic monitoring, pending immigration hearings, she said.
Two of those still in custody are being held on criminal charges, while one, who had previously been deported, will have to go before an immigration judge, she said.
ICE raided nine residences in Eureka, Arcata, McKinleyville and Fortuna. Although ICE wouldn't disclose at the time the exact locations of all of the raids - pending a return on the search warrants - The Eureka Reporter found two of the residences raided by agents in Fortuna.
One location raided by ICE was an apartment in a complex on the corner of Main and South Second streets.
Willie Bramlett, who lives in that area of town, said he watched as agents surrounded the complex around 4 p.m. on Wednesday.
About 10 to 15 agents, some wielding machine guns, went up to the apartment, knocked on the door and then proceeded to use a battering ram to open it up, Bramlett said.
"They knocked and then bashed it in," he said.
A man who lived nearby, who requested to be anonymous, said the unit was occupied by an older woman and a young man.
While he agrees that illegal immigrants committing crimes should be arrested, he said he doesn't understand why the government targets hard-working people.
"I don't understand it," he said of the raids. "These people work, pay taxes and support their family."
Down the road, in a trailer park behind the closed-down Mi Rancho Mexican Restaurant, agents also raided the home of another Sun Valley worker.
After talking with several people in the area who witnessed the raid, it was learned that at least 10 agents spent almost an hour searching for a man suspected of still living in the residence, but had since moved away.
As to whether the recent raids resonated similar feelings of fear in the immigrant community, as seen after ICE raided locations throughout Fortuna in June 2007, remains unclear at this point.
Several attempts at contacting people at homes around where the raids took place in Fortuna elicited no responses, although movement could be seen inside.
Last time ICE raids occurred, several families pulled their children out of schools, but on Thursday, there didn't seem to be much of a change.
At South Fortuna Elementary School, which is between the two locations raided, Principal Jeff Northern said he wasn't sure if absences that day were related to the raids.
Both Fortuna Middle School and Fortuna Union High School officials said that it was a normal school day for them.
As to whether this latest chapter in ICE raids is over for now, Kice said that the investigation is ongoing.
"I anticipate there may be additional arrests," she said, as agents are still going through physical evidence and interviews.
15 Comments so far
Show AllThe Peace Officers are being made to use their day sticks to beat the scape-goats with. Still not understanding exactly what has happened to them, the Peace Officers should realize they have become part of the sacrifice. They are also victims as well as perpetrators of the injustice they inflict. How well do they sleep? Will they eventually suffer PTSD when they are with their families? their wives and children and their relatives and neighbors? Do they really feel good about themselves? If we arrest and beat senseless all the "goats" who will slaughter the chickens?
Indeed. Let's, instead, PUNISH the rich pigs who are hiring the illegals by doing NOTHING. And SCREW the American working and middle class who are losing jobs and salary to the illegals. (Oh, and us superior upper middle class professionals get to keep our underpaid illegal maids and nannies this way, too....)
Frankly, with the apparent agreement of liberals, the left, big business and most of the government that is exactly what we are going to get. I find it mind boggling thast the only people on the side of the American worker and the middle and working class are the Republicans...excluding McCain of course.
Just amazing.
So did you notice that none of the offending employer's management or board of directors got rounded up by federal authorities? In America you get about as much "justice" as you can afford to pay for.
Ask the media who got roughed up and arrested in St. Paul or Sarah Kunstler who becasue of her legal training and heritage of tenacity from both sides of her family tree, was able to sue the NYC police and be awarded big bucks four years after the incident that prompted the suit.
Poet
How many OWNERS of Sun Valley Floral Farms and other enterprises were arrested? Is it illegal for undocumented workers to work, but legal to hire them? If both of the above are true, the law is a ass and a idiot.
Joe
NONE were arrested. It is NOT legal to hire illegals. Our government is failing us; the ONLY solution to the problem of illegals lowering the living standard of the American working and middle classes is to jail the employers.
"the ONLY solution to the problem of illegals lowering the living standard of the American working and middle classes is to jail the employers."
Absolute agreement. That is the thing that will stop it.
Absolutely right. Jail the employers and those that enable them to exploit both Illegal Aliens and the American worker at the same time.
The elite classes have wanted to "import a slave class" ever since the Civil War. They just do not feel that THEY should ever have to work! The workers are not to blame, but our govt will not "interfere with business". If we focused on Peoples' Rights or all Workers Rights--their reason for hiring illegal workers would disappear. (This is why the "worker green card" is a bad idea)The reaspm they want to hire undocumentaed workes is so that they can treat them any damn way they please. If we admit them, unionize them, and apply Am. workers rights (which are sorely lacking, but better than what they get now), they would probably hire more citizens. As for the undoumented workers--they are unwittingly keeping wages and prices low. This is bad for them and Am. workers.MAKE BIG CORP TREAT ALL PEOPLE ALIKE! Then, rework the NAFTA, CAFTA and all those damn free trade agreements that only help the multi-natl corp. , and threw subsistence, and old family farmers off of their land, and gave it to big corp. Re-distribution of wealth? You betcha! The big multi-nationals were wrong to expect it in the first place. We owe them exactly NOTHING!
"Re-distribution of wealth? You betcha!"
I'd never go for that, but you are right on the money about the rest.
Why, are you rich? LOL Teasing. But, seriously, if things dont get better for the majority, people might wish to "put assets elsewhere" (most rich people already have)I know that Americans act like a bunch of herd animals. But, consider oil prices continuing to rise, (and evrything else with it--food, shelter, clothes) , the assets of the middlcclass dissolved (mortgage ROBBERY!! I saw the papers of some! They were robbed!); the "wars" carrying on and on;(and it becoming the largest employuer of the poor and newly poor);how long do yu think people will remain "good little voters' when they have nothing left to lose? I think legal re-distribution of some of the wealth the upper classe have accumulated over the last two decades to be better than violent class warfare.If not now--when. If not us--who. If we had a thriving middle class , that most peole lived "in", and all others could aspire to, ther would be no real "class" , nor "class warfare" necessary.I am not sure that the comfortable clsse in our society have , even yet, com eto realize how bad it really is for people that used to be middle class.
"Oil prices continue to rise"
$145 a barrel to $106 is "rising"?
"Mortgage ROBBERY!!"?
Anyone DUMB enough to sign those papers does not deserve to own a house. I have seen PLENTY of cases, as a tax preparer, of fools who used their houses as piggy banks to buy endless supplies of Hummers and other stupidity. Now they were "robbed"? I do not think so.
"Why, are you rich? LOL Teasing"
Do I wish!!!!
I believe that no matter who is elected they are all going to find out the middle class is not happy, the extra income of the elites is simply gained by their refusal to shoulder their share of the responsibilities and its going to stop.
There are still many people that don't understand what illegasl inmmigration has cost them and how much it impacts the average citizen, the economy as a detriment, our enviornmet and education, social services and health care. They actually believe business and their shills like LaRaza, MALDEF and others that these are "just hard working people".
And they are. Worked like slaves for the benefit of big business. Child labor, the exploitation of the girls by some of these scum that employ them. They simply don't believe that each of these folks cost them each year. That they are paying to sibsidize business right out of their pocket. It is like a herd....poor little poor people and its those nasty xenophobes that want to keep them from earning a living. And when that soft hearted person loses their job because of that illegal, don't even understand they did it to themselves.
Time to rip some of that money out of business for sure.
What if I told you that I was one of those "poor little poor people"? The poorest! It's true! No, honestly, if you guys had not decided the the uS mkt wasnt enough to satisfy your big fataass CEOS (who cannot possibly make it on $1m a yr), and that havin/paying a min. wage (LIVING wage) wasnt just too reprehensible, and that the "free mkt" (biggest joke in hemisphere)needed to be "unregulated" and let multi-nationals like Enron buy up the WATER supply (entire drinking/bathing water supply--not kidding!)of small central Am. countries--stick a meter on the wall, put in a qtr. to drink--MAYBE people wouldnt be pouring in here just to find a job! MAYBE if Bush et al, wasnt constantly making agreements with elite presidents of Mexico, behind the peoples' back; (second richest guy in the world lives in Mexico-)(because he knows how to say "FOX"); if the US would STOP the war on the poor of Colombia and blaming it entirely on them that Americans are so miserable that they use more drugs than anyone on earth; MAYBE if the uS would, just for once, THINK about its policies in teh South American "cone"--instead of seeing it as an ever expanding "MARKETPLACE"--we could have some allies. And fair trade.I am NOT an undocumented person.But the US govt has made this bed, and if the middle class is angry, they should direct their anger there.Yje people of all nations of the Americas should be very angry at their govts. And, most especially, the Chicago School of Economics. which has foisted its unsustainable capitalistic view on the rest of the hemisphere.The enemy is us./
Instead of "unsustainable capitalism", what do you propose? Using resource extraction as a piggy bank, which is what Venezuela and Bolivia are doing? Fine, but what about then the resources either run out or drop in price? Chavez's Venezuela would STARVE if oil dropped to $30 a barrel, as it very well could. Or if it ran out in Venezuela, as, looking at PDVSA's declining production, it also very well could.