<span class="entry_title"><a href="http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002139.php">http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002139.php</a> (includes legal documents)<br><br>Union: DHS Raids Grabbed Legal Workers</span><br>
<span class="entry_date">By Justin Rood - December 13, 2006, 9:14 AM</span>
<span class="entry_body"><p><span class="smallcaps">Union officials are</span> outraged over a massive immigration sweep yesterday, which sent 1,000 Homeland Security Department agents -- some
in riot gear -- to meatpacking plants in six states to round up
immigrant workers suspected of using fake identification, but may have
picked up legal workers in the process.</p>
<p>"Stormtroopers came in with machine guns, rounded [the workers] into
the cafeterias, separated identified citizens from non-citizens, and
then they took away all green cards and put non-citizens onto buses,"
regardless of the immigrants' legal status, Jill Cashen of the United
Food and Commercial Workers union (UCFW) told me this morning.</p>
<p>Cashen said that reports from all six states confirmed that legal
immigrants were among those taken away, and have not been returned.
"We're still trying to find out where the buses went," she said.
"Children have been left at church day cares. Nobody knows where these
people are."</p>
<p>Recently unsealed court documents show that DHS had identified 170
identity-fraud suspects it wished to apprehend, but that the agency
wanted to round up as many as 5,000 other workers because it "further
expect[ed] to apprehend persons who are engaged in large-scale identity
theft[.]" Union officials say the total number of detained workers may
be higher than 5,000.</p></span><span class="entry_body">Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has
not released official tallies from the raids, but have promised to do
so at a 10 a.m. press conference in Washington. UFCW is holding a press
conference at 9:30 to discuss what they believe to be heavy-handed
tactics used by the federal government.<br></span>