Immigration Agents Raid Upstate New York Nutrition Bar Plant

Federal agents forcibly entered the Nutrition Bar Confectioners plant in Cato, N.Y., last Thursday (Sept. 4) and arrested dozens of workers in a surprise enforcement action, according to Associated Press.

Without his missing employees, co-owner Lenny Schmidt told a local news organization production at the plan would drop by about half, making it a challenge to meet customer demand. The plant employs close to 230 people.

Schmidt said numerous law enforcement vehicles arrived at the plant and ordered everyone to a lunchroom, where they asked for proof the workers were in the country legally. Some workers then were escorted from the building to a Border Patrol van.

Local law enforcement officials said the operation was led by U.S. Homeland Security Investigations, which did not respond to media requests for information. Schmidt claimed all the facility’s employees had been vetted and had legal documentation.

“Coming in like they did, it’s frightening for everybody — the Latinos, Hispanics that work here, and everybody else that works here as well, even myself and my family,” Schmidt said in the Associated Press story. “It’s terrifying.” Cayuga County Sheriff Brian Schenck said his deputies were on scene after being asked a month ago to assist federal agencies in executing a search warrant “relative to an ongoing criminal investigation.”

The Upstate New York raid came the same day immigration authorities detained 475 people, most of them South Korean nationals, at a Hyundai manufacturing site in Georgia.