A Syracuse-based immigration attorney handling a half-dozen cases after ICE raided a food factory in Cayuga County last week says information he received from his clients doesn’t line up with what the U.S. attorney told reporters on Tuesday.
“I have six clients that were already my clients [that were detained in the raid], that had work permits, that had everything legally in place to not be detained, and they were taken anyways,” Jose Perez said.
During a press conference Tuesday, acting U.S. Attorney John Sarcone said they detained 57 people who were “unlawfully present” in the U.S. and working at Nutrition Bar Confectioners in Cato.
“For people that had court [dates] already scheduled, people that had working permits legally issued, people that had pending cases with [U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services]” he said in an interview. “We have clients that were actually able to provide ICE — during the raid — with that information that they were our clients, and [ICE] just didn’t care,” Perez said.
Workers at the Nutrition Bar factory in Cato being detained by ICE agents last week. (Emily Kenny/Spectrum News 1)
During the Tuesday press conference, Sarcone said five face felony federal charges and the 52 others who were detained were “on their way back to their countries of origin.”
“They waived their rights. They said, ‘We’ll go home,’” Sarcone responded.
However, Perez, whose five other clients do not face felony charges, said they were still in the U.S. as of Tuesday.
One of his clients was removed from the United States and sent back to Guatemala despite having a pending case.
“We have not seen that in 18 years of immigration practice,” Perez said.
Perez said that unless his client was presented with papers and not informed of what they were, the man didn’t waive his right to a hearing. The client has been in the U.S. for 14 years, has three children here and is married to a U.S. citizen. Prior to being detained, the client was required to go to Immigration and Customs Enforcement every month to check in with the agency.
“He just went two weeks ago, and then he gets detained and removed in 48 hours. That’s what is crazy about this,” Perez said.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office didn’t respond to requests for comment for this story.
A sign hung by protesters outside of the Oswego Border Patrol Station. (Emily Kenny/Spectrum News 1)
In addition to the lives his clients have built in the U.S., many of them would face violence if they were to return to their home countries.
“We’re talking about people from Venezuela, from Cuba, that if they return, they’re going to be killed, they’re going to be incarcerated or they’ll disappear,” Perez said. “In those countries, we have people that have been fleeing from gang violence, from domestic violence, and if you remove them, you’re going to get them killed.”
Sarcone emphasized that business owners who knowingly hire people without legal status also will face repercussions.
“We will aggressively pursue criminal investigations against those who violate our laws by employing non-citizens without authorization. There will be consequences,” Sarcone said.
However, for employers the process is not that simple when balancing checking paperwork with illegally discriminating against an employee, Perez said.
“Employers would make sure that they have the correct paperwork, that they have the proper authorization, but they cannot go beyond reviewing the I-9 form and making sure that they have a Social Security card as well as a work permit. If you go and ask more questions, they could suddenly be violating the human rights of those individuals,” Perez said.
Family members of those who were detained in Cato, were unable to locate their loved ones for days. Perez said they are not put into the system quick enough for anyone to keep track of them. It’s a process, he said, that can take up to three days.
“If you’re taking the right person, if you’re fingerprinting them right there, why are you not going to provide information to the family, to the people that can actually look online, or even the attorney?” Perez said. “Sometimes we have clients that are lost that we don’t find in the system.”
Perez had one client scheduled to have a hearing Tuesday in Batavia but was instead moved to Tacoma, Wash., forcing him to miss the hearing.
“Those are the types of things that ICE is doing, and all his family is here in Central New York. Why are they going to move them to Washington? So they don’t have access to their family? So they get desperate and sign a self-deport issue then they are just gone?” Perez said.
This type of change is meant to confuse family members and those detained, Perez said.
The man whose fiancé was detained attempts to get answers from a border patrol agent in Oswego. (Emily Kenny/Spectrum News 1)
Spectrum News 1 has followed the story of a man whose fiancée was detained in Cato. Neither are represented by Perez. On Monday evening, the man was told his fiancée would return home with an ankle monitor the next day. However, when he went to Niagara Falls on Tuesday in hopes of getting more answers, he was told she may not get to be released — but rather sent to another facility in the Louisiana.
“I’m trying to have hope, I’m trying to have faith and I’m trying to fight, but it just seems like all I’m doing is losing and failing,” he said in a text message.