{"id":204646,"date":"2025-09-06T09:39:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-06T09:39:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/204646\/"},"modified":"2025-09-06T09:39:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-06T09:39:12","slug":"dozens-detained-in-upstate-new-york-food-manufacturer-raid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/204646\/","title":{"rendered":"Dozens detained in upstate New York food manufacturer raid"},"content":{"rendered":"

CATO, N.Y. (AP) \u2014 Federal agents forced open the doors of a snack bar manufacturer and took away dozens of workers in a surprise enforcement action that the plant\u2019s co-owner called \u201cterrifying.\u201d<\/p>\n

Video and photos taken at the Nutrition Bar Confectioners plant Thursday showed numerous law enforcement vehicles outside the plant and workers being escorted from the building to a Border Patrol van. Immigration<\/a> agents ordered everyone to a lunchroom, where they asked for proof the workers were in the country legally, according to one 24-year-old worker who was briefly detained.<\/p>\n

The reason for the enforcement action was unclear. Local law enforcement officials said the operation was led by U.S. Homeland Security Investigations, which did not respond to requests for information. Nutrition Bar Confectioners co-owner Lenny Schmidt said he was also in the dark about the purpose of the raid.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s got to be a better way to do it,\u201d Schmidt told The Associated Press on Friday at the family-owned business in Cato, New York, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) west of Syracuse.<\/p>\n

The facility\u2019s employees had all been vetted and had legal documentation, Schmidt said, adding that he would have cooperated with law enforcement if he\u2019d been told there were concerns.<\/p>\n

\u201cComing in like they did, it\u2019s frightening for everybody \u2014 the Latinos, Hispanics that work here, and everybody else that works here as well, even myself and my family. It\u2019s terrifying,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Cayuga County Sheriff Brian Schenck said his deputies were among those on scene Thursday morning after being asked a month ago to assist federal agencies in executing a search warrant \u201crelative to an ongoing criminal investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n

He did not detail the nature of the investigation.<\/p>\n

The lack of explanation left state Sen. Rachel May, a Democrat who represents the district, with questions. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not clear to me, if it\u2019s a longstanding criminal investigation, why the workers would have been rounded up,\u201d May said by phone Friday. \u201cI feel like there are things that don\u2019t quite add up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Worker describes a surprise raid<\/p>\n

The 24-year-old worker, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he feared retribution, said that after he showed the agents he is a legal U.S. resident, they wrote down his information and photographed him.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of the women started to cry because their kids were at school or at day care. It was very sad to see,\u201d said the worker, who arrived from Guatemala six years ago, then became a legal resident two years ago after working with an immigration attorney.<\/p>\n

He said his partner lacked legal status and was among those taken away.<\/p>\n

The two of them started working at the factory about two years ago. He was assigned to the snack bar wrapping department and she to the packing area. He said he couldn\u2019t talk to her before she was led away by agents and didn\u2019t know Friday where she had been detained.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat they are doing to us is not right. We\u2019re here to work. We are not criminals,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Schmidt said he believed immigration enforcement agents are singling out any company with \u201csome sort of Hispanic workforce, whether small or large.\u201d<\/p>\n

The raid came the same day that immigration authorities detained 475 people<\/a>, most of them South Korean nationals, at a manufacturing site in Georgia where Korean automaker Hyundai makes electric vehicles.<\/p>\n

Without his missing employees, Schmidt estimated production at the food manufacturer would drop by about half, making it a challenge to meet customer demand. The plant employs close to 230 people.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll just do what we need to do to move forward to give our customers the product that they need,\u201d he said, \u201cand then slowly recoup, rehire where we need.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dozens held<\/p>\n

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, said the workers detained included parents of \u201cat least a dozen children at risk of returning from school to an empty house.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve made it clear: New York will work with the federal government to secure our borders and deport violent criminals, but we will never stand for masked ICE agents separating families and abandoning children,\u201d she said in a statement.<\/p>\n

The advocacy group Rural and Migrant Ministry said between 50 and 60 people, most of them from Guatemala, were still being held Friday. Among those released late Thursday, after about 11 hours, was a mother of a newborn child who needed to nurse her baby, said the group\u2019s chief program officer, Wilmer Jimenez.<\/p>\n

The worker who was briefly detained said he has been helping to support his parents and siblings, who grow corn and beans in Guatemala.<\/p>\n

He said he took Friday off but plans to get back to work on Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have to go back because I can\u2019t be without work,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n

Olga Rodriguez in San Francisco and Carolyn Thompson in Buffalo, New York, contributed to this report. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CATO, N.Y. (AP) \u2014 Federal agents forced open the doors of a snack bar manufacturer and took away…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":204647,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[112850,64,1613,37326,57,18807,27383,409,63,5371,606,1612,2936,112851,19548,28956,405,403,50,112852,8156,89,61,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-204646","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-brian-schenck","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-central-america","12":"tag-embezzlement","13":"tag-general-news","14":"tag-guatemala","15":"tag-hispanics","16":"tag-immigration","17":"tag-jobs-and-careers","18":"tag-kathy-hochul","19":"tag-labor","20":"tag-latin-america","21":"tag-law-enforcement","22":"tag-lenny-schmidt","23":"tag-manufacturing-sector","24":"tag-migrant-workers","25":"tag-new-york","26":"tag-new-york-city","27":"tag-news","28":"tag-rachel-may","29":"tag-theft","30":"tag-u-s-democratic-party","31":"tag-u-s-news","32":"tag-united-states","33":"tag-unitedstates","34":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204646\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}