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Officials from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s
Homeland Security Investigations unit and Customs and Border
Protection arrived at Mt. Baker Roofing’s warehouse around 7:30
a.m. in Bellingham, a city near the Canadian border.
“They (law enforcement) arrived wielding their guns like they
were going to shoot us, like we were criminals,” Tomas Fuerte
told Cascadia Daily News, speaking in Spanish. “They corralled
us into a room in the back of the building. They had a list and
pictures of everyone who was undocumented and took them away.”
The people detained were taken away in two buses, Fuerte said,
adding that he has never seen such a raid in his 12 years at the
company.
ICE spokesperson David Yost said in a statement that the
officers executed a federal search warrant “based on an ongoing
criminal investigation into the unlawful employment of aliens
without legal work authorization in violation of federal law.”
The 37 people who were arrested had “fraudulently represented
their immigration status and submitted fraudulent documents
and/or information to seek employment,” Yost said.
Mt. Baker Roofing said in an afternoon statement that it was
“fully cooperating with the authorities while also ensuring that
our employees are treated fairly and respectfully under the
law.”
ICE says it made 32,809 arrests in President Donald Trump’s
first 50 days in office. That was a daily average of 656, up
from 311 during the 12-month period that ended Sept. 30.
Such numbers, while higher than those seen during the Biden
administration, are far from the mass deportations that Trump
campaigned on. So far the president has avoided the large-scale
factory and office raids that characterized his first term and
that of a Republican predecessor, George W. Bush, but there have
been scattered and smaller operations.
Criminal charges against business owners are extremely rare,
though fines are common.
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