Swift raids

Worthington, Minnesota, one of six towns affected by the raids

The 2006 Swift raids were a coordinated effort by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to detain and deport people who are present illegally.

On Tuesday, December 12, 2006, ICE raided six Swift & Company meatpacking plants in the midwestern United States. Workers were detained in central areas of these plants, where they were searched and interrogated. About 1,300 workers, accused of immigration violations and identity theft, were arrested and bused to detention facilities; most were deported.

ICE's "Operation Wagon Train", which culminated in the Swift raids, represented a new stage of immigration enforcement. The operation marked the beginning of increased workplace actions, as well as the special targeting of illegal immigrants who were also accused of crimes.[1][2][3] It was the largest workplace immigration raid in U.S. history.[4]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference PressConferenceDec13 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Aldana, Raquel (2008). "Of Katz and 'Aliens': Privacy Expectations and the Immigration Raids" (PDF). UC Davis Law Review. 41 (3). Retrieved 20 August 2012. ICE's new worksite enforcement strategy, begun in eleven major U.S. cities, adopts a comprehensive approach focusing on how illegal workers enter the country and obtain identity documents, as well as targeting employers who knowingly hire such workers.76 As a result of this strategy, the number of persons arrested in the workplace for being unable to prove legal immigration status jumped nearly tenfold since 2002 to 4,385 in fiscal year 2006. [...] n fact, ICE today is effectively, even if deceivingly,79 appealing to identity theft concerns, as well as to the image of foreigners as potential terrorists.
  3. ^ Camila Ibanez, " Imagine if everyday were 9/11. For one community in the US, it is." Waging Nonviolence, December 12, 2013.
  4. ^ "Enforcement: Swift Fallout, Mismatches". Rural Migration News. 13 (1). January 2011. Retrieved 23 August 2012. ICE said the Swift raid was the largest workplace raid ever conducted by immigration authorities...