Write a commentAs you may have heard, ICE raided two workplaces on Thursday: Teti Bakery in Fulton and Nutrition Bar Confectioners in Cato.
While no one knows for sure where the workers were taken (or even how many, exactly, were taken), coworkers from the Cato factory were told female detainees were being held in Oswego. Official reports put the number of those detained at 40, but coworkers report as many as 70 people were missing from work the day after the raid.
On Friday, multiple community organizations rallied outside of the US Customs and Border Patrol Patrol Station at 19 E. Schuyler St., Oswego (next to Fort Ontario) to voice their concerns and try to get some answers. The crowd varied in size throughout the day, with a peak of roughly 60 people when our team was on-site.
The crowd had several main goals. To begin with, representatives from Syracuse Action Medics were trying to ascertain “if the moms are here.” Notably, one of the workers taken from the Cato factory is a nursing mother whose 8-month-old refuses to take a bottle. “She’s inconsolable after 36 hours without her mother,” a family member told the crowd through a bullhorn.
As someone who nursed her own child and was never away for more than four hours during the first year of her child's life, I know how hard that must be for mother, child, and family members.
No one came out of the building to address the concerns of family or community members. However, the crowd was heavily surveilled by a masked man in a gray van who circled the block and by what appeared to be the city's police drone, as well as two OPD officers parked perhaps a thousand feet away. “We’re here as a precaution,” one of the officers told iHeart Oswego, “to help keep people out of traffic.”
The view of the intersection the officers were patrolling, as shown from where they were stationed.
While the officers kept their distance, multiple volunteers from Finger Lakes Response Team donned yellow high-visibility vests and stood on the corners to help keep people out of the street.
Community members began arriving as early as noon, with many familiar faces from around Oswego. Organize Oswego and Indivisible Oswego County were both involved in organizing the community response, as well as regional groups like Syracuse Immigrant and Refugee Defense Network.
“As women we have to stick together,” one protestor told iHeart Oswego. She and several of her friends were rotating out to keep a steady presence at the building. The crowd was hoping for some acknowledgment of their presence and information about their loved ones. “I just want to know where my family is,” one tearful young woman said.
Our team did not encounter anyone connected to the bakery in Fulton at the rally, but we did talk to multiple employees and family members of those taken in the raid in Cato.
Background: The Raid in Cato
iHeart spoke with several employees about the raid in Cato to understand what happened. Masked men in tactical gear with tasers and pistols arrived at 9:15am and herded employees into a break room. Managers and supervisors were held separately. No one was allowed to make phone calls. “They jammed the wifi so no one could use their phone,” one first shift employee who was present for the raid told us. “It’s a dead zone, so without wifi we can’t make calls.”
The masked men then asked who was a citizen and who was not. “But they just took our word for it,” another employee told us. “I could have said I wasn’t a citizen and they wouldn’t have known.” Personal information like home addresses and phone numbers were then taken from the employees verbally and jotted down in a notebook. “I could see the information of the person in front of me,” the employee told us.
Once they had separated citizens and non-citizens, they ordered citizens to go home for the day and zip-tied everyone who was left. “There were people who had legal papers, but unless they had [the papers] on them, they didn’t care. They wouldn’t let anyone leave the break room to go get their papers and [ICE] took them anyway.”
Many of these were employees who had been at the factory for years. “Virgilio is like my dad,” one employee told iHeart. “Very religious, like he would be upset with me if I cursed. His sons just graduated high school, and I believe they were born here.”
Then, the masked men “trashed the place”—employees came back the next day to find papers thrown everywhere, chairs flipped, hard drives missing. There were reports that one non-citizen worker was thrown across the room.
NOTE: given the gravity of this situation, iHeart granted anonymity to all those interviewed. While we prefer to focus on light, positive news, we feel it our duty to report on events directly impacting our community's ability to live, work, and participate in public life without fear.
