page_title: Swift raids
section_title: Raids
hierarchical_section_title: Swift raids / Raids
caption_attribution_description: English: ICE Special Agents (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) arresting suspects during a raid.
context_page_description: The 2006 Swift raids were a coordinated effort by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain and deport people who are undocumented.
  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. It was the largest workplace immigration raid in U.S. history.
context_section_description: On December 12, federal agents raided Swift plants in Hyrum, Utah; Greeley, Colorado; Marshalltown, Iowa; Grand Island, Nebraska; Cactus, Texas; and Worthington, Minnesota. The action against Swift & Co. was known as "Operation Wagon Train" within the DHS. It was executed by over 1,000 ICE police, in some cases backed by local police with riot gear. Thousands of workers—estimates range from 12,000 to 20,000 —were directly affected. Testimony suggests that events unfolded similarly at the six plants.
  Managers shut down assembly lines and instructed workers to report to central areas. Some resisted and were reportedly sprayed with chemical weapons. Many were handcuffed. In some plants, workers were separated into two lines on the basis of their skin color; lighter-skinned workers were dismissed more quickly, while their darker-skinned counterparts were detained.
  Agents then interrogated them and decided which to arrest—a difficult process since many had not brought identification to work on that day. Language barriers also created confusion. ICE made use of Spanish translators, but in some cases these spoke with a Guatemalan dialect and had trouble communicating with the workers.
  There is disagreement over how well the detainees were treated. One person described being put in a large room with other workers and receiving McDonald's hamburgers from ICE:
  "They would throw the food for us at the floor, and we had to pick it up from the floor," Ana said.  She also contends the group of 30 to 40 she was with had to share a single toilet, and the officers prohibited them from flushing it. "They closed the water (off) so that we couldn't flush the water, because they said they were going to punish us because we kept crying and talking," said Ana. "And they didn't give us any toilet paper."
  Other workers said they were simply denied access to food, water, and toilets. A shot may have been fired by an ICE agent in response to one worker's attempted escape from the Swift plant in Greeley.
  Friends and family outside reported being unable to contact the workers. They said that ICE police handed them sheets of paper with an area-code 800 number to dial later.
  ICE Director Julie Myers countered these claims in a written statement submitted On December 18, 2006, to the U.S. District Court in Colorado:
  There were no locked doors, and no one was prevented from leaving the area. Officers ensured that the employees entered the cafeteria in a safe and orderly fashion and had properly stored their meatpacking tools, many of which were dangerous objects. Officers did not frisk the employees or act in anything but a calm and courteous manner so as to facilitate the safest environment possible. A Swift management team was present during the entire vetting and questioning period. Public telephones were available for those aliens who wanted to contact family members or friends who could bring evidence of lawful status or simply to make calls.
  The period of detention in the plants typically lasted between six and eight hours, after which some workers were arrested and some were told to go home.
  In the next few days, small teams of ICE agents went from door to door in the affected communities over the next few days, looking for certain identity theft suspects.
caption: ICE agents and detainees in Houston
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