By Movimiento Cosecha, NJ et al.
Yesterday morning at approximately 10:00 am, volunteers across New Jersey responded to a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) raid at Alba Wine and Spirits in Edison, a customs-bonded warehouse. Reports on the ground indicate that agents from Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) entered with a list of all workers and checked the immigration status of each, arresting at least 20 people. If satisfied, agents told workers to wear red wristbands, allowing them to continue working. If workers failed to satisfy federal agents’ requests to prove their immigration status, they were detained and put into white ICE vans. Agents also reportedly entered with canine units.
First-hand accounts of the scene:
Family members quickly arrived at the warehouse, bringing documents to support their family member’s status. One family was seen crying outside because federal agents had detained their aunt.
One worker shared that ICE agents approached him while he was in his car on break. They demanded that he follow them back into the warehouse, and when he told them he had work authorization, ICE agents threatened to break the windows of his car if he did not comply. Thus, he went with ICE agents, who then threw him onto the floor and handcuffed him without cause. ICE then determined he had legal status, but continued to search through his record for another reason to kidnap him. They released him and gave him the red wristband when they found nothing.
Management seemed to comply with ICE. One worker explained that when ICE arrived, management greeted them and called for all employees to come to the front for a “meeting.” People had no warning that ICE had arrived and were led directly to ICE agents.
Edison Police did not allow an attorney to cross the police barrier around the warehouses to meet with her client. She witnessed him getting detained and taken away, but was barred from speaking with him as the law requires.
Family members are now frantically reaching out to local organizations on social media as they were given no warning or information about their loved one’s whereabouts. Organizations are demanding the immediate release of all workers detained, the reunification of families, and the end to DHS terror on local communities. Advocates believe that today’s raid in Edison is the largest the New Jersey community has seen since the start of this Trump administration. Rapid response networks and circles of support continue to grow, and advocates encourage community members to call their local hotlines and exercise their rights when engaging with law enforcement.
Members of the community offer the following responses:
A woman whose husband was detained said: “My husband has been in this country for 27 years and has worked at Alba Wine & Spirits for 10 years. My husband called me and said, ‘Don’t get scared.” My stomach dropped. He said, “Immigration is here and has the building surrounded.” Then he hung up the phone. I felt desperate; we had been looking for him for hours yesterday until we discovered he was in Newark. I feel sad. He was only going to work. Since he has been in this country, he has worked and cared for his family. I feel anger against the company because they handed over my husband. They overworked him; he’s 65 years old. He was already taking long shifts because he’s the only one who knows how to do some of the work at the company.”
Amanda Dominguez, Organizer at New Labor, said: “ICE violently separated over 20 hardworking individuals from their families today without a warrant while they worked in a CBP bonded warehouse. Workers have a right to know whether their workplace is safe or if it holds a government contract with CBP that allows ICE agents to enter without a warrant. These workers and their families will never be the same, and now workers across our community are terrified to show up to work, wondering if their warehouse will be next. ICE is terrorizing our families, workplaces, and economy. During the raid individuals were marked with red bracelets to indicate legal status which is deeply disturbing and evokes historical parallels to how Nazis labeled Jewish individuals. The kidnapping, trafficking, and abuse of immigrant community members must end now! We need to keep our communities and workplaces safe!”
Hector, a student organizer with Semilla Roja, said: “What happened in Edison was not just a raid. It was a fascist operation that was carried out with the complicity of management and the silence of those in power. The state and its business partners fully support ICE and CBP. The red wristbands they used to separate “legal” from “illegal” are the modern-day badges of racialized control, part of a fascist logic that criminalizes immigrants and disciplines workers. As the working-class Latinx youth of New Jersey, we see clearly that this system is not made for us. It is designed to divide us and keep us afraid. We cannot rely on ‘good managers’ or the law alone to protect us. It is up to us to build the revolutionary organization needed to confront this system, rooted in our communities and led by those who live this violence every day. We all must make sure that no one ever faces this kind of violence alone again.”
Once detained, immigrants are taken to a processing center or “black site” in Newark and later transferred to one of two operating immigration detention centers in New Jersey: Elizabeth Detention Center in Elizabeth and Delaney Hall in Newark. At both facilities, people face extreme violations of human rights, including inadequate and inedible food, freezing temperatures, racist and cruel abuse, and limited to no access to legal and family support. From there, people are frequently transferred to different, often private and deadly, ICE facilities nationwide.
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