Federal immigration officers arrested and detained 14 undocumented construction workers staying at a Colchester hotel last week, the largest local raid “in recent memory,” according to a spokesman for human rights organization Migrant Justice.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrived at the Days Inn on Route 15 — across the street from Saint Michael’s College — around 5 a.m. last Thursday and and arrested the workers in the hotel breakfast room, said owner Darcy Church.* She described it as a “10 minutes, in-and-out” operation where most of the other guests never noticed anything was amiss.
“There was no commotion or anything,” Church said.
Workers who were not detained then alerted Migrant Justice, said group spokesman Will Lambek. Many of the workers are being held at ICE’s Strafford County House of Corrections in New Hampshire on immigration charges, though some may still be detained in Vermont, he added.
The workers had been hired by a construction firm and periodically stayed at the hotel when they came to the area for projects, Church said.
Neither Church nor any hotel staff tipped off federal immigration officers — “no one at the hotel knew this would happen or had anything to do with it,” she said.* This was the first time ICE agents had ever paid a visit to the hotel, according to Church.
VTDigger.org first reported news of the raid.
Lambek declined to identify the workers and the construction firm that hired them, though he clarified that none were organizers with Migrant Justice. Lambek said the organization had contacted the offices of Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.).
The arrests came before Friday night’s federal government shut down. Among the sticking points in those negotiations is the fate of undocumented immigrants who had received legal status as part of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
ICE spokesman Shawn Neudauer said he could not comment due to the government shutdown. Neudauer, who is based in Minnesota, said he was authorized to speak with press only about “Super Bowl security issues.”
ICE officers — but not public affairs officers — are considered essential government personnel and are still working, Neudauer said.
*Correction, January 22, 2018: A previous version of this story misidentified the owner of the Days Inn.
*Darcy Church later clarified where the workers were arrested and reiterated that staff did not know of the raid ahead of time.
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Those are rookie numbers ICE, you’ve got to pump those numbers up!
And the name of the Construction firm is?……..
What project were they working on here? Where those jobs offered to un-employed Vermont construction workers at a fair price? or was the Construction firm taking advantage of illegal immigrants?
So many questions – so little journalism…..
Is it legal to refuse to allow ICE on private property, either one’s home or business without a warrant?
So, I guess we’ll see a drastic decrease in crime in the area, according to the GOP doctrine, right? Like, 50% less violent crime and rape? It’s great that every economic problem in this country that we blame on illegal immigrants is going to be suddenly fixed, right? People complain about small businesses staying afloat when the issue of raising the minimum wage comes up- which, I agree, can be a legitimate complaint, depending on the size and scope of the increase and impact on business. However, what makes those same people suddenly think that the government’s deportation of cheap labor from their construction businesses, farms and kitchens is going to be any different in terms of impact? These small companies were probably making a killing on cheap labor!
You missed the part where an out of state contstruction company outbid a local company using cheap illegal labor.
Tom is an independent contractor, bidding on individual jobs. “Guys are coming in with bids that are impossible,” he says. “No way they can be as efficient in time and materials as me.” The difference has to be in the cost of labor: Insurance, workmens compensation, and employment taxes add substantially to the cost of legally employed workers. With the lower wages that immigrants in the country illegally are often willing to take, theres plenty of opportunity for competing contractors to underbid Tom and still make a tidy profit. He no longer goes after the big construction projects, and jobs in custom-built houses are becoming harder to find.
Above from Philip Cafaro’s “The Progressive Case for Reducing Immigration,” in Chronicle of Higher Ed:
https://www.chronicle.com/article/The-Prog…
We can acknowledge and appreciate the dignity and fellow humanity of illegal aliens and citizens of other nations while at the same time recognizing that the world is still organized by nation-states with borders. This used to be commonly accepted by all political leaders. Including Democrats like African-American Congresswoman and civil rights icon Barbara Jordan. Where are the heirs to Barbara Jordan in the Democratic Party who can lead with compassion on this issue instead of the current open borders mania? Groups like Migrant Justice and La Raza are well-intentioned but in pushing too far, the nation now has Trump & could end up with someone even darker than Trump next time.
De facto policies of open borders and mass migration have strengthened the far right all across the globe. As leader of President Clinton’s Bipartisan Commission on Immigration Reform, Barbara Jordan suggested all of the immigration policies now proposed by President Trump over 20 years ago. Including chain migration reform; elimination of the diversity visa lottery; strong enforcement vs illegal immigration; and temporary reduction in legal immigration numbers to account for the fact that we are no longer in the industrial age. Clinton was prepared to sign legislation to this effect and unfortunately Ms. Jordan died in the months before Congress finished it. So he backed away from his promises under pressure from La Raza; the corporatist GOP; & from Chinese campaign donors providing illegal financing to the DNC for ’96 elections. As they say, politics makes strange bedfellows.
Where are the Democrats like Barbara Jordan who can lead on this issue with dignity and compassion, without demonization, and who, like Jordan, also recognize we are a world of nation-states with borders? And that the implicit agreement between governed & governing authority within a nation state is prioritization of its own citizens?
They are in favor of ILLEGALS over US CITIZENS.
ILLEGALS over DREAMERS from North Troy, Newport, Rutland, Brighton.
They Want..
Open Borders
Chain Migration
Visa Lottery
Welfare for All
Slave labor on Dairy Farms
congratulations to ICE for rounding these invaders up. Please repatriate them ASAP. It does not bother me how or who turned them in.
Remember, if you see something, say something.
Herd them up ship them out !!!!! Way to go ICE… Get some more…
They should just be given work visas.
Or maybe Americans could do the work for much more money. Oh wait…that construction firm would go out of business, and people will have to pay more to buy a house.
Just give them temporary work visas, and make the company pay at least minimum wage (they’d also need medical insurance. workman’s comp.), or let the company go out of business.
It’s a catch-22 though, because Americans will have to pay more for houses or office space, so their employers in turn, will have to pay those homebuyers more, and some of those businesses will also go out of business. Then unemployment will go up, economies will falter, and financial collapse will loom.
I think there is no choice. Give them visas, force companies to pay minimum wage and health insurance, and hope for the best. Economy is going to collapse under the Republicans anyway. It might actually survive with visas and minimum wage.
I hope that Seven Days will make a serious effort to identify the construction company and who contracted it. Because undocumented workers can be paid a lot less than legal residents and citizens, they are crucial to the steady informalization of the construction industry. Law-abiding contractors, who pay workmen’s compensation, are driven out of business by unscrupulous contractors. Let’s not use immigrant-rights advocacy to undercut labor law.