ICE Raid That Shook NY Town Sparks Scrutiny A Year Later

(MENAFN- Live Mint) (Bloomberg) -- More than 60 federal immigration agents, many masked and clad in military gear, stormed a family-owned granola-bar factory in upstate Cato, New York, on the first day of school one year ago this week.

Agents forced their way into women's bathrooms and peered over stalls inside Nutrition Bar Confectioners. They herded pregnant women and young mothers into a sweaty breakroom packed with about 160 workers, including some US citizens.

US Customs and Border Patrol and other federal agencies had spent months looking into whether Nutrition Bar Confectioners was a haven for undocumented workers, and obtained two search warrants. One gave them permission to seize records and electronics that could prove the company hired workers illegally; the other, to conduct“consensual” questioning of employees. Workers couldn't be pressured to speak, and could only be arrested if there was probable cause they were undocumented, according to the warrant and a judge's ruling.

But when agents burst through the doors, they swiftly turned away from their stated purpose and began rounding up workers, a federal judge found. English speakers were separated from Spanish speakers, and nobody was allowed to leave the building until agents questioned them. Witnesses described a chaotic and poorly organized affair, with one customs agent calling the operation a“shitshow,” according to body camera video and a Dec. 18 court ruling.

“The agents' conduct here was, at best, grossly negligent....agents engaged in conduct markedly different from that which the Government told the magistrate judge would occur,” Brenda K. Sannes, chief U.S. District judge for the Northern District of New York, wrote while suppressing all evidence in a criminal case against one of the detained workers.“Even assuming that warrant complied with the Fourth Amendment - an issue which is far from clear cut - the agents plainly exceeded its contemplated scope.”

A year after one of the largest immigration raids in recent New York history, many of the assertions made at the time by immigration officials, DOJ attorneys and ICE agents have been refuted by court filings, affidavits, bodycam footage and judicial rulings.

In a charging affidavit, one supervisor documented a confession that,“evidently never occurred,” Sannes wrote. Other federal agents said they learned at the scene that a person arrested for illegal reentry was from Guatemala and refused to turn over immigration papers, according to a motion to suppress and court exhibits. Instead, agents never asked for the immigration documents, and had no knowledge of her legal status until hours after the arrest, according to the motion and Sannes' ruling.

When applying for the search warrant, agents wrote that the primary purpose of the warrant was to seek employment records. Body camera footage and affidavits show that agents didn't begin searching until after it had detained, questioned and arrested dozens of workers, according to a defense motion and court exhibits.

In all, 57 undocumented workers, including some who had valid work permits or were awaiting asylum hearings, were detained that day and shipped to facilities in Texas and Louisiana. A mother of three young children, including a US citizen, was swept up and“wrongfully deported” while awaiting an asylum hearing, only to be returned when the mistake came to light, a Texas federal judge wrote in a January order.

Agents on the scene told factory managers they were searching for two violent offenders, possibly involved in a homicide. Five days after the raid, acting US Attorney John Sarcone III acknowledged in a news conference that none of those detained had criminal histories, other than five charged with illegally reentering the country.

Video: Courtesy of Syracuse

While Nutrition Bar's hiring practices were the stated reason for the raid, no criminal or civil charges have been filed against the company, according to federal court records.

A spokesman for the US Attorney's Office for the Northern District of New York, in a written response to questions, said it“cannot comment on this as it is subject to ongoing investigation. Relating to the owner, I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of any investigation or pending prosecution.”

The Department of Homeland Security, in an emailed statement, said“there are no formal rulings against the search warrant” and that it complies with all lawful court orders.

The records show that the judge's rebuke, the mistaken deportation of a young mother and other missteps outlined in court documents in New York and Louisiana made no difference in the end. Nearly all of the 57 seized workers were deported, including one after she was granted bond by a judge.

“It just feels like ICE is just experimenting on raids like this, and not just in Cato,” said Jessica Maxwell, executive director of the Workers Center of Central New York.“Let's see what happens if we go into a workplace, even if the warrant really can't hold up, and keep doing it until we see if there are any consequences.”

DHS, in its statement, said pending asylum applications don't confer legal status and that“the end result will be the same-illegal aliens will not be able to remain in the US.”

Chaotic School Opening

Shortly after the 9:18 am raid began, a mother working at Nutrition Bar called a friend at the Fulton Student School District with a frantic message: I am not going to make it home, please take care of my child.

Nobody from ICE or law enforcement notified the district or gave a heads up so they could plan to care for kids, Superintendent Douglas Lawrence said.

“It was pretty chaotic here. We were doing a guessing game trying to figure out which parents had been involved, then scrambling to find a trusted adult who could help take care of them,” said Lawrence, who was newly hired and going through his first school opener.

“We didn't get into politics, we just focused on getting the kids a safe place for kids, even though we really didn't know what was going on,” Lawrence said.

In the days that followed, the community came together donating food and clothes to the dozen or so families impacted, he said. He said the area has always been supportive of the immigrant community, while acknowledging that many have kept a low profile in the year since the raid.

Case Dismissed

Beside the woman who was mistakenly deported, the detained workers included a mother of three US citizen children – ages 16, 9, 6 – who had been in the US for more than 20 years. Also swept up were several men who had spent years working and raising families in the US, at least two pregnant women and others who were awaiting asylum hearings, and many with valid work permits, worker advocates said at the time.

Another employee, Argentina Juarez-Lopez, 50, clearly asked to speak to an attorney and refused to talk to agents, according to body-camera transcripts and a judge's ruling. But in an arrest affidavit, one agent wrote that Juarez-Lopez“freely” admitted she was in the country illegally and didn't ask for an attorney.

Unlike most of the workers, Juarez-Lopez was charged criminally with illegally reentering the country. That gave her the right to discovery, including the search warrants, body-camera footage and affidavits from federal agents. Her attorney, Paul Tuck, used that information to argue that evidence obtained during the raid should be thrown out.

Sannes, the district court judge, acknowledged suppressing evidence would likely kill the case, but said the government's actions left her no choice.

“Good reason exists to deter future conduct of the type that happened here. Agents arrested Defendant following a mass seizure carried out in a manner materially different from what the Government represented to the magistrate judge,” Sannes wrote.

Sannes ruled that agents treated actions such as asking for an attorney, speaking Spanish or showing fear of armed, masked agents into probable cause for arrest.

Juarez-Lopez remained jailed on an immigration detainer and was deported shortly after the case was dismissed.

No Coming Back

Most of the 160 workers on site were only briefly detained, while the other 57 were taken into ICE custody that morning, a review of court documents and habeas petitions shows.

That included the mother of three US-citizen students in the school system, Juana Castillo Avelar, her attorney wrote in a February petition to win her release from a Louisiana detention center.

A federal judge granted her release on $9,000 bail, but ICE didn't release her, according to the petition. ICE also said in court papers that Avelar and her attorneys had been served electronically with a notice of appeal to keep her in custody.

“That statement is false,” Baton Rouge attorney David Rozas wrote in a February habeas petition, noting that Avelar didn't yet have a lawyer or access to any electronic filings.

Avelar's family again posted bond, but before she could be released, she was deported.

In June, a federal judge ruled Avelar had no legal recourse since deportation gave her what she sought – to be released from ICE detention.

“(The petition) is denied and dismissed without prejudice because petitioners claims are moot. She was only asking to be released from custody,” US District Judge Terry A. Doughty wrote in a one-page order.

'Never Broke a Law'

US Customs and Border Patrol, with help from local sheriffs, had spent six months putting together a case that Nutrition Bar Confectioners employed hundreds of undocmented workers and did not participate in the federal E-Verify system, which allows employers to check the legal status of applicants and workers, according to a search warrant application.

In late February 2025, Oswego County deputies pulled over a car they said had crossed a“hazard marking in the road.” A couple weeks later, deputies pulled over another car they said hadn't used a turn signal.

In each case, deputies called CBP, searched the cars and found paperwork, fake or borrowed ID cards and other documentation that showed they worked at Nutrition Bar and weren't in the country legally, according to the ICE application to search the factory.

The pattern continued for months, with local sheriff's deputies stopping cars and alerting border patrol, which gathered information on Nutrition Bar while deporting more workers.

Investigators determined that in the first quarter of 2025 alone, 134 of the company's 225 workers were using Social Security numbers that belonged to someone else, had been assigned to dead people or were fabricated, according to the search warrant application. Acting US Attorney John Sarcone said in a news conference days after the raid that even though it didn't capture“the worst of the worst,” it sent a message to a company that blatantly broke immigration laws.

But a year later, the family-owned company remains in business, just as it has for the past five decades, while prosecutors won't comment on whether they are still building a case.

Nutrition Bar Confectioners didn't respond to phone calls seeking comment. At the time, it issued a statement that it thoroughly vetted all employees and had created a diverse, welcoming culture.

“We never broke a law,” co-owner and vice president Lenny Schmidt told Syracuse at the time.“We always follow the laws to a 'T' the best we can. We'll work with whoever comes in, any authority, we will work to make it right.”

The company, in another statement, acknowledged that the workers wouldn't be coming back.“We are saddened and heartbroken for the families who wished for a better life in America, worked hard, and are now separated,” it said.

Maxwell, of the Worker's Center, which provided legal services to many of those detained, said the lack of action against the employer indicates that the traffic stops and search was about going after workers.

“We haven't seen a raid of that size before or since, and I think that's because of the public backlash, not because of any legal consequences to ICE,” Maxwell said.“Two years ago, you never would have seen them detaining, let along deporting, people with valid work permits. Now, everything has changed.”

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(Updates with DHS response starting in 13th paragraph)

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