ICE Raids Texas Technology Company, Arrests 280 Over Immigration Violations

by Stella M. Chavez Christopher Connolly Anthony Cave

Updated at 10:12 p.m. ET

Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 280 employees at a technology repair company in Collin County, Texas, on charges of working in the United States illegally. It’s the largest work site raid in the country in more than a decade, according to a Homeland Security Investigations official.

ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations division received tips that the company — CVE Technology Group — may have knowingly hired undocumented immigrants and that several workers were using fraudulent identification documents, said Katrina Berger, special agent in charge in HSI’s Dallas office. Hiring irregularities found during an audit of the company’s I-9 forms confirmed those tips. CVE hasn’t responded to media requests for comment.

Federal hiring laws require that employers have new hires fill out I-9 forms. The laws perform “necessary and common sense functions,” Berger said at a news conference Wednesday afternoon.

“They ensure U.S. citizens and legal U.S. residents are hired for jobs in the U.S.,” Berger said. “They also ensure that illegal workers are not preyed upon or paid less than the going wage or otherwise coerced or cheated or subjected to unsafe working conditions without any means of complaint.”

Businesses that knowingly hire undocumented workers “create an atmosphere poised for exploiting an illegal workforce,” Berger said.

CVE employee Yessenia Ponce was inside the building in Allen, Texas, when agents arrived.

“Man, it was crazy,” she said. “We were working like a normal day. … We just heard screaming, you know, people screaming and stuff. We went out and an officer just said ‘follow my voice, follow my voice.’ ”

In the past year, North Texas has been the site of the two largest single-site workplace raids in the U.S. in the past decade.

Prior to Wednesday’s raid in Allen, 159 undocumented workers were arrested in the small northeast Texas town of Sumner at a trailer manufacturer.

The largest workplace raid to ever take place in the U.S. was in Postville, Iowa, in May of 2008, where almost 400 undocumented workers were arrested.

What’s next for the arrested employees

The workers arrested on Wednesday will first be interviewed by ICE, which will make note of “humanitarian situations” such as medical needs or whether a worker is the sole caretaker of another person such as a child.

Based on those interviews, ICE will decide who remains in immediate custody and who can be considered for temporary humanitarian release.

Either way, ICE said in a statement that “in all cases, all illegal aliens encountered will be fingerprinted and processed for removal from the United States.”

Families wait outside during the raid

Late Wednesday morning, workers inside the repair plant began texting and calling family members, who arrived and waited outside the building for information. One got a text from his wife, who asked him to call an attorney.

Maria Soria waited in tears outside the repair plant. Her mother, Socorro Lechuga, 46, is an employee there and was eventually released by ICE agents.

Soria, 24, said her mother already had a petition for legalization in place before the raid. Lechuga is originally from Guerrero, Mexico.