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Sometimes, things start one way only to end another. A
case in point: What began as an attempt by Immigration
and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to arrest one undocumented
resident at her home last month turned, in less than an
hour, into the seizure of four undocumented workers at
a Belltown bakery.
In the morning hours of Feb. 28, ICE showed up at the
known residence of a Honduran woman, with plans to arrest
her for defying a Texas judge’s order to repatriate
to her birth country. At the residence, the officers —
who were part of the agency’s Fugitive Operations
Program — were informed the woman wasn’t there,
but could be found at her place of employment, the well-known
downtown bakery Macrina.
“So, they went to look for her,” ICE spokeswoman
Lorie Dankers says of the agents.
At the bakery, the presence of several men — who
were plainclothes — staring in the window scared
members of an immigrant workforce that assists in bakery
prep. The workers, whose numbers were undetermined, fled.
A backup cadre of agents from ICE, which sits under the
umbrella of the Department of Homeland Security, were
on hand by this time and, as workers scattered, four employees,
says Dankers, admitted to being undocumented.
“We had no choice but to detain those individuals,”
says Dankers.
A columnist in the Seattle P-I reported that Macrina owner
Leslie Mackie said she had documentation to verify the
workers’ legal status. Numerous calls to confirm
this with Mackie were not returned.
Dankers says she believes that relatives at the home of
the woman who was initially sought out called the prep
cooks at Macrina to alert them that immigration agents
were likely on the way. Their arrival, she continues,
was not an attempt to target Macrina. “The bakery
got mixed up in this,” she says, “because
that’s where the individual was working.”
The four females workers — two hailing from Mexico,
one from El Salvador, the last from Honduras — were
taken to Tacoma’s Northwest Detention Center for
booking. Dankers says one of them, claiming she had a
child and was caring for a sick relative, was released
on her own recognizance. The three others were each held
for $15,000 bail; as of March 16, only one has posted
the necessary funds. All four, says Dankers, will stand
trial.
Officially established in the wake of 9/11, the Fugitive
Ops program has 52 units scattered across the country,
including a unit each in Seattle and Portland. Come summer’s
end, however, the program has plans to increase the number
of national units to 75, with one in Yakima.
The Honduran woman who was the original target has yet
to be apprehended. Dankers wouldn’t comment more
on her case, except to say an investigation is continuing.
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