ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, March 1, 1997 TAG: 9703030055
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: HARRISONBURG
SOURCE: Associated Press
THE ACLU SAYS AGENTS illegally detained 400 workers at a Harrisonburg poultry plant during a search for illegal aliens last month.
Federal immigration agents had no right to detain hundreds of poultry plant workers during a raid earlier this month, a state civil liberties leader said.
Kent Willis, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Virginia, said Thursday the ACLU is preparing a lawsuit accusing the Immigration and Naturalization Service of violating the Wampler Foods Inc. workers' constitutional rights in the Feb. 5 raid.
``We have met with a large number of individuals, many who have indicated an interest in being plaintiffs,'' Willis said.
Thirty-eight workers, most of them from Mexico, were arrested and charged with being in the country illegally. Their cases will be heard by U.S. immigration judges. Illegal aliens will be deported.
The ACLU said INS agents surrounded the plant, told its approximately 400 workers they could not leave and then interrogated them.
``INS, with a warrant, has a right to enter the plant and check records and interview workers, but it has no right to detain them without probable cause,'' Willis said.
Willis said armed agents intimidated workers into believing they could not leave.
The INS denies any wrongdoing and contends that a federal search warrant allowed the agents to hold everyone while they verified all of the employees' right to work in the United States.
``We have the authority to go in, based on the issuance of that warrant, and take reasonable measures to secure that location .... and to question individuals,'' INS spokesman Russell Bergeron said Wednesday.
The raid sparked an outcry among many members of Harrisonburg's sizable Hispanic community and led to the creation of the Interdenominational Coalition for Justice, which pledged to help those who were arrested.
One legal immigrant who was arrested because she left her green card at home told the Daily News-Record of Harrisonburg that she was denied an opportunity to call her children.
``I was scared,'' said the woman, who spoke on condition of anonymity because she feared harassment. ``I had never got home that late.''
She was allowed to phone home shortly before 6 p.m. on the day of the raid, but only after she had been photographed and fingerprinted.
Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill. and a member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, said in a letter to the local coalition that seven parents arrested apparently were denied an opportunity to arrange for the care of their children.
Bergeron denied that claim. ``Anyone who indicated children were involved was given the opportunity to make calls,'' he said.
LENGTH: Medium: 59 linesby CNB