Oregon Leaders Support Illegal Immigrants After Raid

The Archbishop of Portland's Catholic Archdiocese and the city's mayor both expressed their anger over a raid conducted by federal agents caught 167 illegal immigrants. According to an Associated Press article posted on Tucson, Arizona's Fox11AZ.com, both officials issued statements protesting the raid.

For his part, Archbishop John Vlazny called the raid, "an affront to a nation whose tradition has always welcomed the stranger in search of the security and livelihood which he cannot find in the country of his origin." Mayor Tom Potter had similar sentiments, adding that arresting local workers who are "filling the demands of local businesses for their labor is bad policy."

In the article, a local union leader disagreed with Vlazny and Potter, claiming that illegal immigrants were taking jobs away from Oregonians. "It's irresponsible for corporations like Fresh Del Monte to import workers when Oregon has plenty of skilled food processing workers right here at home," Oregon AFL-CIO President Tom Chamberlain said. The raid was conducted against American Staffing Resources and a Del Monte plant.

The raid was, in part, the result of a "sting" operation. According to AP, an undercover agent of Immigration and Customs Enforcement pretended to be an illegal immigrant who admitted to managers of processing plants that he was an illegal immigrant and did not have the necessary documents to be employed in the U.S. American Staffing Resources allegedly provided him counterfeit documents.

According to AP, federal officials estimated that at least 90% of the workers at the plants had false documents.

Three workers were arrested and indicted on ID theft charges. AP says that one previously had been deported to Mexico. The other two were accused of encouraging illegal immigrants. Of those two, one had several other charges related to false documents and ID theft. Mayor Potter did not object to the arrest of those three, but did not support the rounding up of the other workers.