Federal agents detain dozens of workers in raid at New Jersey warehouse

By Luis Ferre-Sadurní and Mark Bonano

Federal officers detained dozens of immigrant workers at a warehouse in Edison, New Jersey, on midweek in what appeared to be among the largest federal raids in the state since President Donald Trump took office.

The hourslong operation was conducted by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, whose officers arrived at the warehouse along a busy stretch of shipping facilities west of New York City about 9 a.m.

The federal officers arrested 29 people, according to the Edison mayor’s office, which said that the township’s Police Department had been notified that the Department of Homeland Security, which runs the customs agency, would be in the area Wednesday.

The purpose of the operation remained unclear Wednesday night, and it was unclear if other federal agencies had been involved. The Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection did not reply to requests for comment.

A Customs and Border Protection spokesperson told Univision that the agency had carried out “a surprise inspection” of the warehouse. The agency also told Univision that the operation was part of routine customs enforcement efforts, not specifically immigration-related, but that officers had checked the immigration status of workers.

The warehouse — where packages were stacked high in a space about the size of a professional football field — handles shipping for major online retailers, distributing packages across the Northeast, three workers told The New York Times.

The facility is a bonded warehouse, a facility where importers can store foreign goods still in transit without immediately paying import duties and that is under the supervision of Customs and Border Protection, one worker said. The agency has said that it is authorized to conduct unannounced inspections at bonded warehouses to ensure that facilities are adhering to “protocols for the importation of cargo entering the United States.”

Workplace immigration raids have been uncommon in the New York City area, where most arrests have unfolded inside immigration offices and courthouses. Wednesday’s warehouse raid appeared to be at least the second this summer in Edison, a township and commercial hub of about 100,000 people that is about a one-hour drive from New York City.

On July 8, the immigration authorities raided a wine and liquor warehouse in Edison during a “worksite compliance inspection,” arresting 20 workers, mostly from South and Central America, who officials said were in the country illegally.

Many of the workers detained Wednesday hailed from Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru and elsewhere, workers and activists said.

Workers who were interviewed Wednesday night described a chaotic scene of fear and confusion that began when about 20 federal agents stormed through the front door, while another group emerged from vehicles outside, blocking potential points of escape.

Inside, workers ran, yelling, “La migra,” which is Spanish shorthand for the federal immigration authorities, according to the workers, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, and activists who were outside and spoke with some employees as they were released. Some workers were injured during the scramble, workers and activists said, and a video showed at least one ambulance arriving on the scene.

Some workers hid from the officers in the warehouse’s towering rafters, remaining there for hours even after officers flew a drone inside the warehouse to try to find them, the people said in interviews. Some texted relatives from their hiding spots.

The agents did not state the purpose of their visit, according to some workers, and told those present to gather in a corner where workers were taken into a meeting room to be interrogated one by one.

Officers spent hours checking the workers’ immigration status, placing yellow wristbands on those whom they determined to have legal status and leading others away in zip ties, employees said. Agents searched the warehouse and trucks to make sure no workers were hiding.

Amanda Dominguez, a community organizer at New Labor, an advocacy group that represents low-wage immigrant workers, said that the warehouse workers had been hired by a staffing agency, calling the raid an “an attack on working-class people.”

Outside, activists and relatives of the workers gathered throughout the day, searching for answers and waiting anxiously to see if their relatives had been detained or let go.

“People were very upset and crying and angry, completely understandably,” said Ellen Whit, who works at DIRE, a New Jersey hotline that responds to calls about raids and from relatives of immigrants who have been detained. “One girl’s father was taken. She was very, very upset.”

The facility was largely desolate Wednesday evening, its forklifts mainly quiet as supervisors called temporary employment agencies to help replace the detained workers.