The Nutrition Bar Confectioners factory in Cato has sat idle for nearly two weeks since the U.S. government sent ICE agents sweeping through the facility in what Governor Kathy Hochul has described as a false warrant.
She visited the Central New York factory this week to hear first-hand from the owners - and their remaining staff - what actually happened on September 4th.
After talking with local law enforcement and the factory owners, Hochul learned that instead of presenting a criminal warrant ICE agents used an administrative warrant while claiming they were to search for two murder suspects. Feeling they had no choice, Hochul said the owners opened the doors and watched as agents racially profiled every factory worker on site.
“What they literally did was separate people by the color of their skin,” the governor shared what factory owners and remaining workers told her.
Hochul, was visibly angered as she spoke Monday morning at the Public Safety building in Syracuse, recounting the method ICE agents used to sort through the work crew.
“They literally had ‘white people over here and brown people over here,’” she continued with disgust, “And that separation was, it was cruel to me. It was un-American. It was abhorrent to see that kind of activity and know about it in our own country, much less our own state.”
In total, 69 workers were taken to detention centers, five had illegally re-entered the country, many are parents, including one new mother who was separated from her nursing infant, and none of the detainees were murderers.
