Yet another massive workplace raid by the Trump administration, this time in Ohio, has resulted in more than 100 arrests and left a trail of devastated children and families in its wake. The targets were immigrant farm workers, allegedly lured into a break room with Dunkin’ Donuts by undercover agents, who then arrested them:
About 200 federal officers blitzed two locations of Corso’s Flower and Garden Center — one in Sandusky, on the shoreline of Lake Erie, and another in nearby Castalia, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement told the Associated Press.
According to the Washington Post, agents swooped in on helicopters and “with K9s and guns,” ultimately arresting 114 people. “Dozens of the workers’ children were left stranded at day-care centers and with babysitters, local activists wrote on social media”:
A Latino advocacy group called HOLA Ohio shared urgent messages across Twitter and Facebook about the raid. Veronica Isabel Dahlberg, founder and executive director of the group, tweeted: “Children still in daycare. Utter chaos. This has to stop!!!”
Dahlberg added that a 16-year-old U.S. citizen was also detained, and authorities refused to release him “until an adult relative with documentation comes to claim him.”According to Splinter, “ICE has released at least seven individuals who were arrested. The individuals released were teenagers who are U.S. citizens; for some this was their first job.”