Immigrant rights activists show up to support Marcial De Leon Aguilar outside the Federal Building in Syracuse. Aguilar was handcuffed and taken away by ICE agents during a morning raid of a dairy farm.
John Collins has been a farmer for thirteen years. But he just learned that the job carries the risk of being handcuffed if you encounter Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on your farm and dare ask if they have a warrant to be there.
And don’t be surprised if your cell phone is thrown on the ground by an ICE agent if you attempt to take a video of the encounter.
Collins says all this happened to him on his dairy farm in the upstate New York community of Rome on April 18th. About eight in the morning he heard commotion in his milk house, went to see what was going on, and discovered ICE agents arresting farmworker Marcial De Leon Aguilar.
Jim Goodman
Farmer John Collins outside the Federal Building in Syracuse, New York, after a detention hearing for his farmworker, Marcial De Leon Aguilar.
“They had him up against the glass. And that’s when I confronted them,” says Collins, recounting what happened after attending the April 24 detention hearing for Aguilar at the Federal Building in Syracuse. Collins says that after he asked who the agents were and what they were looking for, “I asked for paperwork and didn’t receive any.”
And when he questioned whether ICE agents had a warrant and began to video them, Collins says he was accused of obstructing and assaulting a federal agent, and handcuffed. But agents backed off from charging him, and took off his handcuffs before they left.
Court papers filed in this case by ICE make no mention of a warrant and instead speak of agents entering “a publicly accessible door.”
“They are getting more aggressive,” Collins says of ICE. “They are definitely looking for any little thing they can do––even if it infringes on my civil rights.”
On April 25, Collins joined Governor Andrew Cuomo for a news conference in Albany. “ICE going onto the farm without a valid warrant violated constitutional rights,” said Cuomo. And the governor said he is forming a rapid response team so that if ICE continues with such tactics, legal counsel will be made available.
He also sent a cease and desist letter to ICE Deputy Director Thomas Homan, threatening legal action if ICE continues with “blatant constitutional violations” as was evident in Collins’s and other cases. “Equally concerning is the practice of apparently targeting immigrants who have publicly disagreed with your agency’s practices,” says the letter.
Homan responded to Cuomo with a statement saying, “ICE will continue to protect New York communities against public safety and national security threats and it is false and offensive for the Governor to say otherwise.”
According to Bruce Goldstein, president of Farmworker Justice, an advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., farming communities have noticed a greater presence of ICE agents for months.
“The confrontation of farmers without a warrant represents increased aggressiveness,” says Goldstein, who tells how ICE is instilling fear in farmworkers.
The two oldest children—a six-year-old daughter and an eight-year-old son—saw their father being taken by ICE.
Aguilar, who is from Guatemala, has been charged with illegal re-entry into the United States. U.S Magistrate Andrew Baxter ordered Aguilar detained––without bail––saying there was a risk that he would flee, since he had been deported three times before.
Assistant Federal Public Defender Juan Rodriguez told Baxter that keeping Aguilar, thirty-one, locked up would “rip a father from his family,” leaving his wife, Virginia Puac Morales, who is seven months pregnant, and their four children without support.
As it is, the two oldest children––a six-year-old daughter and an eight-year-old son––saw their father being taken by ICE. The arrest happened as Collins was waiting with them for the school bus.
“They were pretty distraught about the whole deal. I was in cuffs,” says Collins.
Aguilar with two of his children.
He has nothing but praise for Aguilar, describing him as a devoted family man who during the nine months he worked on the farm always showed up on time, no matter how early. “Marcial is the best––the best of a worker. A pleasure to be around,” says Collins.
Aguilar’s arrest has also mobilized immigrant rights activists. The Workers’ Center of Central New York has mounted a petition campaign––“Free Marcial Stop ICE from separating New York families”––and organized a protest outside the Federal Building after the detention hearing.
“To me, it’s criminal,” says Rebecca Fuentes, lead organizer for the Workers’ Center in Syracuse. “A man working with four kids, with a pregnant wife, should be respected. We should be talking about ICE’s criminal activity.”
The criminal complaint against Aguilar says that ICE went to the farm to conduct a home visit for an Alternatives to Detention participant because that person missed multiple appointments and there were questions about family members living with that person at the farm.
Fuentes says the person alluded to in the complaint is Aguilar’s wife, who is from Guatemala and undocumented, but challenges the contention that she has missed ICE check-in appointments.
“She has been very diligent. She showed me a log––and it has the dates and notes from ICE officials telling what she needs to do,” says Fuentes.
ICE’s show of force at the farm suggests that the real reason they went there was to arrest Aguilar.
His arrest also highlights the importance of immigrant farmworkers––many of whom are undocumented––to the dairy industry.
If all the immigrant dairy workers in the U.S. were to suddenly disappear, the dairy industry as a whole would collapse.
“In fact, if all the immigrant dairy workers in the U.S. were to suddenly disappear, the dairy industry as a whole would collapse,” says a report, “Milked: Immigrant Dairy Farmworkers in New York State,” by the Workers’ Center in Syracuse and the Worker Justice Center of New York, in Rochester.
The 2017 report calls for labor and safety protections for farmworkers as well as providing undocumented immigrants the opportunity to get a driver’s license, which would make them less vulnerable to the random stops that have put them in detention.
But all farmworkers can count on from ICE is fear, detention, and deportation. And Collins’s experience shows what can happen to a farmer who stands up to ICE.
James Goodman is a freelance writer based in Rochester.