Beginning in March, immigration agents waited for the workers of a Lynden seafood processor. They tracked their routes to work and grabbed them on public roads. They watched for them on a service road behind a grocery store in the same city. They hid near their workplace, capturing some of them as they left the property and crossed a street to get water that had been kindly offered to them on a hot day.
Over five months — most recently on Thursday, July 23 — they detained and then deported at least 50 workers from that processor, Premier Packing, according to a Lynden organization called Racial Unity Now, which said its data and information came from local partners as well as its own observations and were corroborated by interviews with Premier’s ownership and employees.
Racial Unity Now said in a news release that it was alerting the community to a “troubling escalation in immigration enforcement uniquely concentrated in Lynden and the surrounding Whatcom County area.”
The group identified immigration agents broadly, saying they were from the Department of Homeland Security as opposed to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, because they seemed to come from different federal agencies “and many of the incidents involved unmarked vehicles.”
Neither ICE, which is part of DHS, nor Premier Packing responded to requests for comment or confirmation of the claims.
Racial Unity Now’s alert comes amid reports of a surge in ICE enforcement that has increased fear in communities in Whatcom and Skagit counties.
The organization said the operation in Lynden was the first “soft raid” in Whatcom County by immigration agents, defining such a raid as one that focuses on public roads versus private facilities that require judicial warrants to enter.
Jeremy Dorrough, its executive director, feared the actions in Whatcom County were a precursor.
“I’m concerned that we’re just low-hanging fruit and a soft target,” Dorrough said in an interview with The Northern Light, adding that he worried the approach could be rolled out elsewhere.
Dorrough didn’t know if any of the detained workers were from the Blaine, Birch Bay or Custer area.
Racial Unity Now called on legislators to do more to protect vulnerable immigrants in the community and said employers should clearly mark private property and educate workers about their rights.
Dorrough said children left behind when a parent is taken face increased risks of poverty, trauma and hunger.
“Even citizens who prioritize orderly immigration processes should oppose these ongoing family separations and callous enforcement practices,” he said.
