ICE office cometh to Greeley

GREELEY – A federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement office is coming to Greeley, and the move is causing controversy among supporters and opponents of the addition.

Sylvia Martinez, one of the founders of Latinos Unidos, said a local ICE office would further polarize relations between racial groups and hurt the city’s economy.

Martinez said there has been ongoing “hysteria” in Greeley after ICE raids at the Swift & Co. meatpacking plant last December and again in July that targeted illegal immigrant workers and those with false or stolen identities. Bringing an ICE office into the community would make that situation worse, she said.

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“I think business in general would be affected,” Martinez said. “Due to the (December) ICE raid, people lost homes and that affects banks. People lost cars and that affects dealers. People have moved away and that affects the entire economy.”

A total of 261 people were arrested at the Swift plant in December. Those found to be in the country illegally were deported, while others were charged with identity theft because they were using Social Security numbers and other documents stolen from legal residents.

Weld County District Attorney Kenneth Buck has been advocating for an ICE office in Greeley because he believes the federal agents can help combat a growing problem with gangs and drugs in the city.

“We are dealing with several problems directly related to our illegal-immigration issue,” Buck said. “We have a serious gang problem in Greeley and the Greeley Police Department estimates about 10 percent of those are illegal immigrants.”

Buck also said that the county is experiencing a wave of methamphetamine abuse. He believes the drugs are originating in Mexico and being pipelined to the area through illegal immigrants.

ICE’s opponents

Latinos Unidos formed in 2005 to oppose locating an ICE office in Greeley, long before the Swift raids. Hundreds of city residents have rallied on more than one occasion to oppose an ICE presence, and for a while it seemed that they were prevailing.

As recently as last May, Latinos Unidos was petitioning Colorado Senators Wayne Allard and Ken Salazar against setting up an ICE office in Greeley.

But Richard Rocha, a spokesman for ICE’s office of public affairs, confirmed last week that ICE will close its office in Brush and essentially relocate it to Greeley.

“Right now the (federal) General Services Agency is looking at the office space needs for an office in Greeley,” he said. Rocha said he could not comment on how many ICE agents would staff such an office. “We never discuss number of agents for safety reasons,” he said.

Rocha said the timeline of setting up a Greeley office would depend on how quickly the GSA can find suitable space.

“The timeline is variable,” he said. “However, we definitely want to move as fast as possible and set up an ICE office as fast as possible.”

There are currently seven ICE offices in Colorado, in Brush, Denver, Glenwood Springs, Craig, Alamosa, Grand Junction and Durango, as well as an ICE detention center in Aurora.

Martinez said Latinos Unidos has opposed a Greeley ICE office out of fear that it would lead to racial profiling of Latinos – both legal and illegal residents. Martinez said a climate of fear is gripping the Latino community, resulting in an economic downturn for both Latino and non-Latino-owned businesses.

“If I knew I could be shipped out at any moment’s notice I would have huge hesitation to buy anything I couldn’t take with me, so I wouldn’t invest in the local community,” she said.

Martinez said local Latino business people are too frightened to say anything. “Because it’s such a hot topic, you open yourself up to personal attack,” she said. “I talk to business owners, and they are being affected, but they’re not willing to speak up against the hysteria because of fear of reprisal.

“It’s really hard to put into words the kind of worry that the word ICE has for people.”

Praise for mayor

Martinez praised Greeley mayor Tom Selders for taking a stand against actions such as last December’s Swift raid in which families were separated just before Christmas and workers were hauled away without explanation of where they might be going.

“Because of his willingness to speak out on it, he has gained much criticism,” she said.

Selders, who traveled to Washington, D.C., in May to call for action on immigration reform, said he preferred not to be interviewed on the ICE office coming to town but did offer a prepared statement, which said in part: “Placing additional ICE personnel in Greeley is obviously a federal government decision. I doubt that it will mean much difference if ICE is located in Greeley until the federal government legislates a policy that deals aggressively with illegal immigration.

“I understand the concern of the Latino community and the fact that this continues to be a divisive issue.”

Selders did add that the city of Greeley “will fully cooperate with ICE as we have always done with federal agencies.”

Martinez said she believes the majority of Greeley’s Latino population is against having an ICE office in town. But District Attorney Buck disputes that notion.

“I see a small group in the Latino population that opposes the office,” he said. “I think they’re much more open-minded than that. I think the (ICE) officials are going to come to town and make it a safer place to live, and everybody who lives here will appreciate it.”