In a military-style raid, federal immigration authorities ripped workers from their families, violated their rights, and called immigrants animals Body Camera Footage of the Raid Available Here. Spanish Version of Press Release is Below. NEW YORK – Today the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), Worker Justice Center of New York (WJCNY), and Paul Tuck of Paul Tuck Law filed a class action lawsuit in the Northern District of New York against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for its unjustified, military-style raid at a Cato, N.Y. factory in September 2025 that violated the Fourth Amendment rights of over 100 New Yorkers. On behalf of four people who ICE unlawfully seized, the suit alleges that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents engaged in a bias-based conspiracy to conduct a mass seizure and interrogation of as many Latino workers as possible — all without legally-required individualized suspicion — to meet the Trump administration’s deportation quotas. On September 4, 2025, 60 armed and masked federal agents, working together with two county sheriff offices, stormed into the Nutrition Bar Confectioners (NBC) Facility in Cato, New York. Federal agents grabbed over 100 workers, including some U.S. citizens and green card holders, and herded people into a break room where they were forced to answer questions about their citizenship. Body camera footage shows agents calling immigrants animals, referring to children as “literal street rats,” and gloating about denying people medical care or access to counsel in detention. One officer even said he “wet down 74 fucking Guatemalans.” “Even though I’m a United States citizen and have lived here my entire life, federal agents seized me, interrogated me, and violated my rights — all because me and my coworkers are Latino,” said Pedro Rojas, a U.S. citizen who federal agents seized and interrogated. “Federal agents acted like the law no longer applied to them. That cannot be allowed in a country that calls itself the land of the free.” Federal agents arrested at least 57 workers and denied them opportunities to talk to lawyers or their families before rushing many to out-of-state detention facilities. Over 20 workers were separated from their children, and some were immediately deported without due process. “It’s clear that ICE, CBP, and county sheriffs worked together to violate New Yorkers’ constitutional rights, engage in racist and xenophobic conduct, and devastate hardworking Central New York families,” said Perry Grossman, Supervising Attorney at the NYCLU. “We cannot stand idly by as officers walk into workplaces and seize whoever they want — including U.S. citizens — for questioning, with no basis whatsoever. The officers who perpetrated these abuses must be held accountable for their flagrant disregard of the Constitution and the immeasurable pain they have inflicted on these New Yorkers.” “A just society requires that we have rights, dignity, and safety at work,” said Olivia Post Rich, Senior Attorney at the Worker Justice Center of New York. “We hope that bringing this suit will hold the government officials who violated our clients’ Constitutional rights accountable for the devastation they have caused and prevent other families from being ripped apart just because someone dared to go to work.” This lawsuit follows the NYCLU’s successful fight to unseal the applications for the two warrants used to justify the raid. Those documents revealed that the warrants did not authorize the government to seize any individual, and that the government didn’t even ask the court for the authority to do so. “As a former federal prosecutor, I know firsthand how critical it is that law enforcement respect their constitutional obligations and the rights of New Yorkers,” said Paul Tuck of Paul Tuck Law. “Repairing the public’s trust in the rule of law requires accountability for the breaches of our country’s fundamental principles that occurred during the illegal dragnet at the factory that day.” This raid is part of a broader pattern of Trump’s federal agencies conducting mass immigration fishing expeditions targeted at Latinos across the country, including in Minnesota, South Carolina, Oregon, Idaho, Washington D.C., Colorado, California, Illinois, and more. Earlier this year, the NYCLU filed another lawsuit against the administration for conducting suspicionless stops of New Yorkers based solely on perceived race and ethnicity, and for conducting warrantless immigration arrests without probable cause. ###