ALBION, NY – A recent investigation by The Intercept, written by Noah Hurowitz and published on May 5, 2025, reports that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents conducted a targeted immigration raid in western New York, detaining immigrant workers involved in a major statewide farmworker unionization effort.
On Friday, April 25, 2025, ICE detained 14 immigrant workers from Mexico and Guatemala who were employed year-round at Lynn-Ette & Sons Farms, a family-owned agricultural business near Kent, New York. According to The Intercept, the farm has been entangled in a prolonged legal fight to oppose New York’s 2019 farm labor law, which affirms the right of farmworkers—seasonal and permanent alike—to seek union representation.
Several of the workers arrested had reportedly been active in organizing efforts, including one individual who publicly supported joining the United Farm Workers (UFW) union. Elizabeth Strater, director of strategic campaigns for the UFW, told The Intercept that the union is alarmed by “the appearance of targeting publicly pro-union worker leaders.”
Unlike broad immigration sweeps, this raid appears to have been a focused enforcement action targeting specific individuals. Sources familiar with the raid, who spoke to The Intercept on condition of anonymity, confirmed that agents appeared to be operating off a pre-prepared list of names. One source said, “They thought they were enforcing a deportation order, that they had one person they were looking for—and then everyone else got dragged in. But they actually had a list of most of the workers on the bus.”
Video footage of the raid shows agents in civilian clothes wearing tactical vests labeled “Police”—a common practice in immigration operations. ICE agents did not identify themselves during the arrests, though a spokesperson later confirmed that ICE had carried out the enforcement. According to ICE, all 14 individuals were in the country without authorization, and three had pending removal orders.
Lynn-Ette & Sons Farms issued a public statement saying they were “deeply troubled” by the arrests but “forcefully rejected any notion that the company had any role in the raid.” They further criticized what they called “irresponsible and self-serving public claims” by UFW, asserting the idea that the arrests were retaliatory was “categorically false.”
The company also stated that the detained workers were not part of a bargaining unit and denied that any of them were actively seeking UFW representation. However, advocates argue that participation in organizing—even if not formalized—still represents a protected form of labor activism.
As of more than 72 hours after the raid, ICE had not provided full details about the whereabouts of all the detainees. According to The Intercept, one man was confirmed to be held at the Batavia Detention Center, and two women were in custody at the Niagara County Jail in Lockport. Two additional men were reportedly in Batavia but had not been logged in the system or spoken with legal counsel. The remaining nine detainees were still unaccounted for at the time of publication.
ICE stated that its enforcement operations are based on “intelligence-driven leads” and do not involve the “indiscriminate targeting” of individuals. Still, fear has spread quickly through the local immigrant community. “Families are changing up their routines to avoid the worst-case scenario of both parents being snatched at once,” Strater told The Intercept. “People are scared, and workers are on high alert.”
This is not the first time Lynn-Ette & Sons Farms has come under scrutiny. In 2023, owner Darren Roberts was the subject of a labor complaint involving alleged interference with a union organizer.
The Intercept also highlighted similar recent enforcement actions that have unsettled immigrant communities across New York State. In one case, a mother and her three children were detained in Sackets Harbor and released only after a week of public pressure. In another, a man in Buffalo was arrested despite having only a traffic ticket on record.
Many of the counties affected by these raids are strongholds of support for President Donald Trump, despite being heavily reliant on immigrant labor.
The Intercept concluded its report by examining the broader legal context of New York’s farm labor law and the increasing entanglement of immigration enforcement with labor organizing efforts across the state—an overlap that critics argue may amount to retaliatory targeting of vulnerable workers demanding basic rights.
