Feds raided an Edison, NJ workplace. Advocates warn it could signal an ICE escalation

Activists and policy experts suspect there is a new phase of the Trump administration’s deportation efforts in New Jersey after a rare workplace raid by federal immigration enforcement agents in Edison.

Personnel with the Department of Homeland Security took 29 people into custody on Wednesday, according to Edison Mayor Samip Joshi, during the hourslong raid at a customs bonded warehouse at 65 Patrick Ave.

Immigration activists on the scene expressed concern the raid was part of a broader effort to target workplaces employing immigrants in large numbers — a tactic rarely seen in this region under President Donald Trump’s push to boost deportations.

“This may be the beginning of the promised ‘flooding the zone’ operation,” said Muzaffar Chishti, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute’s office at NYU's School of Law.

A spokesperson for the federal Department of Homeland Security said in a statement late Thursday that 29 undocumented workers at Smart Pony Inc. were taken into custody. The statement said worksite raids remain a "cornerstone" of the department's immigration enforcement efforts. The raid follows a similar workplace raid in Edison at the Alba Wine & Spirits warehouse in July in which 20 people were reportedly arrested.

Elora Mukherjee, the director of the Immigrants' Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School, said 45% of Edison’s residents are immigrants and that she feared increased immigration enforcement efforts in New Jersey and New York, where enforcement in significant numbers has has targeted immigration courthouses.

“ICE is striking at the heart of immigrant communities, trying to destroy them,” she said.

Steven Yale-Loehr, a retired professor of immigration law practice at Cornell Law School, said it remained to be seen whether the workplace raids were directed from top officials in Washington, D.C., or “ just individual ICE offices who set different priorities in terms of who they go after and how many people to try to round up.”

Yale-Loehr pointed to comments from White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, calling for the arrests of as many as 3,000 immigrants daily. That high target, Yale-Loehr said, would require federal agencies to expand their dragnet well beyond people with criminal records.

“A raid on a manufacturing facility, or in this case a freight facility, can net you many more immigrants with the same amount of effort,” Yale-Loehr said.

In recent months, immigration enforcement actions have surged in much of the country, fueled in part by new funding approved by Congress as part of the president’s sweeping domestic policy bill.

In a statement, Rep. Frank Pallone, a New Jersey Democrat, said, “once again, President Trump is terrorizing our communities and raiding places of work.”

Pallone added: “Yesterday’s raid in Edison is more proof his administration will stretch the law without a warrant. The warehouse workers were just trying to do their jobs when armed agents stormed in rounding up our neighbors without warning or cause, just to make a political point.”

The raid took place at a customs bonded warehouse, a site Customs and Border Patrol defines as a secure facility where imported merchandise can be stored for up to five years without payment of duty. Officials at the site could not be reached for comment.

Amanda Dominguez, a member of the workers justice group New Labor, said she arrived on the scene after the raid began.

“ I think this is the way for ICE to get what they would consider low-hanging fruit and really attack vulnerable individuals and groups,” she said, noting that most of the workers were Central American and Mexican. The DHS statement said its enforcement operations target illegal employment networks that undermine American workers, destabilize labor markets, and threaten American communities.

Ellen Whitt, who works with the D.I.R.E. immigration hotline out of Highland Park, New Jersey, said she was one of the first community members to arrive on site after the warehouse raid began. Whitt said workers inside described a scene in which ICE agents operated drones meant to uncover workers who had gone into hiding in the sprawling warehouse.

“It was a very inhumane situation,” she said.

Whitt said so far, two of the people who were detained told her they planned to self-deport, rather than endure “very bad conditions” at federal detention centers, including at the Delaney Hall Detention Facility in Newark. Of the detainees, Whitt said,  ”They simply want to take care of their families. They're just normal people.”

This article was updated with comment from the Department of Homeland Security.