Williams wary of immigration trouble after cannery raid

By Susan Ferriss

WILLIAMS – News that federal agents raided a big tomato cannery here six weeks ago hit residents like ketchup splattering on a white shirt.

Java Stop café owner Carol Ornbaun said that while the agents were hauling boxes of documents out of SK Foods, family and friends were frantically ringing cannery workers' cell phones to see what was up.

"I also heard," Ornbaun said, "that half the next shift didn't come in."

The FBI and the Internal Revenue Service have not said why they visited the plant – or SK Foods' headquarters in Monterey or a second cannery the company owns in Lemoore. Warrants used for the April 16 searches have been sealed.

Company representatives said only that the probe isn't about food quality or food safety. Some in Williams worry that immigration agents will come next.

In this speck of a city surrounded by gold and green farm fields about 45 minutes north of Sacramento, undocumented workers labor alongside legal workers and U.S. citizens and are sometimes related by blood.

"This is an agricultural area. That's who works in agriculture," said Monica Ordaz, who owns El Campesino, a store just down the road from the SK Food cannery. "I'm telling you, if they start doing immigration raids here, there might be 10 workers left in canneries."

Last month, federal agents carried out two high-profile immigration raids elsewhere, fueling fears in Williams of a similar crackdown.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained 63 undocumented employees of a Bay Area taqueria chain in early May. A year before that raid, IRS agents had used a search warrant to investigate the El Balazo chain.

In Iowa, immigration agents detained 389 workers at a meatpacking plant on May 12 in a raid that federal officials say is the largest criminal enforcement operation ever carried out by immigration authorities at a workplace.

Also contributing to the speculation in Williams is a civil lawsuit against SK Foods that accuses the company of violating racketeering laws by allegedly "conspiring" to hire illegal immigrants to depress wages.

Robin Brewer, a former employee at the company's Lemoore plant, filed the suit in U.S. District Court in Fresno two years ago. In April, a judge denied a motion to make Brewer's claim a class-action suit.

SK Foods has denied Brewer's claim, contending it has a policy of not hiring illegal immigrants and follows federal hiring laws.

Brewer's Chicago-based lawyer, Howard Foster, said he doesn't know why the FBI and IRS raided SK Foods, and that neither agency has approached him.

If federal agents were to shut down SK Foods, which employs thousands at the peak of the canning season, the closure would have a ripple effect, said Ornbaun. "Growers have contracts," she said. "Truckers have contracts."

Ordaz, whose father works at the sprawling cannery, said, "Sometimes the cannery works six or seven days a week, with three shifts. That's a lot of house payments people are making."

Ordaz's customers are mostly Mexican American and Mexican workers, including many from SK Foods. They can wire money to Mexico from her shop, cash checks and get help filling out various types of insurance or employment paperwork.

SK Foods – and the town of Williams – are part of California's lucrative tomato empire, which supplies one-third of the world's processed tomatoes. More tomatoes for processing are grown in the Central Valley than anywhere else in the world.

With factories in New Zealand and Australia, SK Foods is one of the world's top vegetable processors. Two years ago, the company joined forces with two other tomato firms, Ingomar Packing and Los Gatos Tomatoes, to create the first federally licensed California Tomato Export Group.

Rodger Wasson, a Santa Cruz County-based consultant to the group, said he doesn't know why federal agents searched SK Foods.

Antonio Saavedra, who drives a truck for Morning Star, which operates a cannery right next to SK Foods in Williams and is based in Woodland, speculated on what would happen if the FBI-IRS raid led to an immigration raid at SK Foods or any other work site in town.

He recalled how he was caught and deported a few times until he received amnesty in 1986. "We don't feel angry at those without papers," he said. "We used to be like them."