A Washington state union leader has accused Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers of targeting immigrant farmworkers with tactics resembling those of “serial killers,” claiming families often discover their loved ones have disappeared only after finding their vehicles abandoned along rural roads.
The disturbing patterns of ICE
Elizabeth Strater, national vice president of the United Farm Workers (UFW) union, described a disturbing pattern of immigration arrests in Yakima County, where federal agents have reportedly intensified enforcement operations against agricultural workers.
“They’re not doing the big showy raids. They’re just picking people off like serial killers. The only way the family finds out what’s happened is that they find the car abandoned on the side of the road. And it’s in vast numbers,” Strater claimed.
Her accusations come amid heightened immigration enforcement across Washington, where ICE arrested approximately 2,500 people between March and August, according to records obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request…