Carwash Raids Aftermath Impacts Businesses, Immigrants

By Ruben Hernandez

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Saturday raids at 16 Danny’s Family Car Wash worksites across the Valley was one of the largest immigration criminal investigations in recent Arizona history.

A two-year federal investigation into Danny’s Family Car Wash involving alleged immigration fraud, identity theft and financial violations, according to ICE. Special agents with ICE Homeland Security Investigations started executing federal search warrants and arrest warrants at 11 a.m. The warrants were served at the company’s locations as well as the company’s outside staffing-services provider, HR Betty.

Amber Cargile, ICE, spokesperson, issued a statement saying  Homeland Security Investigations interviewed 223 individuals who were encountered during the execution of federal search and arrest warrants Saturday. Of those 223 interviewed: 14 individuals (four U.S. citizens and 10 Mexican nationals) were placed under federal criminal arrest; 30 individuals were taken into custody by ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) for administrative immigration enforcement processing, based on their prior criminal and/or immigration histories; 179 individuals qualified for prosecutorial discretion under the agency’s enforcement guidelines. Those individuals were released from custody within hours of being interviewed.

Cargile said a grand-jury indictment was sealed in U.S. federal court until after the defendants’ initial appearances on Monday, thus preventing her from discussing the basis of the case.

“What we can say is that the indictment names multiple defendants,” Cargile said. Those included members of management, she added.

“Since 2009, ICE has kind of shifted its work-site enforcement strategy, so we focus now on the arrest of the employers and managers (and) supervisors rather than coming in with these large-scale enforcement actions that focus solely on workers,” she said.

Cargile said the operation was not an immigration raid where agents were there for the purpose of rounding up undocumented workers.

While ICE pointed out that the raid was not the Joe Arpaio-style immigration raids to arrest and prosecute laborers , the workers at the car washes were still detained. 

Civil rights activist Sal Reza of Tonatierra said publicly that he disagreed that there was any difference between this raid, and the Joe Arpaio raids.

“The Obama administration going after employers is just another facet of the same thing that is happening with Arpaio” said Reza.  “The ones that are ultimately affected are the workers, because they’re left without a job.  Maybe they’re not going to go to jail immediately, maybe they’ll be released and their case closed administratively, or who knows, put them through deportation proceedings…:

Ironically, This employer, Danny’s Family, are a major sponsor of the MCSO Memorial Fund for fallen officers, and have helped law enforcement and fire departments raise $57,000, in addition to having a “Cop Coffee” program where officers received coffee for a quarter.

 It remains to be seen whether in fact the employer company will be prosecuted, and if they are, what impact their trials will have on other Arizona businesses that employ immigrants.