Wayne County Star
Four Farm Workers Detained After Roadside Stop
2009-08-19,Photos and Story by Louise Hoffman Broach | Wayuga Editor
U.S. Border Patrol Officer E. Rodriguez prepares to pat down one of Brian Doyle’s employees during a stop on Route 414 in North Rose on Aug. 17. Doyle, a Wolcott fruit grower, said Rodriguez told him the men “looked suspicious at us” when their car passed the Border Patrol cruiser. Doyle said the men all have resident alien cards and refutes the contention they are undocumented.
NORTH ROSE – A Wolcott fruit grower is accusing the U.S. Border Patrol of racially profiling four of his workers who were stopped on Route 414 Aug. 17 as they were returning to his farm from a trip to purchase clothing.
The men were all detained and taken for processing; Border Patrol Officer E. Rodriguez, who was in charge of the scene, told fruit grower Brian Doyle the men volunteered they were in the U.S. illegally.
Doyle said Rodriguez then accused him of being a “federal criminal” because he employed the men. He said Rodriguez continually referred to the men as “illegal immigrants.”
Doyle said he doesn’t believe Rodriguez because all four have I-9 resident alien cards, which they were carrying at the time of the stop, and social security numbers. He said two, brothers Roman and Quirino Diaz, have worked for him for several years and he’s never received “no-match” letters on any of their paperwork, which would indicate they are undocumented and their papers were phony. Payroll deductions for Social Security and state and federal taxes are regularly taken from their paychecks, as they are from all of his employees.
And Doyle said when he reached the scene after being alerted by a friend of the employees who had seen them pulled over, the four men remained silent in the presence of the border patrol officers. Doyle is incredulous they would have volunteered information about their status, information he has no evidence to believe is true.
Doyle said there is no reason for the Border Patrol to presume the men are illegal, and no probable cause to stop them, except for the color of their skin. He, as well as the other farmers who came to the scene on behalf of him and his workers, questioned the authority the Border Patrol had to detain them.
Border patrol officials in Grand Island did not return phone calls before press time. Rodriguez made no comment to the media at the scene.
Doyle called Wayne County Farm Bureau President Phil Wagner and another nearby fruit grower. Wagner arrived with his son, and the other grower brought his daughter, who began taking photos of the stop. Doyle, Wagner and Wagner’s son said as soon as Rodriguez, who had removed his name tag and initially refused to identify himself, saw the camera, he called for back up from the state police.
Wayne County Farm Bureau and the New York Apple Association, as well as U.S. Apple in Washington, D.C. and U.S. Rep. Dan Maffei, have been monitoring Border Patrol stops in Wayne County. Farm Bureau and the apple growers have previously accused Border Patrol of racial profiling in the state’s largest apple producing county. Maffei initiated his own investigation and is setting up meetings between Homeland Security and local farmers that should take place later this month.
Doyle said Rodriguez would not tell him at first what triggered the initial stop, but then later after several inquiries said the four men “looked suspicious at us” when the Border Patrol drove by them, and when Rodriguez turned his car around to initiate a pursuit, the driver immediately slowed down.
“Of course he slowed down,” Doyle said. “They were behind him, attempting to stop him. Wouldn’t it have been suspicious if he speeded up?”
The trooper at the scene, Ben Kauder, said he wasn’t going to comment on whether the border patrol had probable cause to stop the car because he wasn’t there at the time of the stop. He did, however, tell Doyle there were no problems with the car the farm workers were riding in and that they were no warrants for them.
The farmers said Rodriguez also became less confrontational once Kauder arrived. The trooper suggested to Rodriguez he not force all four of the Mexicans into the back seat of the border patrol sedan. Kauder transported two of the Mexicans and also arranged for Doyle to take the money that his employees were carrying.
“Are you accusing me of stealing their money?” Rodriguez said.
Doyle told about a previous incident where the Wolcott Village police stopped workers from Teeple Farms and later notified Border Patrol. The workers were taken to the federal detention center in Batavia. The incident resulted in the theft of several hundred dollars from one of the workers, who was later released and returned to Teeple’s operation. Teeple notified Wayne County District Attorney Richard Healy, who had the state police investigate the incident. Healy said he and the state police found the farm worker’s story credible, but it could not be determined who took the money.
Doyle said he didn’t want a similar incident to happen again. He also said he was going to call a labor contractor he knew to see what he should do next to try to get the men released. He told them to call him as soon as they could.
Wagner said the Aug. 17 stop was blatant racial profiling.
“I want to see the Border Patrol answer to this,” Wagner said. “They saw Hispanics, and they stopped them. I served in the Army for 27 years; I was a colonel. This is not what I served my country for.”
Wagner’s son, Chris, who lives in Pennsylvania and is working in his father’s orchard for the summer, said he too is a migrant farm worker. His truck even has out-of-state plates, yet he hasn’t been stopped once by border patrol since he came to the area in March.
“Of course not, you’re white,” his father said.