Following ICE arrests of 14 farm workers on May 2, the United Farm Workers labor union has sprung into action to demand the release of the detained workers. UFW, founded in 1966 in an era of historic labor struggle of immigrant farm workers, held rallies on May 19 in both New York City and in the town they were arrested, Kent, to demand the release of the workers from ICE custody.
The 14 farm workers were detained by ICE while on the company bus on their way to work at the Lynne-Ette & Sons Inc farm in Kent. Workers present on the bus told UFW that ICE did not present an arrest warrant, but a representative from Lynne-Ette & Sons let ICE agents onto the bus anyways.
On May 2nd, in Western NY, federal immigration agents stopped a bus of farm workers from Lynn-Ette & Sons Farms. They had a list of names, including UFW worker leaders who have been organizing to unionize their workplace. Those workers were detained. 1/#WeFeedYou pic.twitter.com/ulQduWEpen
— United Farm Workers (@UFWupdates) May 3, 2025
According to UFW, ICE “had a list of names, including UFW worker leaders who have been organizing to unionize their workplace. Those workers were detained.”
A UFW video about the incident asserts that “we believe that targeting known union supporters in the name of immigration enforcement is an outrage.”
Lynne-Ette & Sons Inc released a statement about the arrests, claiming to be “heartbroken” about its employees being detained by ICE. “We strongly reject the United Farm Workers’ (UFW) irresponsible and self-serving public claims suggesting that these workers were targeted in retaliation for union activity,” the company wrote. “These claims are categorically false.”
Lynne-Ette & Sons claims that “none of the individuals detained were part of the bargaining unit involved in the ongoing union activity on our farm.” But Gabriella Szpunt, the New York Organizing Coordinator at UFW, present at the UFW solidarity rally in Brooklyn, said that the workers were indeed involved in the union’s organizing efforts at the Lynne-Ette & Sons farm.
“The organizing efforts for the local, year-round workers at Lynne-Ette & Sons farms are effectively stunted,” Szpunt said. “There were 20 workers that would have been in that unit, and 14 of them were picked up in this detention raid by ICE. So obviously, it sends a really chilling message that if you speak up, if you try to advocate for yourself, you’re putting yourself at risk or putting your family at risk.”
In carrying out Trump’s promise to conduct mass deportations of one million immigrants per year, the Trump administration has empowered agencies such as ICE and DHS to arrest students and labor leaders, in actions that have been widely labeled as attacks on free speech. ICE has conducted several raids against farmworkers in particular in just the first few months of Trump’s term, including the largest immigration raid in the state of Vermont’s recent history when eight immigrant farmworkers were detained on April 21. Farmworker leader Alfredo “Lelo” Juarez was detained “violently” by ICE on the morning of Tuesday, March 25 in Washington state, and remains in custody to this day while farm worker activists in the state continue to fight for his release.
According to Szpunt, the UFW will soon launch efforts to put pressure on New York politicians to urge DHS to release the 14 detained Lynne-Ette & Sons farm workers, including New York Representative Hakeem Jeffries and New York Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer. Fundraising efforts are moving forward via organizing efforts of the Buffalo Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) to raise some of the funds that will be used to transfer bond payments to the detained workers.
