‘There’s a lot of pain… a lot of fear:’ community members react to ICE’s Bellingham roofing raid

There is more fallout after federal immigration officers arrested 37 people Wednesday morning during a raid at a roofing company in northern Washington.

Officers from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) arrived at Mt. Baker Roofing’s warehouse in Bellingham, near the Canadian border, around 7:30 a.m.

Charlotte Alden, a reporter with Cascadia Daily News, watched the events unfold from just outside and said she watched family members and friends shocked and extremely upset as ICE agents loaded their fathers and sons onto awaiting buses to take them to ICE facilities.

“There’s a lot of pain around these detainments and a lot of fear,” said Alden. “The human reaction of a daughter whose dad had just been detained, that will really stay with me.”

Alden said an ICE agent at the scene shared that those arrested would be bused to ICE facilities in Tukwila or Tacoma. Now, she believes it is most likely they went to Tacoma. 

“These friends and families were sitting outside the roofing facility, knowing nothing,” said Alden. “They then went into an office, once ICE had left, to talk with the owner of Mt. Baker Roofing. He may have had more information that he was able to share with them, but at the time that ICE was there was no information being shared.”

‘There is a growing fear’

Tomas Fuentes told Cascadia Daily News in Spanish, “They arrived wielding their guns like they were going to shoot us. They corralled us into a room in the back of the building. They had a list and pictures of everyone who was undocumented and took them away.”

Fuerte, who has worked at the company for 12 years, said the detainees were transported in two buses.

ICE spokesperson David Yost said in a statement that the operation followed a federal search warrant related to an ongoing investigation into the unlawful employment of undocumented workers in violation of federal law.

The 37 individuals arrested were accused of “fraudulently representing their immigration status and submitting fraudulent documents or information to gain employment,” Yost added.

Mt. Baker Roofing issued a statement later in the day, saying it was “fully cooperating with authorities while ensuring that our employees are treated fairly and respectfully under the law.”

Under the Trump administration, ICE made 32,809 arrests during the first 50 days of his presidency, averaging 656 arrests per day, up from 311 during the previous 12-month period ending on September 30.

While these numbers are higher than those during the Biden administration, they fall short of the mass deportations Trump campaigned on. The current administration has largely avoided the large-scale factory and office raids of the previous administrations, though smaller operations have continued.

Criminal charges against business owners in such cases are rare, with fines being more common.

“There is a growing fear from immigrant communities around here, I think particularly for farm workers, about where they can and can’t be right now,” said Alden when asked how the immigrant communities in the North Cascades are dealing with the recent raid. “People don’t know if they can go to work anymore, and I know from reporting on schools… the school districts are watching their attendance numbers really closely because the possibility that ICE could come to a school is now not out of the question.”