US agency is probing raid on factory

Homeland Security investigating tactics of immigration officials

Viviana Luis Hernandes (left) from Guatemala was one of the workers who was detained by US immigration officials in following a raid at the Michael Bianco factory in New Bedford last March. She was released because she had a year-old child, but there are reports that families were torn apart when some detainees were sent to Texas. (DOMINIC CHAVEZ/GLOBE STAFF/FILE 2007)

The watchdog arm of the Department of Homeland Security has launched an investigation into whether immigration officials adequately considered the impact on children and families in the raid on a New Bedford leather-goods factory last March, officials said yesterday.

Immigrant advocates and politicians, including New Bedford's mayor and both US senators from Massachusetts, have complained that families were torn apart in the raid, dozens of detainees were shipped to Texas, and families were not given quick access to social service representatives. The raid led to the arrest of 361 illegal immigrants.

An official in Senator John F. Kerry's office said yesterday that Kerry was informed by the department's Office of the Inspector General Monday that an investigation had begun.

Days after the March 6 raid, Kerry asked the inspector general's office to review the procedure used by the Bureau of Immigrations and Custom Enforcement to deal with potential family disruptions and whether detainees could have been held in facilities closer to New Bedford. Kerry also raised questions about why the company, Michael Bianco Inc., had received Department of Defense contracts even as ICE was investigating it.

"Hopefully we will finally get the truth about what happened in New Bedford," Kerry said in a statement yesterday. "The families and community deserve as much."

Bruce Foucart, special agent in charge of ICE's Boston office, defended the enforcement action yesterday and said he is confident his office's actions will hold up to scrutiny.

"I welcome the inquiry, and I welcome the opportunity to be able to tell our story about the planning that went into place and the response that took place afterward," Foucart said in a telephone interview.

The inspector general's review was first reported yesterday in The Standard-Times of New Bedford.

The review could take as long as eight months, said Tamara Faulkner, spokeswoman for the inspector general's office. She said the investigation would include visits to New Bedford and interviews with people involved, although she said it was too early to say whether immigrants who were detained or families who were affected would be interviewed.

The review should determine how many parents who were sole caregivers were detained, how many detainees were released for humanitarian reasons, and whether detainees had access to representatives of the state Department of Social Services.

The review also will look into whether ICE informed the Department of Defense in advance about its investigation of the company, according to a letter from the inspector general's office to Kerry. The factory has since been sold to Eagle Industries Inc.

ICE, one of several federal agencies under the jurisdiction of the Department of Homeland Security, will have the opportunity to respond to the report and its recommendations before the inspector general's findings are released, Faulkner said.

Immigrant advocates said they were pleased an investigation will take place.

"I think we're always surprised when DHS acknowledges that they aren't perfect," said Ali Noorani, executive director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition. "Their findings will allow the public to understand what a disaster this raid was."

In November, ICE made public a series of guidelines that federal agents should follow for identifying detainees who have children and ensuring that detainees have access to lawyers, healthcare, and social workers. Foucart said the guidelines had been in place at the time of the raid, and that they were followed.

He said some of the complaints about the raid have been overstated, including allegations that children were left stranded when their parents were detained.

"None of those children were put into foster care," he said. "We took unprecedented actions to find primary caregivers for these particular children."

But Corinn Williams, executive director of the nonprofit Community Economic Development Corp. in New Bedford, called ICE's tactics in the raid heavy-handed.

"I really object to the fact that ICE is calling into question some of the hardships and some of the suffering of these families," Williams said. "This is another attempt of ICE to minimize what occurred at New Bedford."

The American Civil Liberties Union and several other organizations and private attorneys have filed suit in federal court asserting that immigrants' constitutional rights were violated in the raid and in their detention in Texas.

Many individual immigrants have contested their detention in court, and some deportation orders have been thrown out for humanitarian or other legal reasons, said Harvey Kaplan, a Boston lawyer representing some of the families. By last fall, nearly 100 immigrants from the New Bedford raid had been deported, ICE officials said.

John C. Drake can be reached at jdrake@globe.com.