Body Camera Footage Reveals Inside of New York Factory Immigration Raid

Body camera footage from a September 2025 immigration raid at a snack-food factory in Cato, New York, has provided a rare view of a workplace enforcement operation, according to video analyzed as part of a lawsuit filed Thursday.

The plant, operated by Nutrition Bar Confectioners, appeared closed when a large group of immigration officers arrived after 9 a.m. After briefly discussing whether to force entry, a manager opened the front door. Officers then ordered the manager to announce their presence over loudspeakers as they moved through the building, catching employees on the production line, in the warehouse and in bathrooms. Exits were covered while others searched the interior, including locked doors.

Male officers who encountered a locked bathroom shouted instructions in broken Spanish to female employees inside, demanding they come out. After about 10 seconds, they broke through the door. One woman was outside a stall and another was inside; a male officer peered through the locked stall door, and his body camera showed a woman sitting on the toilet. "Miss, pull up your pants. Come out of the bathroom," he told her. "You have to wait. I can't come out like this, naked!" she replied.

Over several hours, federal authorities from multiple agencies made 57 arrests. Investigators interviewed the general manager and said they were looking into hiring practices and potential fraudulent documents. Officers checked offices, storage rooms and hallways for anyone hiding. Employees were lined up and separated into groups of U.S. citizens and potential noncitizens. Officers asked about immigration status, requested documents and questioned how employees entered the country. Some workers were pregnant; others were parents worried about children at home. Some said they would not answer questions without an attorney, and officers told them they would be arrested. U.S. citizens were asked for personal information, including phone numbers and addresses, before being allowed to leave.

Not all officers wore body cameras, but those who did often indicated to others that they were recording before starting a conversation. A Border Patrol agent speaking to another official wearing a camera used disparaging language about children from other countries while recounting his work at a South Texas immigrant detention center. He said the Biden administration allowed millions of people to enter from countries where children are treated differently than by American parents. "In other countries, kids are more of a commodity or it's more of like, I'm going to put it in those terms. It's more like an animal, right? It's not prized the way that we do it," he said. "There's countries like Brazil and other places where they're literal street rats at a very young age who commit crimes, and then they come here. I don't know if you have kids, but they'll eat our kids for breakfast."

The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond Thursday to a request for comment on the footage or the lawsuit. The suit, filed by the New York Civil Liberties Union and the Worker Justice Center of New York, claims federal officers exceeded the authority of their warrants and violated workers' constitutional rights against unlawful search and seizure. "There were no arrest warrants," said Perry Grossman, a supervising attorney at the NYCLU. "There was no suspicion that individual workers had committed crimes. And they seized easily 100 people for nonconsensual questioning. They arrested 57. Out of those 57 people, criminal charges were brought against only five. And the most serious charge was unlawful reentry." Grossman said one employee had her charges dismissed after arguing in a lawsuit that her Fourth Amendment rights were violated, and he was not aware of any charges or indictments against the employers.

Officers detained about 60 people and deported some employees, including two plaintiffs in Thursday's lawsuit. One plaintiff has since been allowed to reenter the country, while attorneys for the second deported plaintiff are seeking his return.

ICE's Homeland Security Investigations unit handles workplace raids, which have been relatively few and low-key compared to its removal unit that arrests people in public and manages detention centers. The Trump administration's largest workplace raid occurred last year at a Hyundai electric vehicle plant in Georgia, resulting in nearly 500 arrests and diplomatic tension with South Korea. Law enforcement agencies have faced criticism for not using body cameras and for refusing to release footage when they do. ICE's policy calls for expedited release after a serious injury or death in custody when it is in the agency's best interests. The administration has promised to equip ICE field agents with body cameras as required by Congress, and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said last week the agency was on track to do so by the end of September.