Sanford, North Carolina –-(Ammoland.com)- On Tuesday morning at 8 AM, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement executed a search warrant and took approximately 30 people into custody at the firearms manufacture, Bear Creek Arsenal, located in Sanford, North Carolina.
ICE officials with the help of the local Sheriff’s Department gather all the employees of Bear Creek Arsenal into a break room. Officials started checking their IDs and detained anyone who’s ID didn’t check out. If the person didn’t have IDs authorities held them until they could ascertain their identity.
ICE agents loaded the 30 employees that they detained on a bus and took them to a holding facility. Not all 30 people are still in ICE custody. Some of those that immigration officials detained were released when their identity was able to be confirmed. It is unclear how many workers are still in custody.
The morning raid was of the result of an ongoing investigation by investigation by ICE agents into identity theft and fraud. According to The Lee County Sheriff’s Office, the was raid was not the result of an immigration enforcement action.
“What I want Lee County residents to know is that this was not a random operation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Lee County,” Sheriff Tracy Carter said in a statement. “This was the result of an ongoing investigation by Immigration and Customs and isolated to one location.”
Chris Barnes, an immigration attorney in Chapel Hill, represents one of those workers that was taken into custody. According to Barnes, ICE agents informed him immigration officials were searching for fraudulent I-9s. ICE later released his client.
The Department of Homeland Security uses the I-9 form to verify the employment eligibility of an applicant. Every worker in the country is supposed to fill out these forms when hired to confirm they can work in the country legally.
People in the country illegally will sometimes use a stolen name and Social Security number to obtain employment. Sometimes these workers will use a made-up name and fake Social Security number in hopes that their employer does not check through the E-Verify system, but since this raid was due to an investigation into identity theft and fraud, the workers in question probably used stolen information.
According to Bear Creek Arsenal, the company is fully cooperating with immigration officials in the investigation. In a released statement the company deflected the notion that they did anything wrong.
Bear Creek issued the following statement:
Today there were several employees who were detained by law enforcement. This is the result of an investigation conducted by Homeland Security into employment that was obtained by either ID theft or fraudulent information.
According to the company of 250 employees, they complied with all laws, rules, and regulations when hiring all their employees. They said that DHS confirmed that they did not break any employment laws.
Sheriff Carter said that it was “unclear” if the manufacturer was at fault in its hiring practices.
Bear Creek Arsenal did not immediately return AmmoLand’s emails for a comment on the raid.
About John Crump
John is a NRA instructor and a constitutional activist. He is the former CEO of Veritas Firearms, LLC and is the co-host of The Patriot News Podcast which can be found at www.blogtalkradio.com/patriotnews. John has written extensively on the patriot movement including 3%’ers, Oath Keepers, and Militias. In addition to the Patriot movement, John has written about firearms, interviewed people of all walks of life, and on the Constitution. John lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and sons and is currently working on a book on leftist deplatforming methods and can be followed on Twitter at @crumpyss, on Facebook at realjohncrump, or at www.crumpy.com.