ICE Deported All My Employees

The rioting over ICE and their handling of illegal aliens has been a nonstop conversation since President Donald Trump deployed federal agents to help control the systematic problems caused by former President Joe Biden’s open border policy.

The Left loves comparing agents to the Gestapo and Nazi’s, while also remembering that things were different between 2008-2016 during the Obama administration, when approximately 2 million people were deported by ICE.

Nobody remembers the Obama ICE raids because they weren't reported on. But I know the truth.

In 2012, I started a new position working for a computer recycling company in Canton called Discount Computer Inc. (DCI). DCI was an “E-Waste Recycler” that would buy, refurbish, sell and recycle old computer parts and my job was to handle the scrap metal sales and resell items on eBay.

I was given a hefty starting salary plus bonuses, my own corner office, and little to no oversight on my day-to-day work as long as I was making the company money. The friend who recruited me was driving a brand new Suburban, and when I arrived I noticed everyone else had a sweet new ride. I thought I had hit the jackpot.

But I was wrong. Very, very wrong.

The owner would sometimes force me to share my office with his buyers from Egypt. A major part of DCI’s business was selling cathode ray tube (CRT) monitors—the O.G. computer monitors that weighed anywhere from 30-70lbs—to these Egyptian buyers. The warehouse staff would load containers and send them out. It’s totally legal, as long as the monitors were less than five years old.

Well one day I noticed one of our workers using a heat gun and removing labels from monitors. I asked what that was about, and they let me in on a secret: If a monitor was over five years old, they’d simply remove it and make a new label showing it was under five years old from a special printer.

That way, every monitor we sent was within the five year threshold and would get through customs.

DCI should have had a permit from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to properly dispose of those monitors, rather than selling them at a profit.

Being young, stupid and money hungry, I went along with it because it had nothing to do with the position I was hired for, and I wasn’t personally doing anything wrong. But the good pay and the fancy new cars in the parking lot began to make a lot more sense.

Now that I was in on the big secret, I was brought in on another: How we hired our warehouse staff.

Being in scrap metal/recycling, it is very common to use laborers from Mexico and Central America to do nasty, cheap labor. So when I was introduced to the team that would be helping me with stripping wire, I didn’t bat an eye when every single person I was put in charge of came here from Mexico.

What I found out was the owner had a “referral” system for bringing in illegal workers in order to pay them as little as possible, improving profits. There was a warehouse guy in charge—let’s call him Jose—who was here legally.

But Jose knew plenty of people who needed work who didn’t have the proper documentation. He would bring them in, the owner would hire them on the spot and they’d blend in with the other workers and quietly tear down computers and stack CRT monitors to go overseas.

I built relationships with many of them. Every Friday we’d have an incredible cookout. To this day, it is the best Mexican food I’ve ever had.

Then one of Mark’s Egyptian buyers finally had enough of all the junky, broken and outdated monitors being sent to him. He got in contact with federal officials and reported DCI for the illegal activities.

A few months after we were reported, I was standing in the back of the warehouse with three of the workers. Without warning, our building was swarmed by undercover agents from Homeland Security, the EPA, and ICE.

Next thing I knew a man was running straight towards me holding a 9mm pistol, while another agent forced me to get on my knees and put my hands behind my head.

The warehouse employees scattered quickly and hid in various places while others ran for the street. All the agents were armed and in full body armor. They brought in dogs to find the guys hiding in boxes and behind stacked pallets of monitors.

I was scared shitless.

Once they had found everyone hiding and apprehended those who ran, I was questioned separately about what I knew about the monitor scandal by the EPA and Homeland Security.

My warehouse coworkers meanwhile were lined up, handcuffed and questioned. But they were not being questioned about the criminal activity, they were questioned about their citizenship by ICE.

Grown men as old as 60 were crying as one by one they were taken out the side door to meet their fate: Deportation.

One man, nicknamed “Puma,” had just had a son that week. It didn't matter. He wasn’t allowed to call his wife or family to let them know what was happening. Off he went, along with all the others.

I was outraged and truly didn’t understand why they deserved to be treated that way for doing nothing wrong.

This was 2012, under Obama. We were not given any warning of the raid. It was precise, coordinated, sudden and forceful. The person who reported us had apparently tipped off ICE in order to do as much damage as possible to the owner and DCI as a whole.

I never saw a single one of my guys ever again. When I went back to the office the next day to try and recoup some of the pay I was owed—the owner agreed to pay me out in laptops and iMac’s—Jose informed me the entire warehouse staff was in holding to be deported.

The owner eventually pleaded guilty to trafficking in counterfeit goods and services and for storing and disposing hazardous waste without a permit. He received a $2 million fine and was forced to pay $10,839 in restitution plus serve 30 months in federal prison.

Moral of the story: When people claim ICE raids “were different under Obama” they are lying. They have no idea what they are talking about.

I saw firsthand that people with no criminal background got split up from their families and children because they were here undocumented. The liberal mind is so warped and trained to hate Trump that they’ve convinced themselves that it’s OK to harass agents conducting federal operations.

Why didn’t they help my friend Puma back in 2012? Where were their whistles and protests under Obama? They only care now because our president is big and mean. It’s that simple.