INS Sweep Puts Wyoming Resort Community on Edge

The prevailing sense among merchants in this resort community is one of unease. It’s been that way since local police and federal agents rounded up 150 legal and illegal Latino workers, inked numbers on their arms and hauled them to jail in patrol cars and a horse trailer soiled with manure.

The surprise anti-illegal-immigration sweep on Aug. 25 wiped out more than 1% of Teton County’s work force a week before the bustling Labor Day weekend.

“In addition to the illegal people arrested, many legal workers were for days afraid to even show their faces for fear of being questioned or detained,” said Teton County Commissioner Mike Gierau. “That doubled the economic impact of the sweep in a town with one industry--tourism.”

Now, even some Jackson business owners who pride themselves on carefully confirming their workers’ eligibility for employment are calling for a probe of the federal effort, which they claim was racially motivated and dehumanizing.

“It was a very sad day for our community,” said Manuel Lopez, president of the Snow King Resort. “Our place of business and our employees were violated. Many innocent people were verbally and physically abused.”

Jackson Police Chief David Cameron told 200 service-industry workers and business owners gathered at a meeting recently that he regretted using the horse trailer to transport 18 people to jail.

“That equipment is for hauling animals, and using it to transport people was a tremendous error in judgment,” he said. “That will never happen again as long as I am police chief of this town.”

But Cameron defended the need for the sweep, which he said was prompted by almost daily complaints from residents who blame undocumented workers for an alleged increase in automobile accidents and drug dealing.

Never mind that a recent Jackson Police Department investigation failed to link undocumented workers to a rise in illegal drug activities, or that county employment authorities say the town has far more jobs than people to fill them.

“The bottom line is that there are people here who are illegally in this country,” he said. “It’s tough to be a law enforcement officer and walk away from an illegal act.”

The sweep, the largest in Jackson history, was among several launched during a six-week federal work site enforcement operation that covered 13 states and netted 3,700 illegal workers at more than 480 businesses, Immigration and Naturalization Service authorities said.

But Cameron’s public apology may not be enough to ease the fear and anger that has gripped this ski resort since the raid.

“Fifteen of my housekeepers were put inside a dirty horse trailer--that shouldn’t happen in America,” said Steve Price, general manager of the Spring Creek Resort.

“To me, the issue isn’t whether they were here illegally or not,” he added. “The issue is the way these people were treated. They were herded up and tossed aside like insignificant specks.”

Leaning against the pine-topped bar of her restaurant at the edge of town, Nora Tygum said: “I love my Mexican workers. These are incredibly honest people who do the work Anglos will not do.”

As proof, Tygum said she has not received a single application from an Anglo wanting to take the cooking and dishwashing jobs that opened up after the federal agents arrested two of her workers.

However, she has received inquiries about those jobs from some undocumented workers who returned to town within days of being removed to Mexico.

“I turned them down because I don’t want my place shut down,” she said. “But the whole thing makes me sick. One of the workers they arrested here shook hands with President Clinton when he came in for breakfast a year ago. Pablo was so proud of that.”