Immigration enforcement raids at the Swift & Co. meatpacking plant in Greeley in 2006 turned out to have a silver lining for a Denver video documentary company.
While the raids caused havoc for hundreds of workers and disrupted company operations, they helped establish a platform for nonprofit filmmaker Little Voice to address the controversy over immigration policies.
“Our goal is to create a dialogue,” said Julie Speer Hunniford, executive director and founder of Little Voice. “We want to shed some light on the economic, social, political and human aspects of immigration.”
The film, “Swift Justice,” is expected to be finished this summer and rolled out in time for the Democratic National Convention in Denver in August. It will have footage from the raids and interviews with workers, politicians and analysts.
Denver-based Local 7 of the United Food and Commercial Workers is underwriting the $200,000 production to the tune of $20,000. The union represents workers at the Swift plant.
About 260 Swift employees in Greeley were arrested or detained after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents raided the plant in December 2006. An additional 1,000 workers were arrested at five other Swift facilities outside Colorado. Swift said lost productivity from the raids cost the company an estimated $30 million.
While Hunniford said the film will take an unbiased look at all sides of the illegal immigration debate, the union has a point of view.
“The federal government violated people’s constitutional rights by detaining them without any probable cause,” said Ernie Duran Jr., president of Local 7. “This is a story that needs to be told.”
U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, a Colorado Republican and outspoken critic of illegal immigration, said through a spokesman that he can’t comment on the film until he knows more about it.
“Illegal immigration is perhaps the most serious challenge facing the United States,” Tancredo said in a statement. “While the ICE raids at the Swift plants were an important first step in combating illegal immigration, we must follow up on that effort with a large-scale crackdown on unscrupulous employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens.”
Hunniford said she hopes to have the film screened for a variety of groups during the Democratic convention, and perhaps to the convention itself.
Steve Raabe: 303-954-1948 or sraabe@denverpost.com
