Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Visits Nutrition Bar Confectioners in Cato Following ICE Raids

Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul visited the Nutrition Bar Confectioners manufacturing facility in Cato where dozens of its employees were detained during a raid by ICE agents earlier this month. Governor Hochul provided an overview of this visit during her remarks at an event in Syracuse.

VIDEO: The event is available to stream on YouTube here and TV quality video is available here (h.264, mp4).

AUDIO: The Governor's remarks are available in audio form here.

PHOTOS: The Governor's Flickr page will have photos of the event here.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

Before I take any off topic questions, I want to speak briefly about a stop I made early this morning. I had the opportunity to meet the owners of Nutrition Bar Confectioners, a family owned business that's been operating here for almost 50 years. As many of you know, that location was the subject of an ICE raid. An enormous raid and I had a chance to talk to the owners: father Mark, his sons Lenny, Mark Jr., and Jeff and Corrine Schmidt about what they endured - and what's been happening for the last 11 days since that traumatic event occurred.

First of all, for the business, they're struggling to keep their business afloat. I walked the factory lines that were idle. They make products that are sold in Costco and Walmart and stores all across the world. Nutrition bars, and they showed me the assembly lines that were silent where workers had just been just 12 days ago. They showed me the workers that were still there, but many of them have been traumatized and many other workers have just not returned.

Some involuntarily they've been detained by ICE. There was a rate of over 70 people, I believe 57, are still missing or unaccounted for or in places unknown to the owners. And there's others just too frightened to come back. And what happened on that day was and I heard this from Corrine herself, she's a woman who just stood next to me and says, "I cannot believe that our little business here was subjected to a raid. People wearing masks bursting in the doors with guns showing, and what they literally did was separated people by the color of their skin. They literally had white people over here and brown people over here is how they said it, and that separation was cruel to me. It was un-American. It was abhorrent to see that kind of activity and know about it in our own country, much less our own state. And this is what was described to me by the owners. And basically they rounded up 69 people, all of them Latino at the time. Again, sorted by the color of the skin. I was in that room today. I saw where this trauma unfolded and it just makes you pause. Is this really what America has become? Where agents who claim they're there to deal with violent criminals. Turns out they only had administrative warrants, they didn't even have criminal warrants. They misrepresented the justification for even coming on the grounds to the owners who were told to stay over here because there's homicide suspects on the grounds, which is truly false. So the owners were lied to, but is this in America we might have people separated by the color of their skin or where they're from. Regardless of whether they have papers or not. One male agent burst into a woman's restroom, literally yanked her off the toilet and made her line up with everyone else.

I don't know what you say after describing that. It is so deeply appalling. If it was happening in another part of the world, I would still be shocked, but it's happening in our own great country. They never found anyone who was a violent criminal. They basically paralyzed a business. They don't have enough employees now, but think about the people who've been separated from their families.

There were three moms with babies under the age of one. One was eight months old and the mother was nursing the baby, they are still separated. I'm a mom, that's hard on the mom - It is traumatic for the mom. It's also very unhealthy for the baby to be weaned so abruptly, so shockingly. I called Tom Homan after this, asked for help at least can we take care of the moms, get them back with their babies? I'm still waiting to hear back. He was not familiar with the circumstances, he said he'd look into it. And I have told him in the past that I'll help you, the State of New York will help you. Law enforcement at my disposal will help you, if you truly are working to eliminate the threat of violent individuals from our communities, that is a proper use of your uniform, but not taking apart, shattering a family, kids afraid to go to schools. Now, as I've said, workers are afraid to come back to work, even those who remained. I normally don't talk about these private conversations, but Tom Holman knows I'm still waiting.

These are the worst of the worst. These are the bad ones, the violent criminals, the ones you're supposed to be afraid of. It's a mom with a nursing baby, hardworking people doing jobs, and a part of our state where it's hard to find workers. There aren't a lot of people living in Cayuga County, and as the owners told me, this was their family, this is how they felt about these individuals. This was family to them. Corinne is still walking the hallways thinking about it, processing it, worrying about families.

I'm also concerned because when you focus on separating families and doing what they did with no legitimate purpose that you've espoused, you talk about what we're going to do to stop crime. Yeah, maybe you ought to redirect your resources as we've done here. Maybe there's a lesson from places like Syracuse when there's a need, you fund it when there's not a need, you don't have to fund it, right?

It's a targeted strategic approach to law enforcement. So I want to know why the federal government put more money into these ICE raids - but have hurt local law enforcement because they've eliminated millions and millions of dollars from localities for their law enforcement efforts. The Department of Homeland Security cut $87 million for counter terrorism work in New York. $87 million cut from counter terrorism work in the State of New York so they could bolster up the ICE agents, buy them more masks I presume. So that's bomb squads, tactical teams, and canine teams, hazardous material response units that will not have the funding they had in the past.

I ask, does that make you feel safer, New Yorkers? No, it does not. In this region alone, $400,000 cut from this police department, from this region to help stop terrorists from doing harm here. And I'm not just talking about foreign born terrorists. We've had domestic terrorism in our own state. Need I remind you what happened in Buffalo just a few short years ago that was a domestic homegrown terrorist radicalized online. That's happening right now.

When I leave here, I'm going to Albany. I'm gathering elected officials from around the State, Democrats and Republicans. I'm giving them a security briefing, which is chilling when you see the statistics. And how much the rise in hate crimes has gone up. The online threats, direct threats against elected officials and various groups across our state. The data I'm going to share with you after this briefing, that's later today. Central New York is poised to lose more of the things that keep them safe.

Let's reshift, let's refocus. Let's get back to what keeps people safe, not separating families. Not harming a small business that was looking to expand in a couple of weeks who now have to put that on hold because they don't have enough workers, and sure as hell isn't separating babies from their mothers.

That's what I experienced this morning.

Contact the Governor's Press Office