The 24 men were detained for a short time.
RUMFORD – A U.S. Border Patrol agent from Jackman has resolved issues with a large group of Hispanic men who had been detained by police Friday afternoon.
The incident began at 5:02 p.m. when patrolling officer Daniel Garbarini observed 24 men walking along Congress Street and detained them on Canal Street, said officer David Bean.
Bean said that after Garbarini overcame the language barrier and found one man who spoke English, he learned they were forestry workers hired by Sunday River Ski Resort in Newry to cut brush.
“All but three of them had passports” with them, Bean said while reading Garbarini’s report.
Of those three, two were initially thought to be in the country illegally, but a Border Patrol agent in Jackman said Monday that all of the men were in Maine and the United States legally.
Susan DuPlessis, director of communications for Sunday River, said Monday that Sunday River hired the men through a company called Atlantic Forestry. She said she didn’t know where the company is based.
Sunday River first used them “two to three years ago because Sugarloaf was using them successfully,” DuPlessis said of the Carrabassett Valley ski resort.
Monday’s temporary detainment of Sunday River’s migrant workers by Rumford police was not the first such incident, she added.
Two years ago, she said, police raided the apartments of some of their international workers, but later learned that all of the people were in the country legally.
“When the economy was so good, it was difficult to find workers, so we were hiring internationally,” DuPlessis said.
However, now that the economy is waffling, Sunday River plans to hire fewer migrant laborers this winter than they have over the past five or six years, she added.
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