Immigrants Detained In Large Detroit Cockfighting Bust: Feds

DETROIT, MI — A large cockfighting and illegal gambling ring in southwest Detroit was busted Sunday, and about 50 people will face immigration deportation hearings, federal authorities said Monday. Agents from several federal, state and police agencies were involved in the raid at the abandoned building on the 1200 block of Green Street.

One person was arrested on criminal charges and dozens of administrative arrests were made in the raid led by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a division of Homeland Security Investigations. The 1 p.m. raid involved about 140 agents and police officers, and came after authorities were tipped off that roosters were being used in gambling, according to media reports.

More than 80 people were reportedly inside the building, and about 100 birds were confiscated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“We made approximately 50 administrative arrests for individuals who were in violation of immigration law,” Khaalid Walls, a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, told the Detroit Free Press. And those individuals will be detained in ICE custody pending removal proceedings.”

Walls told WWJ/CBS Detroit the raid capped a months-long investigation, which is continuing. The building on Green Street, near Interstate 75, is in an area of Detroit that is known as Mexicantown.

Cockfighting, a blood sport between two roosters, goes back thousands of years in history, but is illegal in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. In Michigan, clandestine cockfighting and dogfighting operations are treated the same as drug and prostitution rings in that they can be prosecuted as a criminal enterprise under legislation signed in 2012 by Gov. Rick Snyder. Cockfighting is punishable by up to 20 years in prison and fines of up to $100,000.

At the time, the Michigan law was considered one of the toughest in the country.

Photo by Lennart Tange via Flickr Commons