McLean County deputies picked up six Guatemalans and one Mexican in Washburn on Saturday, after finding some of them hiding in back bedrooms in an apartment.

The seven range in age from their 20s up to their late 30s, and all of them were working at the Blue Flint Ethanol plant under construction at Underwood.

The men told deputies they were working for McCormick Construction Co. Inc., a company that has been affiliated with Fagen Inc., the main contractor, on the Blue Flint and other ethanol projects for the past several years.

The seven were rounded up by two deputies and taken to the McLean County Sheriff's Department in Washburn. The men were held there until Customs and Border Protection agents came and took them to Bottineau for processing.

By Sunday, six of the seven were dropped back off at the Washburn apartment. They were given notice to appear at federal immigration court in Minneapolis on May 1.

A seventh was not returned and will be prosecuted for illegally re-entering the country, because he's already been deported once.

This is the second instance of Mexicans and Guatemalans being detained in the Washburn area, after going there to work on the Blue Flint project.

Dave McCormick, president of the McCormick Construction of Rockford, Minn., said he doesn't believe there's ample proof that the workers are not legal.

He said they all provided proper verification for employment and the fact that a Social Security number is a mismatch to a name called in for verification is not proof of illegal status.

"All of these people satisfied the qualifications for employment," McCormick said.

He said he's never seen anything like what's happening in Washburn, where, he said, police follow workers to the job site and back.

"I'm shocked that these people are being labeled, and I'm shocked by the aggressive way they were rounding them up and servicing them," McCormick said.

He said some employees won't send their children to school in Washburn out of fear.

"I thought those days were past," he said.

McCormick said he regularly files income tax withholdings for the workers, and no agency like the IRS has ever told him the workers don't exist.

Blue Flint is being built at the Great River Energy Coal Creek Station and is expected to require up to 200 construction workers and 40 fulltime employees when it goes online in March 2007.

Coal Creek plant manager John Weeda said Fagen has assured him that the employment procedures that should be taken are being taken.

"We've asked the contractors to take prudent measures that the workers are authorized," Weeda said.

McCormick said the workers have photo identification, Social Security cards and verification of their work eligibility.

McLean County Sheriff Don Charging said there's "no foundation" to the allegation that his officers are following the workers. He said his office has investigated four reports that there are many people living in one apartment and don't speak English.

Charging said his deputy got a report Saturday that four people were looking into the windows of a Washburn business. He said the deputy saw a vehicle without headlights and stopped the driver. The deputies held the driver and his passenger and then went looking for a second vehicle with Iowa plates, initially seen with the first.

They found that vehicle behind an apartment being leased by Ana and Fernando Gonzalez. Charging said they got permission to search the apartment and found the five others by shining flashlights into the darkened rooms.

He said his department is not prejudiced and the officers are aware of people's civil rights.

"There's no Gestapo attitude," Charging said.

McLean County State's Attorney Ladd Erickson said he was surprised that the six were returned to Washburn, after being scheduled for a hearing, simply because the immigration agency doesn't have enough facilities to house detainees. He calls it a "catch and release" program that might work in fishing tournaments but not in the larger issue of illegal workers.

He said he has no authority in state law to get involved, but he thinks immigration enforcement is a boat without a rudder.

Tim Counts, with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency in Minneapolis, said it's likely the workers were put into removal proceedings and given notice to appear at a hearing, where their status, illegal or not, will be verified in court.

In the meantime, the workers cannot return to the job site without specific government permission, he said.

Steve Swanson, McCormick's construction manager at Blue Flint, said the workers were not at the job following the incident over the weekend.

(Reach reporter Lauren Donovan at 888-303-5511, or lauren@;westriv.com.)