LEE COUNTY, Fla. - A raid in Lee County nets illegal workers.

Immigrations officials rounded up 25 un-documented workers on the site of Lee County's jail expansion project on Ortiz Avenue.

The Lee County Sheriff's Office says it received a tip from a confidential informant Wednesday afternoon and immediately informed Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Workers on the site tell WINK News a meeting was called around 9am Thursday. Once everyone was in the room, one of the workers who asked not to be identified told us, "Suddenly immigration people showed up and said, this is immigration and we're going to start searching for papers."

I.C.E. tells us 22 males and 3 females from Mexico, Brazil, Guatemala and Peru were not able to provide the proper paperwork and were taken into federal custody.

The worker says he knew many of the workers taken into custody, "They put a lot of sweat into this place and suddenly they come in and taken them away." He added, "I feel sorry for them because they were working here so hard."

\We are told most of the workers were employed by sub-contractors working on the jail. The contractor, KRAFT, tells us one of its workers was arrested because one of his documents had expired. However, KRAFT says the worker's documents appear up to date according to company records.

Another subcontractor says it also asked for all of the proper documents before hiring its workers. The question now for investigators is, what went wrong.

I.C.E. and Sheriff Mike Scott say the investigation is not over.

"We certainly want to look further in to how this was allowed to take place, why this took place. The message to other companies is you need to make double sure, triple sure, that people working under your insurance umbrella, under your license are documented and legal," said Sheriff Scott.

Scott did stress to us that at no time, did any of the undocumented workers have access to secure facilities in the jail. He says even workers with green cards are not allowed access.

The 25 workers will remain in I.C.E. custody pending the outcome of their cases. I.C.E. says removal proceedings have begun.