Immigration raids net 680 arrests in Miss.
Workplace sting at food plants may be largest in a decade
MORTON, Miss. — U.S. immigration officials raided numerous Mississippi food processing plants Wednesday, arresting 680 mostly Latino workers in what marked the largest workplace sting in at least a decade.
The raids, planned months ago, happened just hours before President Donald Trump visited El Paso, Texas, the majority-Latino city where a man linked to an online screed about a “Hispanic invasion” was charged in a shooting that left 22 people dead in the border city.
Workers filled three buses — two for men and one for women — at a Koch Foods Inc. plant in Morton, 40 miles east of Jackson. They were taken to a military hangar to be processed for immigration violations.
About 70 family, friends and residents waved goodbye and shouted, “Let them go! Let them go!”
Later, two more buses arrived.
A tearful 13-year-old boy whose parents are from Guatemala waved goodbye to his mother, a Koch worker, as he stood beside his father. Some employees tried to flee on foot but were captured in the parking lot.
Workers who were confirmed to have legal status were allowed to leave the plant after having their vehicles searched.
“It was a sad situation inside,” said Domingo Candelaria, a legal resident and Koch worker who said authorities checked employees’ identification documents.
The company did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
Koch Foods, based in Park Ridge, Illinois, is one of the largest poultry producers in the country and employs about 13,000 people, with operations in Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Mississippi, Ohio and Tennessee.
The Morton plant produces more than 700,000 tons of poultry feed a year, company officials said in February.
About 600 agents fanned out across the Mississippi plants involving several companies, surrounding the perimeters to prevent workers from fleeing. They occurred in small towns near Jackson with a workforce made up largely of Latino immigrants, including Bay Springs, Carthage, Canton, Morton, Pelahatchie and Sebastopol.
Matthew Albence, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s acting director, said the raids could be the largest such operation thus far in any single state.
Asked to comment on the fact that the raid was happening on the same day as Trump’s El Paso visit, Albence responded, “This is a long-term operation that’s been going on. Our enforcement operations are being done on a racially neutral basis. Investigations are based on evidence.”
The sting was another demonstration of Trump’s signature domestic priority to crack down on illegal immigration.
While planned months ago, it coincided with the day that Trump visited El Paso to offer his condolences to the majority-Latino city after a gunman linked with an anti-Hispanic post online fatally shot 22 people on Saturday.
Such large shows of force were common under President George W. Bush, most notably at a kosher meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa, in 2008.
President Barack Obama avoided them, limiting his workplace immigration efforts to low-profile audits that were done outside of public view.
Trump resumed workplace raids.
Last year, the administration hit a landscaping company near Toledo, Ohio, and a meatpacking plant in eastern Tennessee. The former owner of the Tennessee plant was sentenced to 18 months in prison last month.
A hangar at the Mississippi National Guard in Flowood, near Jackson, was set up with 2,000 meals to process employees for immigration violations Wednesday.
“I’ve never done anything like this,” said Chris Heck, resident agent in charge of ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations unit in Jackson. “This is a very large worksite operation.”