97 immigrants arrested in ICE raid in Tennessee
Federal officials arrested 97 immigrants at a meatprocessing plant in rural Tennessee late Thursday in what advocates said was the largest single workplace raid in a decade and a sign that the Trump administration is carrying out its plan to aggressively ramp up enforcement this year.
Ten people were arrested on federal criminal charges, one person was arrested on state charges and 86 immigrants were detained for being in the country illegally, Tammy Spicer, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said in a statement Friday. All of those arrested were in the country illegally, she said. Most were from Mexico.
The raid on Southeastern Provision in Grainger County, Tennessee, follows arrests at 7-Eleven stores and other workplaces nationwide. Last year, the nation’s top immigration official said he had ordered agents to increase the number of work site inspections and operations by “four or five times” this year, to turn off the jobs “magnets” that attract illegal immigrants and punish employers who hire them.
“People are panicked,” said Stephanie Teatro, coexecutive director of the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition, a statewide organization that swept into the small town and set up intake centers where relatives could report their loved ones missing. “People are terrified to drive. People are terrified to leave their homes.”
ICE said its agency, Homeland Security Investigations, executed a federal criminal search warrant at Southeastern Provision on Thursday, in a joint operation with the Internal Revenue Service and the Tennessee Highway Patrol.
Of the 86 immigrants arrested for civil immigration charges, ICE released 32 but did not explain why. The remaining 54 are being detained, but the agency did not provide their names or say where they were being held.
Since President Donald Trump took office, immigration arrests have risen more than 40 percent and deportations from the interior of the United States have spiked 34 percent.