Court documents: Plant owners ‘willfully’ used ineligible workers

JACKSON, MISS. >> Six of seven Mississippi chicken processing plants raided Wednesday were “willfully and unlawfully” employing people who lacked authorization to work in the United States, including workers wearing electronic monitoring bracelets at work for previous immigration violations, according to unsealed court documents.

Federal investigators behind the biggest immigration raid in a decade relied on confidential informants inside the plants in addition to data from the monitoring bracelets to help make their case, according to the documents.

The sworn statements supported the search warrants that led a judge to authorize Wednesday’s raids, and aren’t official charges, but give the first detailed look at the evidence involved in what Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have described as a yearlong investigation.

Officials arrested 680 people during Wednesday’s operation. Three Democratic congressmen on Friday demanded that the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice produce information. They want to know the cost of the raids, whether employers face criminal charges, whether any U.S. citizens were detained, how many parents were separated from children and whether any still remain separated.

The statements unsealed Thursday allege that managers at two processing plants owned by the same Chinese man actively participated in fraud. They also show that supervisors at other plants at least turned a blind eye to evidence strongly suggesting job applicants were using fraudulent documents and bogus Social Security numbers.

The documents say electronic monitoring bracelet data shows people previously arrested for immigration violations and not allowed to work in the U.S. were working at all seven plants raided.

There have historically been few criminal convictions for hiring people without documents because prosecutors must prove employers knowingly hired someone without legal work authorization. Employers often say they were fooled by fraudulent documents.