Miss. plant reportedly fires workers left after ICE raid
A Mississippi chicken processing plant fired most of its remaining workers after nearly 100 accused of immigration violations were arrested last week, witnesses said, an indication that the crackdown could make finding work in the state’s poultry industry more difficult for Latino immigrants.
Terry Truett, a volunteer with the Mississippi Immigration Coalition, said she and others were called Tuesday to a Morton park where former PH Food workers were staging a protest, saying the company had fired them at the end of their shift and was illegally withholding pay.
It’s unclear how many were fired, although Truett said more than 100 workers’ names were collected at the protest in Morton, about 40 miles east of Jackson.
PH Food is one of seven Mississippi plants raided Aug. 7 by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. The agency arrested 680 people accused of working in the United States without legal permission, quickly releasing about 300. ICE also seized company documents as part of an investigation into what managers knew. ICE said it arrested 99 people at PH Food.
Normally, when a company with more than 100 employees lays off more than a third of its workforce, it must give 60 days’ notice to affected employees, and local and state government.
Dianne Bell, a spokeswoman for the Mississippi Department of Security, said PH Foods has not filed notice with the state. Bell said a company employee told her Wednesday that there had been no layoffs.
The company told The Associated Press on Wednesday to call back and later hung up on a reporter. On Thursday, a person who answered the phone said the company isn’t commenting.
Truett and others say most of the people ICE arrested at PH Food worked on the first shift. Second-shift workers trickled back to work in the days after the raid even though most lack legal status, according to the Rev. Roberto Mena, pastor of St. Martin de Porres Catholic Church.
Truett and Mena said workers came to the church after the Tuesday protest to consult with lawyers. Others held a meeting at a nearby restaurant because the church was too small for the crowd.
A search warrant unsealed last week cites an informant telling investigators that workers at PH Food knew most of its 240 workers didn’t have legal permission to work in the country. The informant said managers encouraged workers to make up Social Security numbers and tried to use a payroll outsourcing firm in Louisiana to mask their activities.
The informant also alleged that PH and the payroll company didn’t try to verify the authenticity of work documents, even though Mississippi state law requires employers to check documents using E-Verify, an otherwise voluntary online federal system. At other plants that were raided, investigators presented efforts that employees were working under assumed but real identities often bought on the black market.
GREELEY, Colo. — A drone soared over a blazing hot cornfield in northeastern Colorado on a recent morning, snapping images with an infrared camera to help researchers decide how much water they would give the crops the next day.
After a brief, snaking flight above the field, the drone landed and the researchers removed a handful of memory cards. Back at their computers, they analyzed the images for signs the corn was stressed from a lack of water.
This U.S. Department of Agriculture station outside Greeley and other sites across the Southwest are experimenting with drones, specialized cameras and other technology to squeeze the most out of every drop of water in the Colorado River — a vital but beleaguered waterway that serves an estimated 40 million people.
Remote sensors measure soil moisture and relay the readings by Wi-Fi. Cellphone apps collect data from agricultural weather stations and calculate how much water different crops are consuming. Researchers deliberately cut back on water for some crops, trying to get the best harvest with the least amount of moisture — a practice