ICE raids meat-processing plant in Ohio, arrests 150

Immigration officials lined up dozens of workers, many dressed in white helmets and smocks, outside a meat-processing plant in rural Ohio on Tuesday afternoon in one of the largest recent workplace raids carried out by the Trump administration.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said 146 workers were arrested as part of a year-long investigation into Fresh Mark, a northern Ohio meat supplier once touted by the government as a partner in preventing hiring undocumented workers. ICE said the company may have knowingly hired undocumented workers, and many are using fraudulent identification belonging to U.S. citizens.

ICE officials raided the company’s plant in Salem, Ohio, about 4 p.m. Tuesday. Search warrants also were served at three other locations in the state.

“Unlawful employment is one of the key magnets drawing illegal aliens across our borders,” Steve Francis, a special agent in charge for the Homeland Security Investigations, ICE’s investigative arm, in Michigan and Ohio, said in a statement. “Businesses who knowingly harbor and hire illegal aliens as a business model must be held accountable for their action.”

One local church official said the arrests have instilled “fear and heartbreak” among families of those detained.

“One father said to me, ‘I feel like my heart is being pulled out.’ His wife was taken, and he has two children under the age of 2,” said Sister Rene Weeks, director of Hispanic ministry at St. Paul Church in Salem, Ohio. Weeks said she was with families for several hours after the raid on Tuesday.

ICE has carried out several such raids in recent months.

Two weeks ago, it arrested 114 workers at a gardening company’s two Ohio locations.

In April, ICE raided a meatpacking plant in rural Tennessee and arrested 97 immigrants. In January, ICE blitzed dozens of 7-Eleven stores nationwide, arresting 21.

Immigrant advocates condemned the arrests, saying the raids have put a strain on resources of groups that help the Hispanic community in Ohio.

“There is a lot of fear, an absolute fear, gripping the community . ... This is not about enforcing the law. This is about decimating the Latino community,” said Veronica Dahlberg, executive director of Hola, an Ohio grass-roots organization.

Dahlberg said her organization is helping families get in touch with relatives who have been arrested.