MORTON, Miss. -- U.S. immigration officials raided numerous Mississippi food-processing plants Wednesday, arresting 680 mostly Hispanic workers in what marked the largest workplace sweep in at least a decade.
The raids, planned months ago, happened just hours before President Donald Trump was scheduled to visit El Paso, Texas, the majority-Hispanic city where a man linked to an online screed about a "Hispanic invasion" was charged in a shooting rampage Saturday 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 tiny 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 their car trunks were 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.
About 600 agents fanned out across the plants involving several companies, surrounding the perimeters to prevent workers from fleeing. The raids occurred in small towns near Jackson with a workforce made up largely of Hispanics, including Bay Springs, Carthage, Canton, Morton, Pelahatchie and Sebastapol.
Matthew Albence, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency's acting director, said that 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 operation was another demonstration of Trump's signature domestic priority to crack down on illegal immigration.
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, but the months of preparation and hefty resources they require make them rare. Last year, immigration officials hit a landscaping company near Toledo, Ohio, and a meatpacking plant in eastern Tennessee. The former owner of the Tennessee plant was sentenced in July to 18 months in prison.
A hangar at the Mississippi National Guard base in Flowood, near Jackson, was set up with 2,000 meals for the employees going through processing Wednesday. There were seven lines, one for each location that was raided. Buses had been lined up since early in the day to be dispatched to the plants.
"I've never done anything like this," Chris Heck, resident agent in charge of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency's Homeland Security Investigations unit in Jackson, said inside the hangar. "This is a very large work-site operation."
Koch Foods, based in Park Ridge, Ill., is one of the largest poultry producers in the U.S. and employs about 13,000 people, with operations in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Ohio and Tennessee.
Forbes ranks it as the 135th-largest privately held company in the U.S., with an estimated $3.2 billion in annual revenue. The Morton plant produces more than 700,000 tons of poultry feed a year, company officials said in February. The company has no relation to prominent conservative political donors and activists Charles and David Koch.
Agents arrived at the Morton plant, passing a chain-link fence with barbed wire on top, with a sign that said the company was hiring. Mike Hurst, the U.S. attorney for Mississippi, was at the scene.
Workers were told to deposit personal belongings in clear plastic bags and had their wrists bound with plastic bands. Agents collected the bags before the people boarded the buses.
"This will affect the economy," Maria Isabel Ayala, a child care worker for employees at the Morton plant, said as the buses left. "Without them here, how will you get your chicken?"
Immigration agents also hit a Peco Foods Inc. plant in Canton, about 35 miles north of Jackson. The company, based in Tuscaloosa, Ala., says it is the eighth-largest poultry producer in the U.S. A company representative did not immediately respond to a telephone call or email seeking comment.
Information for this article was contributed by Elliot Spagat of The Associated Press.
A Section on 08/08/2019