NEW ORLEANS — Hundreds of undocumented immigrants were arrested in Mississippi Wednesday, the largest immigration raid in at least a decade.
Some of those taken into custody were sent to ICE detention facilities in Louisiana.
The 680 illegal workers were arrested while working at food processing plants across Mississippi. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raided seven plants as part of an ongoing work site investigation.
"While we are a nation of immigrants, more than that we are first and foremost a nation of laws," said U.S. Attorney Mike Hurst, southern district of Mississippi.
Workers filled three buses at Koch Foods, a poultry plant outside Jackson, MS. Anyone who could confirm their legal status was allowed to leave. Officials in Mississippi have been planning this operation for 11 months.
"The arrest today were the result of a year-long criminal investigation and the arrests that were executed today were just another step in that investigation," said Matt Albence, Acting ICE Director.
Last month, President Trump threatened ICE raids in major cities
"They came in illegally. They have to go out," President Trump said on July 12.
U.S. Attorney Mike Hurst had a warning to employers.
"To those who use illegal aliens for a competitive advantage, if we find that you have violated criminal law we are coming after you," he said during Wednesday's press conference.
The nearly 700 workers are being interviewed by ICE staff to determine who will be detained and sent to and ICE facility in Louisiana, and who may be released from custody.
A group that works with undocumented workers in New Orleans, "New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice" expressed more fear for similar raids in the city.
They released the following statement calling on congress to stop the workplace raids:
" The New Orleans ICE Field Office has made it clear they see having more immigrants behind bars as an end unto itself. Arresting parents on the first day of school does not make us safer. Playing into the hands of traffickers who use the threat of deportation to coerce and silence undocumented workers does not make us safer. ICE field office's actions will fuel labor abuses, human trafficking, and a race to the bottom for workers rights. Congress must hold this rogue agency accountable before they take their campaign of terrorizing immigrant communities one step further.
ICE has opened 12 new immigrant detention facilities in Louisiana alone in 2019, allowing the agency to move thousands of asylum seekers to the region and to essentially eliminate the use of legally-mandated parole. It has also opened up additional capacity for interior enforcement. The Louisiana Human Trafficking Prevention Commission and Advisory Board's 2018 report states that the threat of deportation "is not only a devastatingly effective method of control by traffickers; it is the greatest barrier to victims and others reporting these crimes to law enforcement," but this has not prevented the New Orleans ICE Field Office from reviving the practice of workplace raids."
It's unclear whether employers at the food processing plants will be charged in the ongoing investigation.