ICE raids round up 400 workers at Pilgrim's Pride

Starting at 5:30 a.m. on April 16, immigration (ICE) agents accompanied by state and local police launched a series of raids on Pilgrim’s Pride chicken processing plants in Mt. Pleasant, Texas; Live Oak, Fla.; Batesville, Ark.; and Chattanooga, Tenn. and arrested some 400 people.

In addition, agents took some workers from their homes. Federal officials say these raids are the result of a yearlong investigation involving undercover agents in the facilities.

These raids come just two weeks before May Day demonstrations are being organized around the country, fueled largely by the demands of immigrant workers for respect and human rights.

Pilgrim’s Pride is one of the world’s largest poultry-processing companies and a supplier to the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant chain, among others. Pilgrim’s Pride employs about 55,000 workers at 37 plants, mostly in the South. The work is low-paid and extremely fast-paced with the constant possibility of injury from the cutting instruments and the wet and cold conditions.

The company, which just two days prior to the raids announced it was reducing weekly production by 5 percent and closing a plant in Siler, N.C., because of decreased sales, stated in a press release that it had fully cooperated with the immigration agency and helped with the logistics of the raids. The statement further says that it has fired all those arrested and claims it was unaware of any immigration violations.

No charges have been filed against Pilgrim’s Pride.

A small percentage of those arrested have been charged with identity theft for falsely using an authentic social security number, a felony with a maximum penalty of five years in federal prison and up to a $250,000 fine. The majority of the workers, who come from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Colombia, are being held on administrative violations of immigration law. Following a hearing, they will most likely be deported to their country of origin.

Many of the men will be sent to the Stewart Detention Facility in Lumpkin, Ga., a private prison owned by the Corrections Corporation of America. This prison is located in a poor, rural county about two hours south of Atlanta by car.

Some of the women have been released on humanitarian grounds because they care for minor children. They will wear an electronic tracking ankle bracelet until their deportation hearing.

Of 100 workers arrested at two plants in downtown Chattanooga, 36 have been allowed to go home until their court date. This includes Miriam, who has a 7-month-old baby and Candelaria, a Mayan woman, a widow who speaks little Spanish and has three children who are U.S. citizens.

Their situation is desperate. They no longer have jobs and although they have the right to legal representation at their deportation hearing, they will have to pay for it. Their children have the right to remain in the U.S., but there is no one in the U.S. to take care of them.

When 42-year-old Abel from Honduras found out his wife had been arrested in the Chattanooga raid, he said: “We are not criminals. We just have the need to work to help our families back home.” (Chattanooga Times Free Press, April 17)

Reports from the towns where the plants are located describe a strong atmosphere of fear and anxiety with many businesses in immigrant neighborhoods shutting down and people leaving town. However, newspaper accounts from Mt. Pleasant and Chattanooga also make reference to acts of solidarity.

Missey Walley, principal of Chapel Hill Elementary School in Mt Pleasant, remarked that when some of the children began crying and were visibly scared as news of the raid swept the school, other children showed support for their classmates. “It was not just the Hispanic children who were upset. It was all the children. It affected the whole school.” (Chattanooga Times Free Press, April 17)

Likewise, community groups in Chattanooga received calls from Nashville and Knoxville, Tenn., and Dalton, Ga., offering legal assistance and financial and material help for those arrested and their families. A Spanish-language radio station in Dalton, just across the Tennessee-Georgia border, provided news updates and information on legal services and how to aid the children.

Dalton is home to another Pilgrim’s Pride plant and the site of a training facility for 200 ICE agents, whose presence keeps the immigrant community on edge.

In addition, ICE raids were conducted April 16 at a doughnut plant in Houston, at employment agencies in Atlanta and restaurants in New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio.