U.S. immigration cops nab 595 in largest-ever raid
PHOENIX (Reuters) - U.S. immigration agents have arrested 595 people at a Mississippi factory in what was the largest workplace enforcement raid in the United States to date, an immigration official said on Tuesday.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Barbara Gonzalez said federal agents arrested the workers in a raid at the Howard Industries Inc. factory in Laurel, Miss, on Monday,
"This is the largest targeted workplace enforcement operation we have carried out in the United States to date," Gonzalez told Reuters by telephone.
The swoop at the plant, which makes electrical equipment including transformers, was part of an ongoing crackdown on identity theft and fraudulent use of Social Security numbers by illegal immigrants.
Those arrested included citizens of Peru, Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Panama, Honduras, Brazil and one from Germany, ICE said in a press release.
The detainees were interviewed, fingerprinted and photographed by ICE agents, and processed for deportation from the United States.
Gonzalez said 475 detainees were transferred to an ICE detention facility in Jena, Louisiana, while nine unaccompanied minors -- eight males and one female -- were placed in the custody of the office of refugee resettlement.
A further 106 people were released based on "humanitarian concerns," Gonzalez said.
The raid comes amid a toughening stance toward illegal immigrants in the United States, where some 12 million live and work in the shadows.
Since October 1 last year, more than 4,000 people have been nabbed in stepped-up enforcement raids across the country.
AFRAID TO GO OUT
In the largest previous sweep by ICE at Agriprocessors Inc, a kosher meat plant in Postville, Iowa in May, 390 people were arrested. Many were subsequently held for months on charges relating to document fraud and identity theft.
Immigration activists said the raid in Laurel had left an unknown number of children without one or both of their parents and many Hispanic residents afraid to leave their homes.
"We have seen several situations where both breadwinners, the mother and the father, have been detained," Bill Chandler, the executive director of the Mississippi Immigrants' Rights Alliance said in a telephone interview.
"If you have young children going to school, and they come home and find their parents gone, that is a major crisis," he added. Continued...
The Wall's economic legacy
Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, much of the East German economy has cast off the shackles of its Communist past. But some of the changes have come at a price. Full Article | Full Coverage
Chavez, troops to prepare for war