They're at it again

August 27, 2008

Nearly 600 Were Arrested in Factory Raid, Officials Say

By ADAM NOSSITER

Federal officials on Tuesday revised upward to 595 the number of suspected illegal immigrants arrested this week in a raid on a Laurel, Miss., factory, making it the largest immigration crackdown on a United States workplace in recent years.

On Monday, the day of the raid, officials said at least 350 people had been arrested.

Officials said 475 of the immigrants were immediately taken by bus to a detention center in the central Louisiana town of Jena and would face deportation. At least eight appeared in federal court in Hattiesburg, Miss., on Tuesday, where they faced criminal charges of aggravated identity theft, which usually means stealing a Social Security number or using a false address.

Of the 595 arrested, 106 were temporarily released for what Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials called “humanitarian” reasons — because of illness or the need to care for children — though they still face deportation. Nine unaccompanied 17-year-olds were taken into custody by the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement.

The relatively low number of criminal cases could represent a shift in government policy, several immigration experts said, particularly in view of the hundreds who were prosecuted and sent to jail after a similar raid at a meatpacking plant at Postville, Iowa, in May.

“I’m going to hope that it is,” said Kathleen C. Walker, a past president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. After Postville, “they got a lot of heat from different avenues,” Ms. Walker said, referring to the outcry from advocates over the mass, rapid-fire nature of the criminal proceedings, which took place on the grounds of the National Cattle Congress in Iowa.

But an ICE spokeswoman said some of the 475 could still face criminal charges, and she rejected the suggestion that the government’s policy had changed.

“Absolutely not,” said the spokeswoman, Barbara Gonzalez, in an e-mail message. “In fact it’s the opposite.” She added that more people were being charged with crimes by ICE every year.

A Mississippi immigrants rights group continued Tuesday to criticize the large-scale raid, in which numerous federal immigration agents descended on Howard Industries, a major employer in southern Mississippi and a manufacturer of electrical transformers, among other things. Officials with Howard did not return phone calls Tuesday.

“It’s just horrific,” said Victoria Cintra, an organizer for the Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance. “We’ve got two families where the mom and the dad were released with ankle bracelets” — electronic tracking devices — “and they have children. They’ve got bills to pay and kids to feed. We’ve got a woman who is 24, 26 weeks pregnant, and she’s got a husband, brother, father and brother-in-law who were detained.”

One of the workers who appeared in court on Tuesday, Paula Gomez, a native of Mexico who worked at Howard, was accused of using a stolen Social Security number, according to court records.

“Most of the families are not leaving their homes because they are afraid,” said the Rev. Ken Ramon-Landry of Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Hattiesburg, speaking of family members of those who had been taken away.

The government said it had acted on a tip from a union member, but union officials in Mississippi said they did not know the identity of the tipster. But Robert Shaffer of the Mississippi A.F.L.-C.I.O. said it was “common knowledge” that Howard and other area employers “kind of cater to the undocumented workers.”

“You ask anyone in the Laurel-Hattiesburg area,” Mr. Shaffer said.