Leticia Zamarrita

As more than 100 Chattanooga workers sit in federal custody today facing illegal immigration charges, local advocates are organizing to help and calm the families left on the outside.

“We weren’t expecting this to happen in our community at all,” said America Gruner, president of the Coalition of Latino Leaders in Dalton, Ga. “The Hispanic community of Chattanooga and Dalton are scared of what’s going to happen next, they don’t know what to do.”

The Chattanooga workers are among 280 foreign workers arrested Wednesday in five states following a yearlong criminal investigation of employees at Pittsburg, Texas-based Pilgrim’s Pride Corp., one of the nation’s largest chicken-processing companies.

Abel, a Honduran in Chattanooga who asked to be identified by his first name because he is in the country illegally, said his wife is among the detainees. The couple has a three-month-old baby girl, he said.

“It’s a really bad feeling,” the 42-year-old said as he broke down in tears. “It’s almost as if someone from the family had died.”

Agents on Wednesday also made arrests at Pilgrim’s Pride plants in Mount Pleasant, Texas; Live Oak, Fla.; Moorefield, W.Va.; and Batesville, Ark. Workers face charges that include identity theft, document fraud and immigration violations. Many of the workers were using false documents or had assumed the identity of U.S. citizens, said Leticia Zamarripa, spokesperson for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“Somebody who’s out there selling legitimate or fraudulent documents is just opening the door for people who may want to come into this country for the whole purpose of harming us,” she said. “So that’s a major concern and this is one way that ICE is trying to address that.”

Abel said his wife was able to make a two-minute call to an American friend after her arrest.

Staff Photo by Tim Barber -- Two officers check the identification of two people on Peeples Street near the Pilgrim’s Pride poultry plant on Wednesday morning.

“She just said to take care of the baby,” he said. “We are not criminals. We just have the need to work to help our families back home.”

No criminal or civil charges have been filed against Pilgrim’s Pride. The company has about 55,000 employees and operates dozens of facilities mostly across the South and in Mexico and Puerto Rico, according to the Pilgrim’s Pride Web site.

Ray Atkinson, a spokesman for Pilgrim’s Pride, said the company worked with government officials at all five of the plants where workers were arrested today.

“We knew about it in advance and we cooperated fully,” he said. “According to the information we have, the individuals who were arrested today were engaged in immigration-related crimes, including aggravated identity theft, in order to gain fraudulent employment with our company.”

About 4 percent of the 9,400 employees on the five sites were taken into custody, according to a statement released by Pilgrim’s Pride.

The two poultry processing plants in Chattanooga employ nearly 1,800 people. Another Pilgrim’s Pride plant in Dalton, not involved in Wednesday’s arrests, has about 500 more employees.

Noella Oberlin, member of the Tennessee Federation for Immigration Reform and Enforcement, applauded the ICE’s efforts.

“For too long the residents of Tennessee have suffered financially due to the high cost of illegal aliens, and the safety and health of Tennesseans has been ignored by our state government,” she said. “I hope that these raids continue and the illegal aliens are convinced that they are not welcome in Tennessee.”

Yanette, Abel’s sister-in-law, who was inside the plant at the time of the operation but was not arrested, said immigration agents handed a list to the supervisors and started calling out names one by one.

“We all thought it was for a meeting or something like that,” said Yanette, who also did not want her last name used because she is in the country illegally. “We had no clue what was happening.”

Of about 30 people working on her processing line, she said only about eight remained after the arrests.

“They took a lot of people,” she said. “After they had called everyone, the place looked empty.”

Shonda Caines, a Chattanooga resident who works with Burundi refugees employed at Pilgrim’s Pride, said she was shocked to hear about the raids. Pilgrim’s Pride officials made sure the people from Burundi, a small country in East Africa, were properly documented before they were hired, she said.

“They were very strict in verifying the documents of the Burundians when we first took them to apply for a job,” she said. “I’m very surprised, based on what to me seems, if anything, an overly diligent human resources director.”

A federal grand jury in Texas returned an indictment earlier this month that alleged defendants used Social Security numbers belonging to others to get jobs at Pilgrim’s Pride, according to a news release by the federal Department of Justice and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The indictments were sealed until Wednesday’s immigration sweep.

If convicted, each defendant could receive up to five years in federal prison and a fine of up to $250,000. The majority of the arrests Wednesday were made in Chattanooga and in Moorefield, W.Va., according to the federal press release. The Chattanooga workers were arrested on immigration violation charges, the release stated.

Workers who were arrested can be charged with criminal or administrative violations, Mrs. Zamarripa said. Criminal cases usually involve people who have been deported before or who were using false, bought or borrowed documents, she said. Administrative cases may involve people who entered the country illegally and don’t have a criminal record, she said.

Mr. Atkinson said the company has employed outside experts to help with its immigration compliance and has voluntarily participated for the past couple of years in E-verify, the Homeland Security program designed to determine employment eligibility for all new hires.

“However, as noted by Michael Chertoff, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, the E-Verify/Basic Pilot program cannot detect identity-theft situations,” Mr. Atkinson said.

In December 2006, ICE agents executed civil search warrants at six facilities owned by Swift & Co., one of the nation’s largest processors of pork and beef, according to the ICE Web site. Agents apprehended 1,297 illegal workers on administrative immigration violations. Of those, 274 also have been charged with criminal violations related to identity theft or other violations. The investigation is ongoing.

Also in 2006, the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development looked into claims that the Pilgrim’s Pride chicken processing plant in Chattanooga took money from Hispanic applicants in exchange for a job. But an official with the company said that the allegations were investigated and no wrongdoing was found.

Immigrant advocates from Chattanooga, Nashville and Dalton gathered Wednesday night at the St. Andrew’s Center in Chattanooga to help families whose relatives were arrested. Advocates provided support and answered questions about the legal process and how to reunite children and parents.

Ms. Gruner said the arrests have become a human problem.

“A lot of families have been divided,” she said. “We are now trying to figure out who needs help and to make sure no child is left unprotected.”

Staff Writer Dave Flessner contributed to this story.

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