Nearly 100 Immigrants Were Detained in Single Workplace Raid

Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents detained 97 immigrants at a meatpacking plant in Tennessee late Thursday evening, making it the “largest single workplace raid in a decade,” according to The Washington Post. Eighty-six people were detained for illegally being in the country, 10 were arrested on federal criminal charges, and one on state charges, according to an ICE statement released Friday. Everyone detained at the Grainger County plant had been living in the United States illegally, and most were from Mexico, federal officials said. The factory was reportedly raided without warning using helicopters and roadblocks—mimicking tactics used in the George W. Bush era. Thirty-two people were subsequently released without explanation. The raid comes as ICE instructed agents last year to increase the number of workplace raids by “four or five times” and to shut down the employment “magnets” that lure immigrants into the country.