Feds raid Smithfield plant; 28 detained

Federal immigration officials conducted a raid Wednesday -- the second this year -- at Smithfield Foods' giant pork slaughterhouse in Bladen County.

Twenty-eight people stand accused of entering the country illegally and committing identity theft, said Richard Rocha, a spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Twenty-five were from Mexico, two were from Guatemala and one from Honduras.

Rocha said that the arrests were the result of an investigation and that the suspects were targeted, not part of a random sweep of illegal immigrants.

Eight were detained during their shifts at the Smithfield plant early Wednesday morning, plant officials said. The rest were arrested at their homes in the four-county area around the plant in Tar Heel, which is the world's largest pork slaughterhouse.

The plant operates around the clock and employs more than 5,000 people, about half of whom are Hispanic.

Most, if not all, of those arrested are current or former Smithfield employees, Rocha said.

Dennis Pittman, a spokesman for the company, said plant officials cooperated with agents, who arrived at the plant about 4 a.m. and asked for meetings with specific workers.

Pittman said that the company has done everything possible to root out illegal immigrants. After a January raid in which federal agents arrested 21 workers, the plant fired more than 500 employees whose Social Security numbers didn't match federal records.

Pittman said, however, that the government has no tools to help employers flag people who buy the Social Security numbers of U.S. citizens -- a practice that has become relatively common.

"If someone has truly bought a complete identity, there's no way we can catch it," Pittman said.

Smithfield is one of several meatpacking plants across the country to come under federal scrutiny since an immigration crackdown began nearly a year ago. At plants in Georgia and Iowa, hundreds of employees have been marched off in handcuffs.

Organizers with the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, who are trying to unionize plant workers, witnessed several arrests Wednesday after employees called them about the raid.

Union worker Eduardo Pena said he watched agents surround several mobile homes throughout the day, sometimes coaxing suspects to come out after negotiations through closed doors. In other cases, he said, agents waited hours for suspects who didn't answer their doors.

Pena said that he knew of at least two cases in which single mothers were arrested. In one case, he said, a child was left with a relative. In another, three children were left with a neighbor, Pena said. He said union representatives were talking with the neighbor and would offer help caring for the children.

Rocha said that he couldn't comment on specific cases but that when parents were arrested, "we worked with the suspects to ensure that an adequate caregiver of their choice was identified."

Pena called the raid a "humanitarian disaster" and said that the arrests sparked fear among the Smithfield plant's Hispanic employees.