Posted on 07/28/2005 5:05:56 AM PDT by sweetliberty
Immigration officials have raided a poultry plant and arrested 119 workers, but company officials say they suffered a 70 percent cut in production for what is really a clerical error.
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency on Tuesday raided a Petit Jean Poultry Inc. plant and arrested 119 workers. Immigration officials allege the workers benefited from a scheme to supply them with fake identification cards.
By Ronnie Farnam, a company manager, said many of the workers arrested have the necessary paperwork and that it was unnecessary to raid the plant.
"A lot of them will be cleared," Farnam said. "They just don't have their paperwork with them." He said other workers would be hired in the effort to return to full production.
Farnam said the workers were hired through the state Employment Security Division and that everything appeared proper.
"Our hiring practices are the same as they've always been," he said. "We're not in the position to determine what's right."
The immigration officials said Wednesday they arrested the 119 after an audit of the company's records. Also, the arrests follow the February identity theft conviction of Maria Moreno of Arkadelphia, who admitted she unlawfully sold identity documents and Social Security cards.
Immigration agents said many aliens at the company illegally purchased U.S. citizen birth certificates and Social Security cards, then used those documents to obtain ID cards, bearing their photos, from the state of Arkansas. The Arkansas IDs were used to obtain employment.
Moreno was arrested in December. The immigration officials said they also seized $60,000 from Moreno and suspect it was from the sale of the documents.
Those arrested were turned over to other immigration officials for possible deportation. Two of the arrested were from Honduras, one each were from El Salvador and Guatemala and 115 were from Mexico. They were making wages in the range of $6 to $6.80 per hour.
30 Kids Left Behind After Immigration Raid
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