On Wednesday morning, Dianne received an alarming call. It was her fiancé, dialing her from the chicken processing plant in a nearby central Mississippi town where he worked long shifts deboning meat.



“ICE is here!” he yelled. In the background, Dianne could hear other laborers terrified. The panic was palpable. One worker called out in Spanish, “Ayúdame! [Help me!]”

Dianne’s fiancé, who came to the country more than two decades ago from Mexico without authorization, told her he had no way out and would not be able to escape immigration enforcement agents. His voice trembling, he told Dianne that she needed to make a promise before he got off the line: “Take care of my kids.”

What the workers at the plant didn’t realize in that moment was they were about to be arrested in one of the largest worksite operations ever conducted by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. In total, some 680 suspected undocumented workers were arrested Wednesday after ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations agents swept through seven agricultural plants in the state as part of a criminal investigation. Deportation officers and HSI agents arrested the workers as they served criminal search warrants at the food plants.

Dianne’s fiancé is the father to three children, ages 13, 15, and 19, with his ex-wife, who was also undocumented and worked at a separate food plant in the area.

Not long after Dianne’s phone call with her fiancé, she found out that the kids’ mother was also arrested. Dianne, who requested her last name not be used for fear of consequences for her fiancé, sped to the local school, where she witnessed other adults coming to pick up children whose parents had been arrested. Some parents, she said, weren’t able to retrieve kids because they hadn’t been listed as authorized guardians.

On her way out of the school, she saw one girl looking confused, not knowing where to go because her parents had been arrested too.

“They were crying. They were shocked. They’re just worried,” Dianne said of her fiancé’s children. “I’m just trying to stay strong for them. I’m trying to remain as calm as possible. It’s one thing to know this could happen but it is another to see it happening. This is heart-wrenching. They are scared.”

Details of the targets of the immigration operation, which was conducted in partnership with the local US attorney’s office, were not immediately available as officials said the investigation was ongoing.



“We are a nation of laws, and we will remain so by continuing to enforce our laws and ensuring that justice is done,” said US Attorney Mike Hurst.

ICE officials said that each worker arrested would be evaluated for potential release on humanitarian grounds.