— Twenty-seven people were taken into custody in Sanford on Tuesday by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, the Lee County Sheriff's Office said.

The operation was conducted at Bear Creek Arsenal, a gun manufacturing company in Sanford, and was the result of an ongoing investigation that dealt with identity theft and fraud, authorities said.

Bear Creek issued the following statement:

Today there were several employees who were detained by law enforcement. This is the result of an investigation conducted by Homeland Security into employment that was obtained by either ID theft or fraudulent information.

The company said that Homeland Security confirmed Bear Creek's Human Resource Department "complied with all laws, rules and regulations" in their hiring practices.

"What I want Lee County residents to know is that this was not a random operation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Lee County," the sheriff said in a statement. "This was the result of an ongoing investigation by Immigration and Customs and isolated to one location.​"

Officials did not know how long the people will be held in custody, but they will likely be transported to a facility in Georgia, because there is no ICE detention facility in North Carolina.

"ICE makes arrests daily as part of targeted immigration enforcement efforts," a spokesperson for ICE Public Affairs told WRAL News. "ICE continues to focus its limited resources, first and foremost, on those who pose the greatest threat to public safety and the agency's arrest stats clearly reflect this reality."

The Alerta Migratoria organization helps people with deportation issues and their director, Viridiana Martinez, was getting calls for help Tuesday night.

"I mean, even right now, I keep getting phone calls from families about their family members or people they knew who got picked up and they don't know what to do," she said.

Martinez said the fraud charges are a risk some undocumented take in order to get work in the United States.

"It's just somebody who was trying to feed their family and couldn't get a work permit and can get papers. What they did was more willing to sacrifice being charged with something like this to be able to feed their families," she said.