Mississippi ICE raids and investigation have cost $1.3 million so far, official says

Giacomo Bologna | Mississippi Clarion Ledger

Show Caption Hide Caption Forest, MS, families, friends pray for undocumented workers detained by ICE When ICE agents raided processing plants throughout central Mississippi on April 7, half of Rev. Roberto Mena’s parishioners disappeared. Those who remain pray for their safe return.

A federal immigration enforcement official said the investigation and workplace raids that rounded up 680 people at central Mississippi poultry plants in August have cost $1.3 million so far.

Richard Rocha, a spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said those costs stretch back as far as 18 months before the Aug. 7 raids, when the investigation first began.

Rocha gave the updated total to the Clarion Ledger shortly after a U.S. House congressional hearing was held at Tougaloo College to address the raids and their aftermath.

U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, the Democratic Chair of the Homeland Security Committee, held the hearing, in which new information about the raids was revealed.

What we learned at the hearing

About 600 federal agents descended on chicken plants in five Mississippi towns, and Thompson the salaries paid to those agent for the single-day raid cost $487,000 alone.

They arrested 680 people, about half of whom were released within 27 hours on humanitarian grounds.

Jere Miles, the special agent in charge of the New Orleans office of Homeland Security Investigations, was grilled about how ICE handled the raids.

According to Miles, ICE provided 11 phones for the 680 detainees to use on the day of the raid.

Miles said that some school districts were given notice of the raids, but it appears that only county school districts were contacted, meaning some of the school districts most impacted by the raids were left in the dark.

Miles called it an "oversight."

Thompson said those people were initially taken to two ICE detention facilities, but have since been taken to as many as 13 different facilities, making it difficult for them to connect with family members or attorneys.

Lorena Quiroz, an organizer and advocate, testified that many of the people arrested did not speak Spanish or understand it well. Many were Guatemalans who spoke indigenous languages, such as Mam, Quiroz said, and ICE agents were not prepared for this.

Their story: Chicken plants lured them. Feds jailed them. How Mississippi's immigration crisis unfolded

Who were the people arrested?

Miles said that of the 680 people arrested, investigators found that not one was engaged in any major criminal activity besides immigration and identity fraud violations.

U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen of Tennessee asked if any of those people had violent criminal histories.

Miles said there were six cases of domestic violence, two cases of battery and one case of rape — though it's unclear if those are charges or convictions and whether those cases stem from multiple people or a single person with a long rap sheet.

Scott County Sheriff Mike Lee said his community has not seen a spike in crime since an influx of Latinos came to work at the chicken plants in his county. In fact, the opposite appears to be true.

Of the 125 people currently in the Scott County Jail, Lee testified that only 3 identify as Latino.

"The workers that were taken, primarily, if not all — they may have criminal records unknown to me, but were good, hard-working people," Lee said.

During the hearing, Miles testified he is not sure how many people are still in detention, saying another wing of the agency is in charge of that.

Thompson later told reporters that witnesses at the hearing told him about 300 people are still in ICE detention.

Update on the prosecutions

Miles said that so far, there have been 119 criminal indictments that stem from the raids. More than 400 workers were using Social Security numbers issued to other people, he said.

"You keep saying they haven't committed a crime, they're law-abiding citizens. They stole the IDs of 400 U.S. citizens, 400 U.S. citizens," Miles said. "Where's their voice?"

So far, the owners and managers of the chicken plants have not been charged with any crimes related to the Aug. 7 raids.

Miles seemed to suggest that those prosecutions are coming.

When a Congressman said that HSI and ICE should target the employers instead of only the workers, Miles said they are.

"That's why this case was started 18 months ago for the purpose of going after the highest level we can get to . That's what HSI does. We're not satisfied going after the low level people," Miles said. "... It's a lengthy process to build a criminal prosecution. We served search warrants. That's one step in the building of criminal investigations. It's not the final step."

Do you have questions about the ICE raids? Concerns? Contact Giacomo "Jack" Bologna at 601-961-7282 or gbologna@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @gbolognaCL.