By Kanishka Singh and Kristina Cooke
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -An immigration raid on Tuesday at a meat production plant in Omaha, Nebraska was the “largest worksite enforcement operation” in the state during the Trump presidency, the Homeland Security Department said.
U.S. Congressman Don Bacon told local media 75-80 people were detained.
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid happened at a plant of Glenn Valley Foods. The food packaging company said it was surprised by the raid and had followed the rules regarding immigration status.
Chad Hartmann, president of Glenn Valley Foods in Omaha, said the plant that was raided used E-Verify, a federal database used for checking employees’ immigration status. He told Reuters that when he said this to a federal agent, the agent responded “the system is broken” and urged him to contact his local congressional representative.
ICE officers have been intensifying efforts in recent weeks to deliver on U.S. President Donald Trump’s promise of record-level deportations. The White House has demanded the agency sharply increase arrests of migrants in the U.S. illegally, sources have told Reuters.
Tensions boiled over in Los Angeles over the weekend when protesters took to the streets after ICE arrested migrants at Home Depot stores, a garment factory and a warehouse, according to migrant advocates.
Local police in Omaha said they were informed by immigration officials about the raid in advance while the company said it got no notice about the operation ahead of time.
Hartmann said federal agents had a warrant that said they had identified 107 people who they believed were using fraudulent documents.
“This was the largest worksite enforcement operation in Nebraska under the Trump Administration,” the Homeland Security Department said on X, adding no law enforcement official was hurt.
ICE said a criminal investigation was ongoing into what immigration officials called a large-scale employment of immigrants who are present in the U.S. illegally.
“U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and federal law enforcement partners, executed a federal search warrant at Glenn Valley Foods, today, based on an ongoing criminal investigation into the large-scale employment of aliens without authorization to work in the United States,” an ICE spokesperson told an ABC News affiliate.
More than half of all meatpacking workers in the U.S. are immigrants, according to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a think tank.
Rights advocates, including the ACLU of Nebraska, condemned the raid.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington and Kristina Cooke in San Francisco; Editing by Michael Perry)
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