On 7 August 2019, US immigration officers carried out the biggest workplace raid in recent history, arresting 680 men and women at chicken processing plants across central Mississippi. Children came home from school to find their parents gone; one pair of siblings, aged 12 and 14, were reportedly left alone for eight days after both their mother and father were arrested.
The undocumented workers, who mostly hailed from Mexico and Central America, now face deportation and, in some cases, federal prosecution. Nearly half a year later, most are still awaiting a decision on their immigration cases. The ‘lucky’ ones have been released with ankle monitors, among them a 58-year-old Guatemalan woman who has lived in the US for two decades. But many others have been held in detention facilities since their arrest.
