FOREST, Miss.—Rocio remembers her last shift at the Koch Foods chicken processing plant in Morton, Miss., as though it happened yesterday. It was Aug. 7, 2019—the first day of school for many young Mississippians. Rocio, whom the Mississippi Free Press is referring to only by her first name to protect her identity, was eager to hear about her teenage son’s new classes when she returned home to neighboring Forest, Miss.
But hours into her shift at the Scott County plant, federal Immigration Customs Enforcement officers entered a separate Koch Foods facility in Morton, arresting hundreds of mostly Latino employees suspected of working in the U.S. without authorization.
Under then-President Donald Trump’s draconian immigration policies, ICE carried out similar sting operations at other Mississippi poultry plants, resulting in approximately 680 workers being detained in a single day. Koch Foods employees in Morton accounted for over half of those arrests, and a significant number of them lived in Forest like Rocio.
Though ICE didn’t target Rocio’s facility, the workplace raids still upended her life. In the days that followed, she and other Koch Foods workers in Morton and Forest lost their jobs amid fears that the federal agents would return.
“Those of us who weren’t arrested were still affected,” Rocio, a single mother who came to the U.S. from Ecuador and settled in Forest 24 years ago, said on Aug. 7 while speaking to the Mississippi Fress Press in Spanish. “I went almost a year without a job because nobody wanted to hire Hispanic workers.”
Five years after the raids, Rocio and the city of Forest are still recovering from what remains the largest workplace immigration crackdown in recent U.S. history. Many of the families that ICE broke up in 2019 remain separated half a decade later, some forced to reinvent themselves as single-parent households after the government deported their spouses. Poultry workers detained during the raids continue to rely on outside help to pay the bills because they cannot legally work. And a local economy bolstered by the city’s Latino community—about one-third of Forest’s population is Hispanic—has struggled to regain its footing.
“These people did not live in a bubble,” said Michael Oropeza, executive director of El Pueblo, a community and legal aid organization that set up an office in Forest following the raids. “They bought houses in this community. They shopped at the grocery store and the gas station. So the long-term effect (of the raids) was financial, but there was also a human loss.”
Still Living in Fear
On the fifth anniversary of the ICE raids, Forest residents and other community members gathered at El Pueblo’s downtown office for a day of remembrance. The event space was cheerfully decorated, with vases of flowers adorning tables and multicolored papel picado (a traditional Mexican decorative craft made of cut paper) hanging from the ceiling.
Visitors greeted one another and checked in with El Pueblo staff as community volunteers helped serve a buffet-style lunch featuring rice, beans and tostadas.
As the meal winded down, event organizers passed a microphone around the room, inviting volunteers, community members and outside organizations to reflect on the raids and their aftermath. Many recalled the anguish of children leaving their first day of school only to discover their parents had been detained. Some went months or longer without seeing them.
“We picked up many kids from school that day,” a woman who asked to be identified as Dorcas said in Spanish. She’s a longtime Forest resident and a native of Guatemala who was close with many parents arrested during the raids. “There are many parents who were separated from their children who should be here today.”
Since the day of the raids, Dorcas and other Forest residents have joined forces with El Pueblo to assist local families impacted by ICE’s operation. They’ve organized food and clothing drives using community donations and volunteered as interpreters for former poultry workers with limited English. Along with these basic needs, El Pueblo staff has provided a range of legal aid and other services, including free therapy for kids who could not otherwise afford it.
“You’re not dealing with people who had large savings or a network of family they can fall back on,” Michael Oropeza said. “What has been emotionally impactful for me is to see people dedicating their lives to help (affected families) in this traumatic moment.”
Though the city of Forest has rallied around those affected by the raids, Dorcas believes ICE’s actions five years ago left wounds in the community that may never fully heal.
“Many people here are still living in fear,” she told the Mississippi Free Press in Spanish. “They go to work not knowing if they will return.”
Waiting for Accountability
ICE’s 2019 raids on Mississippi chicken plants coincided with a broader push by the Trump administration to crack down on migrant labor. Over the next year, U.S. immigration authorities referred hundreds of poultry workers for criminal charges tied to identity theft, leading to prolonged detainments and deportations.
While the raids were officially meant to target poultry companies believed to be hiring undocumented workers, the companies themselves emerged largely unscathed. In August 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that four chicken plant executives had been indicted on charges related to the previous year’s sting operation. Left out of the indictments were Koch Foods and PECO Foods, two companies that collectively owned five of the seven plants raided by ICE and whose executives had donated thousands of dollars to top Mississippi officials, as the Mississippi Free Press reported in 2020.
At the time of the indictments, DOJ officials indicated strongly that other poultry executives could face prosecution for knowingly employing undocumented workers (and for related crimes). Since 2020, however, officials have not brought any further charges against the leadership at any of the companies.
The lack of additional indictments underscores the cynicism of ICE’s actions as well as the needless suffering inflicted on some of Mississippi’s most vulnerable communities, some legal experts say.
“This was using human beings for political gain,” said Cliff Johnson, the director of the MacArthur Justice Center at the University of Mississippi School of Law, while speaking at the five-year anniversary event in Forest. “It was mean-spirited and it tore communities and families apart. And what did it get the state of Mississippi? Absolutely nothing.”
Federal agencies have taken steps to prevent similar workplace raids from occurring in future. In 2021, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security under the Biden administration issued a memo establishing “an end to mass worksite enforcement operations.”
Meanwhile, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has pledged to enact even harsher immigration policies if he is reelected in November, vowing to deport between 15 and 20 million people whom he claims are in the U.S. illegally. During her presidential nomination acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention on Thursday evening, Vice President Kamala Harris pledged to support a bipartisan border security bill if voters elect her as president. “We can create an earned pathway to citizenship—and secure our border,” she said.
Rocio hopes the government will do more to protect undocumented workers regardless of who the next president is. After going a year without steady work in the wake of the raids, she landed a job at a Forest supermarket selling an array of Latin American products. She likes working at the store and has formed close friendships with its owners.
Still, Rocio has accepted the possibility that her employment status in the U.S. may always be in jeopardy.
“People like me have spent years working, paying taxes and doing everything legally,” she said. “But we still have no hope of getting papers.”