SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:
One of the Mississippi food processing plants caught up in immigration raids this week will be holding a job fair on Monday. Nearly 700 workers at seven plants were arrested in what officials say was the largest immigration raid ever in a single state. About 300 people have been released while they wait for their immigration hearings. NPR's Greg Allen has been talking to people in one of the towns hit hard by the raids, Morton, Miss.
GREG ALLEN, BYLINE: Morton is a small town, about 5,000 people or less. According to the census, a quarter of the town's residents are Hispanic. Many work at chicken processing plants in town, including Maria Tello.
MARIA TELLO: See that blue-white one right there? That is Pam.
ALLEN: Tello also has birds at home, six parakeets. In her 10 years working at the largest poultry plant in town, Koch Foods, she's done a lot of jobs. Now she's a knife-sharpener who works the midnight shift. She wasn't working the day of the raids but went to the plant when she heard about them. What she saw upset her.
TELLO: The Koch Foods looked like, you know, like, when you see those shows - apocalyptic cars abandoned, doors open. That's what it looked like, pulled out of their vehicles that didn't even work at Koch Foods. They were just dropping people off for work, and they were pulled out of their vehicles just 'cause they were Hispanic.
ALLEN: At the Koch Foods plant in Morton, a now hiring banner hangs on the fence outside. The company has announced a job fair next week to begin replacing workers it lost in the raids.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOOR OPENING)
ALLEN: At a diner near the plant, one longtime employee, Alice Battle, was picking up lunch, a hamburger and fried okra. She said the plant's very short-handed now, and no one is happy about the raids.
ALICE BATTLE: No. We are all sad, and we are all crying. It's because they're like family.
ALLEN: While the workers picked up in the raids wait for their immigration hearings, one unanswered question is what action will be taken against the companies, some of which have a past history of repeatedly hiring undocumented workers? No charges have been filed, but the U.S. attorney says the investigation is ongoing.
Taking time out from shopping at a local grocery in Morton, Michael Thompson said he supported the raids. He says, for him, finding out that nearly 700 undocumented immigrants were working at local food plants was an eye-opener.
MICHAEL THOMPSON: Somebody's responsible for this because they had to get hired somewhere or another through here. So somebody should be held accountable.
ALLEN: Nonprofit groups in Jackson are working to set up a legal aid hotline and a network of attorneys to help the hundreds of people picked up in the raids. Patricia Ice, the legal director of the Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance, says this reminds her of another big immigration raid in 2008. She's still helping a client caught up in that immigration sweep 11 years later.
PATRICIA ICE: And so a lot of these cases may last for years. The aftermath of this is going to be devastating.
ALLEN: Maria Tello says it's even been tough for her, and she's a U.S. citizen.
TELLO: I feel less secure. I do. I went to work last night for the first time after the raid, you know? I took my ID, my driver's license, I took my Social Security number, and I put it inside my ID.
ALLEN: She says if immigration authorities come back, she wants proof that she was born here and they can't take her.
Greg Allen, NPR News, Morton, Miss. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
