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For more than a decade, it has been an open secret that many of the 5,000 workers at Smithfield Packing Co.'s gigantic
Bladen County slaughterhouse were illegal immigrants.
Most everyone -- the company, the community and the government -- was willing to look the other way as thousands of Hispanic immigrants moved in, started families and even began to fight for better working conditions at the plant in the town of Tar Heel.
Now all that is changing.
The federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has recently taken a keen interest in Smithfield, a Virginia company that is one of the world's largest pork producers, and many other large companies that rely on immigrant labor. Federal agents are combing through records at large plants nationwide, looking for fraudulent Social Security numbers. They are deporting people who believed that, after surviving the treacherous journey over the U.S. border, they were safe.
Twenty-one workers were arrested at the Smithfield plant last week and will probably be deported. Company officials say they will soon have to fire nearly 500 more workers if they can't explain why their Social Security numbers are invalid. Hispanics make up about half the 5,000 employees at the Tar Heel plant, the largest pork- processing facility in the world.
Company spokesman Dennis Pittman said Smithfield is cooperating with federal immigration officials because it fears sanctions if it doesn't.
Swift & Co., another large meat processor, saw more than 1,200 of its workers in six states arrested in a December immigration raid. And in the fall, a Georgia poultry plant, Crider Inc., lost more than 600 of its 900 employees in a raid.
"We need these people," Pittman said. "They're trained. They're good, hard-working employees. Some of them have been here six, seven, eight years. But if Homeland Security says they're not eligible to work here, we can't have them work here."
Going door-to-door
Federal immigration officials aren't just targeting large companies. In recent months, they have been going door to door to round up illegal immigrants, some of whom have been convicted of crimes.
Three such operations have been held in the Charlotte area since last spring, resulting in more than 200 arrests, said Richard Rocha, a spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The last of the three was in January.
Most of those picked up were convicted drunk drivers, Rocha said. But a few happened to live or work where agents visited.
Rocha predicted more arrests in the coming months.
He said the agency will recruit more companies to sign up for a program that allows ICE to inspect employee records. He would not say how many companies have enrolled so far.
ICE is also training sheriff's departments, including three in North Carolina, to make immigration arrests, a practice that was banned until a recent federal law change enabled local police to help with immigration enforcement.
"We're doing what we need to do to restore integrity to the immigration system," Rocha said.
Get-tough attitude
Some say public outrage has forced the government to act. In the past year, grass-roots anti-immigration groups have gained steam.
The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, known for conducting citizen border patrol operations, is expanding into non-border states, including North Carolina, training volunteers to confront business owners that they suspect of hiring illegal immigrants.
A North Carolina-based group, Americans for Legal Immigration, started a popular Web site where people can report employers they suspect of hiring illegal workers.
Rumors about Hispanic immigrants spreading disease, brutalizing U.S. citizens and even plotting to reconquer the southwest for Mexico have spread on the Internet.
"They're beginning to do their job," Ron Woodard of Cary, founder of a nonprofit group that opposes illegal immigration, said of ICE officials. "Illegals are going to get the message that, if you come here the wrong way, your days are numbered."
This get-tough attitude has support among many in Washington.
Laura Caudell, a spokesman for U.S. Sen. Richard Burr, a Republican from Winston-Salem, said Burr is pleased about the crackdown. But she also said he will push for immigration reform.
"He believes those who break the law must be held accountable," Caudell said. "He wants the Senate to pass comprehensive immigration reform legislation which will include an effective temporary worker program."
Some argue that, in a country with an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants, arresting a few thousand people is political show.
"If there are some sensational things, like big raids or a wall built, or even talk of building a wall, that gives politicians some cover to say, 'Look, I'm getting tough. Now I'm going to vote for immigration reform,' " said Altha Cravey, a UNC-Chapel Hill geography professor who is writing a book on Mexican migration.
Cravey pointed out that, even though Congress passed legislation last year to build a wall along the Mexican border, the project has not been funded.
Living in fear
Advocates say that Hispanics now live in fear of being yanked from their homes or workplaces. They say ICE is victimizing families who have lived in North Carolina for years without incident.
"What we need is a complete reform of our immigration system," said Marisol Jimenez McGee, advocacy director with El Pueblo, a nonprofit agency that helps Hispanic immigrants. "So why are they going after families and creating terror in our communities?"
Eduardo Pena, a worker advocate and union organizer at the Smithfield plant, said he met last weekend with the families of those who were arrested. He said they are struggling to find out where their family members are and what charges they face.
In many cases, he said, they have lost the family's sole breadwinner. Some have U.S.-born children and few connections left in Mexico.
At the plant, the Hispanic workers who remain live in fear, Pena said. He said rumors of immigration raids spread through the plant regularly, forcing Hispanic workers to flee.
"It reminds me of an island where a hurricane is coming," Pena said. "People are getting ready for disaster."
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