Coming only three days after the murderous attack on the El Paso Walmart, last week’s ICE raids on seven Mississippi chicken plants drew a lot of national media attention and caused a lot of disruption in the small towns that were affected.Federal officials said this was the largest single-state workplace enforcement action in history, but it wasn’t the first time a chicken plant raid has wreaked havoc in the rural South. In 2006, two weeks after more than 120 people were arrested in a federal raid on the Crider Inc. chicken plant in Stillmore, an Associated Press story described the southwest Georgia community as “little more than a ghost town,” with empty trailer parks and dried-up local businesses. A local day care operator told how a mother had left her U.S.-born child in her care before fleeing the area.
Tom Baxter: If immigration officials cracked down on poultry plant leaders, workforce may look different