Community torn apart by S.C. immigration raid

updated 7:48 p.m. ET Oct. 8, 2008

GREENVILLE, S.C. - When Magdalana Domingo Ramirez Lopez moved to this South Carolina city nearly two years ago to work at the chicken processing plant, she felt at home.

On weekends, the neighborhood near House of Raeford's plant was filled with the sounds of salsa music and the scents of Guatemalan cooking. She would shop with her three small sons at nearby businesses that catered to the immigrants — some in the country legally, others not.

While the sights and sounds reminded Lopez of her native Guatemala, she said she was happy living in the United States — a place that offered a better life for her and her three young sons.

But those hopes were shattered Tuesday when federal agents swooped into the plant, arresting 330 suspected undocumented workers, six of them juveniles, effectively shutting down the factory and tearing apart the close-knit community.

Lopez was arrested and could be deported, as her husband was two years ago.

"My whole life has changed," she said as tears rolled down her cheeks. "I don't want to go back. My sons are better off here. The country is so poor. There's nothing there."

A day after the raid, families waited to hear from loved ones at detention centers. Meanwhile, businesses and streets were vacant because those not rounded up stayed home, afraid agents would return.

Just days before, poultry workers visibly filled the neighborhoods around the plant.

Before ICE raid
The community's transformation was slow but steady over the last 15 years as the newcomers replaced working-class whites and blacks. Neighborhood residents who knew about federal charges against plant supervisors accused of helping illegal immigrants forge documents didn't think the trouble would trickle down to them.

After all, they were only here to give the plant long hours of joint-aching work and local officials didn't seem to mind. That thought was likely shared by immigrants in communities nationwide including states throughout the South, Iowa and New York who have been caught in similar raids by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Lopez, 29, believed she was safe. But she spent most of Tuesday being fingerprinted and questioned by federal agents and a day later was coming to grips with being sent back to Guatemala. Her sons — ages 4, 5 and 6 — were all born in the U.S.

"The whole time I was there with police, I cried. I kept thinking about my sons. That I wouldn't see them again," she said.

She left Central America because she didn't want her family to grow up in a place where she was so hungry at times that she had to eat grass and dirt.

"I came to the U.S. for work. I came in peace. My goal was to help my sons grow up in a better place. Now that's gone," she said.

Troubles at the plant
House of Raeford processes chickens and turkeys in eight plants in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana and Michigan. The Greenville plant and its nearly 900 workers have been under scrutiny for almost a year as authorities looked into allegations the company knowingly hired illegal immigrants. Eleven supervisors and the plant's human resources director have been arrested, mostly for falsifying immigration documents.

The company has issued a statement saying it never knowingly hired illegal immigrants and was cooperating.

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