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Tom Baxter: If immigration officials cracked down on poultry plant leaders, workforce may look different
08292018 TOM BAXTER
Tom Baxter
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.