43 detainees deported
Hattiesburg American
September 18, 2008
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Forty-three suspected illegal immigrants have been deported less than a month after being captured in the nation’s largest single-site raid on undocumented workers, an immigration official said Thursday.
Nearly 600 workers at Howard Industries’ transformer factory in Laurel were rounded up Aug. 25 by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Two others left the country voluntarily.
Most of those who haven’t been deported are being held in a Louisiana detention facility awaiting hearings. More than 100 others — mostly women with children — were fitted with monitoring devices after the raid and ordered to appear in court.
“Everyone has due process of law,” said ICE spokeswoman Barbara Gonzalez. “There’s obviously an appellate process as well. If individuals are ordered deported and they want to appeal that to the Board of Immigration Appeals they’re in their right to do so.”
Nine people detained in the raid face federal charges related to identity theft, according to court records.
Check Friday's Hattiesburg American for details.
http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080918/NEWS01/80918029
