The federal agents wore bulletproof vests and masks over their faces so that only their eyes were visible as they swarmed toward a meatpacking plant in Omaha, Nebraska, last week. One agent wielded a crowbar and a large steel beam in case they needed to break down the doors.
They scoured the back corners of the production floor, finding workers who were still wearing their hairnets and helmets. Workers hid behind dumpsters and HVAC machines, between piles of cardboard boxes, and beyond locked doors while officers banged on walls and yelled, “POLICE!”
When it was over, about a dozen Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents had rounded up nearly 80 workers at Glenn Valley Foods, handcuffed and fingerprinted them, and bussed them to a detention facility nearly 300 miles away. It looked like one more small step toward President Donald Trump’s long-shot goal to deport one million illegal immigrants by the end of this year.
But the immigrants arrested at the meatpacking plant in Omaha were actually working there legally. Or at least, that’s what the company said it was told by the government computer system that confirms the identities of potential employees and ensures their legal right to work in the United States.