Workers held after ICE storms Miss. plant

LAUREL, Miss., Aug. 26 (UPI) -- Immigrant rights activists were trying Tuesday to sort out the status of at least 350 suspected illegal aliens rounded up at a Mississippi factory.

The workers were taken into custody Monday by federal immigration agents who swooped down on an electronic components plant in Laurel, Miss.

The detainees were transported to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility, leaving friends and family members wondering what would happen to them.

"It's horrific what ICE is doing to these families and these communities," Shuya Ohno, a spokesman for the Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance, told The New York Times. "It's just hard to imagine that this is the United States."

ICE said many of the detainees were being processed for deportation.

The company that was raided, Howard Industries, said in a written statement that its policy was to hire only legal workers.