Team Report: What Happens Next?



Lots of questions remain a day after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents raided the Pilgrim's Pride chicken proessing plant in downtown Chattanooga. Those arrested face hefty illegal immigration charges and could be deported.

Dozens of Pilgrim's Pride workers streamed into the Latin America Consulting Company on Bailey Avenue. All of them wearing ankle bracelets, and struggling to understand the paperwork federal agents handed them after their arrest.

"Right now, they come here and I don't think they know the seriousness of using another identity," explained interpreter Netchie Lopez.

Lopez is translating the legal documents because many workers don't understand English. Essentially. the papers explain the conditions of their release. The suspected illegals must wear a tracking device at all times, and appear before immigrations officials in Gadsden, Alabama, next month. After that, most will be deported.

"Let me put it this way. There are not many things we can do for them," said Lopez. "If they have to go, they have to go. But they need to have a person who can direct them, and a lawyer is that person."

The biggest legal concerns are for the children. Many workers want to give power of attorney to a neighbor or a family member who lives here legally.

Lopez says the released employees are the lucky ones, living on borrowed time. Dozens of their co-workers remain in federal custody, separated from their families. The women are being held in Nashville. The men were taken to a facility in Lumpkin, Georgia.

Most arrested workers are seeking lawyers to help with the custody of their children. Many are students at East Side Elementary. When word of the federal raid surfaced, many mothers pulled their children out of school.

Principal Emily Baker worried many parents would keep children home today, but that wasn't the case. Of East Side's 263 Latino students, all but four came to class.

Reported by: Rachel Withers
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