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BREAKING NEWS ALERT: How Suspected Illegal Aliens Escaped Immigration Raid

Last Update: 11:01 pm


We are gaining new insight into the immigration raid at a Fairfield poultry plant.

Federal agents pulled 161 suspected illegal aliens from Koch Foods Tuesday, but did not find all of them.

Family members of workers say those workers were able to hide from immigration agents inside Koch Foods during that raid.

Family members of several workers say illegal plant employees hid from immigration agents inside the plant for 12 hours during the raid.

The husband of Maria Mendez Gonzales was one of the workers hiding. She didn't know if he was in jail or being deported.

"That's what I thought all night, I didn't sleep," said Maria Mendez Gonzales, husband works at Koch Foods. "I just prayed, hoping God would help me."

Agents failed to find her husband and he's still in hiding, fearing he'll eventually be sent back home.

Maria and her husband are from Guatemala. With no job at home, she admits she snuck into the U.S., actually walking across the Arizona border.

She paid $2,000 for a ride to Cincinnati. Her husband was already here, and knew to go to the "chicken company" for work, Koch Foods.

There she says her husband presented an Ohio ID card and a fake social security card he bought for $150.

He's now been an employee at Koch for three years. He works for $8 an hour, with no health benefits.

Like many of the workers detained Tuesday, the risk of living here illegally is worth it for Maria, her husband and their young son.

In Guatemala, she lived in a mud hut. Here, they make enough to rent an apartment in North Fairmount.

"We don't feel anything," said Gonzales. "It's just God who takes us where we need to go."

Maria says her husband won't come back to Koch Foods, but will find another local company ready to hire him in a few days.

20 of the workers detained Tuesday are charged with forging documents.

Koch Foods says it has a strict policy regarding illegal immigrants, and has even asked the government to check its records, but the government did not act on the offer.

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