Mississippi ICE raids: Feds announce 4 managers charged in chicken plant investigations

Four managers at two chicken plants have been indicted for allegedly aiding undocumented workers to live and work in Mississippi, according to U. S. Attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi Mike Hurst.

On Thursday morning, Hurst held a news conference at the federal courthouse in Jackson to announce the unsealed indictments in his office's investigation into Mississippi chicken processing plants, which federal agents had raided one year before.

During the Aug. 7, 2019 raids, agents arrested 680 immigrant workers from seven chicken processing plants in Central Mississippi. It was the largest single-state immigration enforcement operation in U. S. history. The indicted managers were not arrested that day, Hurst said.

U. S. Attorney Mike Hurst, joined by representatives of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE's Homeland Security Investigations, and U.S. Department of Labor, announces during a news conference at the Thad Cochran U.S. Courthouse in Jackson, Miss., Thursday, Aug. 6., 2020, four indictments of managers, supervisors and human resources personnel at companies where search warrants were executed during the August 2019 ICE raids,

The four indictments announced Thursday are the first for any company managers or supervisors. Starting last August, more than 100 workers have been indicted on immigration-related crimes.

“I am pro-legal immigration all day long. Immigrants built this country. Immigrants made this country strong," Hurst said, but people who immigrate illegally "deserve prosecution."

Hurst did not announce any punishment or indictments of top executives at the companies who operated the chicken plants, but hinted that could be coming.

“Rome wasn’t built in a day and most prosecutions of immigration crimes are not completed in just one year," Hurst said. “...Prosecuting immigration crimes is incredibly complex. It’s time intensive. It’s a heavy lift for investigative resources.”

Hurst provided the following details about the indictments:

Salvador Delgado-Nieves, 57, of Pelahatchie, worked at A&B Inc., which was associated with the MP Foods plant in Pelahatchie

* Charged with three counts of undocumented immigrants, three counts of assisting undocumented immigrants in falsifying them to be U.S. Citizens and obtaining false social security cards and one count of making false statements to law enforcement by denying he had hired undocumented immigrants

* Faces up to 74 years in federal prison and a $2.5 million fine

Iris Villalon, 44, of Ocean Springs, worked at A&B Inc.

* Charged with one count of harboring undocumented immigrants, one count of making false statements and one count of causing false employer quarterly wage reports when she knew false social security numbers were represented

* Faces up to 20 years in prison and $750,000 in fines

Carolyn Johnson, 50, of Kosciusko, worked at Pearl River Foods in Carthage as a human resources manager

* Charged with six counts of harboring undocumented immigrants, one count of wire fraud and two counts of aggravated identity theft related to a grant from the state of Mississippi for reimbursement for on-the-job training of employees

* Faces up to 84 years in prison and $2.25 million in fines

Aubrey "Bart" Willis, 39, of Flowery Branch, Georgia, was a manager at Pearl River Foods

* Charged with five counts of harboring undocumented immigrants

* Faces up to 50 years in prison and $1.25 million in fines

U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Deputy Director Matthew Albence said at the conference that the investigation has so far resulted in a total of 126 indictments and 73 convictions.

Affidavits in the federal search warrant used to raid the plants suggested company officials knew their workers were undocumented. The affidavits described some managers who knew employees wore ankle monitors to work as they waited on immigration hearings, that a confidential informant told investigators one of the chicken companies was aware its workers used fraudulent social security numbers and that a human resources employee revealed an employee was hired on two occasions, under two different identities.

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