Scared Smithfield workers stay home

By Jennifer Plotnick
Staff writer

TAR HEEL — The 21 Smithfield Packing Co. employees arrested by immigration officials while they worked Wednesday are in the process of being deported.

The 20 men and one woman arrested were moved Thursday from the Mecklenburg County Jail to Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Ga., nearly 700 miles from Tar Heel.

Meanwhile, church officials within the region’s Hispanic community and spokespeople with the United Food & Commercial Workers union said the workers’ families didn’t know where they were and other immigrant workers were terrified of more arrests.

Production at the plant was substantially diminished Thursday as workers stayed away.

“There are hundreds of immigrant families who will have to decide, ‘Do I show up to work (Friday) and risk being arrested by immigration?’” said Eduardo Pena, a spokesman for the union, which became an unofficial hub of information for workers Thursday, he said.

The workers are going through “removal proceedings,” said Marc Raimondi, a spokesman with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Washington.