Since the huge immigration has been raiding at Hyundai, nearly 500 employees in southeastern Georgia have been torn down, Rosie Harrison said its organizations phones sounded without stopping with panicked families who need help.
“We have people who return calls every day, but the list does not end,” Harrison said. It runs an apolitical non-profit organization called Grow Initiative, which combines low-income families-immigrants, both non-immigrants-so food, housing and educational resources.
From the raid, Harrison said: “Families are experiencing a new level of crisis.”
Most of the 475 people detained at the workplace, which US officials called the largest in two decades, were Koreans and returned to South Korea. However, lawyers and social workers say that many of the immigration of Korea remain legally or otherwise.
When the raid began on September 4th. In the morning, employees almost immediately began to be called “Migrant Equity Southeast”, a local non -profit organization connecting immigrants with legal and financial resources. A small organization of about 15 employees called the people of Mexico, Guatemala, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador and Venezuela, said spokeswoman Vanessa Contreras.
Throughout the day, people described the federal agents picking up cell phones from employees and putting them in long queues, said Contreras. Some employees hid for hours to avoid catching, air ducts or remote areas. The Department of Justice said some hidden in a nearby sewage pond.
People outside the spot called the organization, crazy searching for relatives who worked in the plant and suddenly unattainable.
Like many Koreans working at factory, lawyers and lawyers representing non -Korean staff who have caught up in the raid say that some detained have had a legal permit in the US.
Neither the Homeland Security Department nor ensuring the implementation of immigration and customs implementation. Email requests to comment on Friday. It is unclear how many people have been detained during the raid.
At Atlanta, Charles Kuck, a lawyer representing, representing both Korean and non -Korean staff who have been detained, said two of his clients are legally working in accordance with the delayed actions on the children’s arrival program created by former President Barack Obama. One was released and “never had to be arrested,” he said, and the other was still considered to be because he was recently accused of driving.
He said another of Kuck’s customers was looking for refuge and had the same documents and work as her husband, who was not arrested.
Some even had valid George’s drivers’ licenses, whose people in the country are not illegally available, said Rosario Palacios, helping migrant shares in the southeast. Some families who called the organization were left without the possibility of transporting because the only person who was detained could be driven.
“It’s hard to say how they chose what they were going to spend and what they were going to accept,” Palacios said, adding that some of the arrested persons had no alien identification number and were still not counted.
Kuck said the raid shows how far aim is to deal with President Donald Trump’s administration, despite guaranteeing that they direct criminals.
“The problem here is the definition of the word ‘criminal’, involving anyone who is not a citizen, and even some who are there is a problem,” Kuck said.
Many families, called Harrison’s initiative, said their detained relatives were the only breadwinners at home, leaving them desperate foundations such as baby formula and food.
The financial impact of the raid on the battery factory construction site, which will be operated by Hl-Ga Battery Co., made it difficult for another mass employer of the district-International Paper Co.-ends at the end of the month, giving away another 800 employees, said Harrison.
Growth initiative does not verify the status of immigration, Harrison said, but almost all families who contacted it said that the detained relatives had a legal permit in the US, so many confused why their relative was first detained.
“The worst phone calls are the ones you have to cry, screaming, ‘Where’s my mom?” Harrison said.
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Riddle is a member of the Associated Press/America Statehouse News Initiative Corps. The America report is a non -profit national service program, where journalists in local news halls report secret questions.