Striking photos taken by local journalist show children huddling together after their parents were arrested in a ICE raid in Mississippi

Rogelio V. Solis/AP

• Striking photographs following an Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid in Mississippi showed the children of detainees huddling together.
• In a pre-planned raid, roughly 600 US immigration officials raided a number of food processing plants throughout the state and arrested 680 mostly Latino employees.
• The children were left alone, according to local reports, and people volunteered to take them to a gym to spend the night.
• Food and drinks were reportedly donated to the children.
• Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

Striking photographs taken by a local journalist after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid in Mississippi showed the children of detainees huddling together.

In a pre-planned raid, roughly 600 US immigration officials raided a number of food processing plants throughout the state and arrested 680 mostly Latino employees, according to The Associated Press. The owners and employees were reportedly implicated in a federal criminal investigation.

"It was a sad situation inside," Domingo Candelaria, a worker at one of the plants, said to The Associated Press.

WJTV reporter Alex Love took photos of some of the children and wrote on Twitter that their guardians were taken by immigration officials to a military hangar for processing.

"Many are left scared [and] crying after coming home from school [and] being locked out without their parents," Love reported.

People reportedly volunteered to take the children to a gym to spend the night, and food and drinks were donated to the children.

 

ICE did not respond to INSIDER’s requests for comment on Wednesday evening.

ICE acting director Matthew Albence told The Associated Press earlier on Wednesday that the raids were a "long-term operation" and "racially neutral."

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SEE ALSO: Immigration officials arrested over 600 mostly Latino workers in Mississippi food processing plants, the largest raid in at least a decade

Source: Business Insider – dchoi@businessinsider.com (David Choi)