At least 1,280 workers have been arrested in a series of immigration raids targeting six Swift & Co. meatpacking plants. The raids took place in Colorado, Nebraska, Texas, Utah, Iowa and Minnesota It marks the largest sweep of its kind ever against a single company. Local Spanish radio host, Antonio Medina, describes the immigration raid as aggressive and ugly. “I went to the plant to see what was happening, but because I’m Latino they immediately asked me for my papers,” said Medina.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff justified the raids saying many of the detained men and women were using false or stolen identities. The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union has filed an emergency lawsuit in an effort to release the workers who they say were illegally detained and are being held without access to legal counsel. In Iowa, immigration lawyers have accused the federal government of holding the arrested workers at the military site Camp Dodge near Des Moines.

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