House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) on Friday wrote a letter to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) condemning a Wednesday raid in his home state that resulted in 680 arrests.
Thompson wrote the letter to acting ICE Director Matthew Albence to express “outrage” over the raid that “left an unknown number of children without their parents.”
{mosads}”At a time when this country is grieving due to two domestic terrorist shootings, your agency has instead seemingly deliberately disregarded its own long-standing guidelines and carried out another form of family separation,” he wrote. “The blatant lack of planning and resulting chaos calls into question the true motivation behind these worksite enforcement operations.”
Thompson particularly accused the agency of not contacting Mississippi’s Department of Child Protection Services.
He asked in the letter for information including the number of children affected and the number left without a caregiver.
ICE told The Hill in a statement Friday that it would respond to the letter through official channels.
The raid on Mississippi poultry processing facilities was believed to be the largest single-state immigration enforcement operation in U.S. history.
Albence said that it was part of a yearlong investigation.
The raid came days after a pair of mass shootings in Texas and Ohio that left 31 people dead. The suspected Texas shooter had allegedly posted a manifesto warning of a “Hispanic invasion.” This revelation has brought renewed scrutiny to President Trump’s rhetoric surrounding immigration.
—Updated at 3:34 p.m.