Families Torn Apart On First Day Of School; ICE Raids In Mississippi
LEMON: So, imagine the nervous excitement of a child attending their first day of school only to find that when it's time to go home and share the story of their emotional day, they can't. Their mother or father is gone, taken away from them. Detained by the government. Uncertain if and when they will be together again. This separation of families played out for hundreds of migrants picked up in massive raids carried out by ICE throughout Mississippi yesterday. Here's CNN's Nick Valencia.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Please, can I just see my mother, please.</s>NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: An emotional plea from one of the many children left behind after a massive ICE raid on undocumented workers on the outskirts of Jackson, Mississippi.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Government, please, put your heart, let my parents be free and with everybody else, please. Don't leave the child weep, crying and everything.</s>VALENCIA: This 11-year-old like so many others doesn't understand why her parents were taken away from her.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My dad didn't do nothing. He's not a criminal.</s>VALENCIA: Desiree Hughes works at one of the seven plants across the six Mississippi cities targeted by ICE.</s>DESIREE HUGHES, EMPLOYEE, MORTON PLANT: Very hard seeing many kids cry, scream for their loved ones because they're gone, they don't know when they'll see them again.</s>VALENCIA: Kids who would have had to fend for themselves if not for the compassion of locals like Jordan Barnes.</s>JORDAN BARNES, OWNER, CLEAR CREEK BOOT CAMP: We're going to have a bed available for them and we're going to get food for them just to get through the night. And if they need transport to school in the morning, we can arrange that as well.</s>VALENCIA: The U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi called the raids the largest single state immigration enforcement operation in American history. More than 600 ICE agents were involved.</s>MIKE HURST, U.S. ATTORNEY: Now, while we are a nation of immigrants, more than that, we are first and foremost a nation of laws</s>VALENCIA: Responding to criticism that the arrest of hundreds of undocumented immigrants fell on the first day of school as well as just after a deadly mass shooting that targeted Latinos, an ICE official with direct knowledge of the raids defending the timing as coincidental but said he understood the poor optics. The official who was on site for the raids telling CNN the emotion is a horrible thing. I saw kids coming up crying at the gates. Some detainees have been released with ankle monitors to reunite with their families. Still, local activists Thursday expressing outrage about the massive operation in their community, a community they say, is only here to contribute.</s>NSOMBI LAMBRIGHT, MEMBER, NAACP MISSISSIPPI: We are ashamed about what our state is doing, but we're here to let everyone know around the world that we're going to fight back and we're going to make sure these families are supported.</s>LEMON: Nick Valencia joins me now. Nick, why now? I mean just days after the Latino community in El Paso was so savagely targeted and attacked? I mean, that plan has been there for years. So why do it now?</s>VALENCIA: And Don, it's one of the worst kept secrets in these communities that plants like the one behind me employ undocumented labor. So, the question that residents have here is how many of these bosses, these American bosses who employ undocumented immigrants are going to be prosecuted? How many of them are going to be detained and seek justice that is yet to be seen? But the question of timing is one that a lot of locals here have. I did reach out to an ICE official. You heard that information in the piece. They said it was just purely coincidental, they called it business as usual and said that they acknowledged the optics are poor. It comes just a few days after that blatantly racist attack in El Paso that targeted the Latino community and now we are seeing one of the largest raids in the history of America here happen in Mississippi.</s>LEMON: So, talk to me about what it's like there in the town now? What are people you're talking outside of the plant?</s>VALENCIA: What happens here or is what happens -- or what's happening here is what happens to a lot of the communities that see raids like this. They become ghost towns. You know, on a typical day, it's night time right now, but on atypical day, locals tell me that you'll hear the sound of kids running around. You know, this is the first week of school back here. You hear music playing from the porches in these communities, but it's a ghost town. I was talking earlier to some residents, Hispanic owned businesses I'm told closed early today. Latinos who weren't caught up in these raids are afraid to come out, kids are afraid to go to school. There is just this pervasive fear that exists and for months and month's undocumented immigrants in these communities really across the nation have been scared of something like this. It is something that President Trump has talked about extensively and something that became a reality here on Wednesday.</s>LEMON: Nick Valencia, Morton, Mississippi. Nick, thank you for your reporting, I appreciate that. We've got a lot more to talk about. Are these raids really making America safer?