Koch Foods is recruiting new workers for its plant in Morton, Mississippi, less than a week after the facility was raided by authorities from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
According to a report from WJTV, Koch Foods held a job fair from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. August 12 at the Forest WIN Job Center. People applying for employment with the poultry company were asked to bring two forms of identification.
Koch Foods, the fifth largest poultry company in the United States, was one of four businesses to have facilities raided by ICE on August 7. In the raids, the agency executed federal criminal search warrants at seven agrifood facilities, including the Koch Food plant in Morton, and the Peco Foods poultry plants in the Mississippi communities of Canton, Bay Springs and Sebastopol.
Also arrested were workers at facilities operated by grocery distributor MP Foods Inc. in Pelahatchie; and shipping company PH Food Inc. in Morton.
Since the raids occurred, the federal government announced that 303 people had been released at the sites where they were arrested. About 30 of those were released for humanitarian reasons, while the others were processed by ICE and then released.
Following the raids, the National Chicken Council wrote a letter to U.S. President Donald Trump and leaders from the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, urging the federal government to make policy changes make it easier for employers in the poultry industry to better prevent illegal immigrants from dishonestly obtaining employment at poultry plants.
Koch Foods, headquartered in Park Ridge, Illinois, employs about 13,000 people and has operations in Illinois, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Ohio and Tennessee. According to the WATTAgNet Top Poultry Companies Database, Koch Foods processed 50 million pounds of ready-to-cook chicken on a weekly basis. In 2018, the company’s sales were $3.3 billion.
