It was the first day of school in Morton, Mississippi, Wednesday, and many undocumented parents and their children went together to the first morning drop off, said Elizabeth Iraheta. By the end of the day, some of those children were all alone, she said.
US immigration authorities arrested about 680 undocumented immigrants at seven sites in six different cities in Mississippi on Wednesday. The raids are "believed to be the largest single-state immigration enforcement operation in our nation's history," said US Attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi Mike Hurst.
Officials declined to provide details about what sites had been targeted, citing what they said was an ongoing criminal investigation. CNN affiliates reported the raids occurred at food processing plants throughout the state.
Iraheta shared a Facebook video she recorded outside a plant in Morton that showed an 11-year-old girl sobbing and begging an officer for a chance to see her mother as bystanders tried to comfort her.
It was devastating, Iraheta said, to see family and friends suffering "just for coming to work hard in this country, and to see so many families separated."
