Immigration raids Ohio chicken plant

Body: CINCINNATI (Reuters) - U.S. immigration officials raided the Koch
Foods Inc. chicken plant in Fairfield, Ohio, and arrested more than
160 employees as part of a criminal operation against illegal
immigrants, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said on
Tuesday.

"As of 2:45 p.m. (EDT) more than 180 Koch employees have been
identified for further questioning and more than 160 have been
administratively arrested for immigration violations," ICE special
agent in charge Brian Moskowitz told a news conference in Cincinnati.

Added ICE in a statement: "The enforcement actions are part of a two-
year, ongoing ICE investigation based on evidence that Koch Foods
may have knowingly hired illegal aliens at its poultry processing
and packaging facility."

The raid at Koch Foods, which produces chicken for export, food
service and retail markets, began at 10 a.m.

ICE spokesman Greg Palmore said simultaneous search warrants were
executed at Koch Foods in Cincinnati and at the Koch headquarters in
Chicago.

Calls to Koch Foods, based in the Chicago suburb of Park Ridge,
Illinois, were unanswered.

Tim Bachman, development services director for the city of
Fairfield, said the plant near Cincinnati employs about 500 workers.

The raid on Koch was the latest in a series of immigration raids
targeting businesses employing illegal workers across the United
States. Many U.S. meat industry workers are immigrants, mainly
Hispanics.

In December 2006, hundreds of employees were detained in raids at
Swift & Co. meat plants in six states, part of a probe into identity
theft involving illegal immigrants.

Deputies in the Butler County, Ohio, sheriff's office were assisting
federal immigration agents with the Koch raid and may provide
detention facilities if required, a sheriff's office spokesman said.

Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones has been one of the country's
most outspoken opponents of illegal immigration and has lobbied
Washington for better enforcement and deportation of undocumented
workers.