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Salem steps up

Community responds to Fresh Mark raid with concern, care for children

Morning Journal/Larry Shields The sign outside Fresh Mark saying “now accepting applications” did not just go up. It has been there a long time.

SALEM — Community members joined forces Tuesday during the Fresh Mark immigration raid with one goal in mind: care for the children.

“Salem should be proud of the way their community came together,” Columbiana County Department of Job and Family Services Director Eileen Dray-Bardon said.

As prisoner buses rolled out of the Fresh Mark parking lot on South Lincoln Avenue loaded with workers arrested for alleged immigration violations, vans carrying church members, teachers and Children Services personnel drove through the city neighborhoods looking for the children of those immigrant workers to ensure their safety.

“What a great community response with concern for those kids and making sure they had a safe place to be,” she said.

Special agents from Homeland Security Investigations with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, commonly known as ICE, executed a criminal search warrant at the Salem plant at 4 p.m. Tuesday and took away 146 Fresh Mark employees suspected of being undocumented illegal aliens. ICE originally numbered the arrests as more than 100 but updated the total Wednesday.

Federal document search warrants were also executed at the company’s three other locations, with one in Canton and two in Massillon, including the corporate headquarters. An ICE press release said the enforcement was part of a year-long, ongoing HSI investigation “based on evidence that Fresh Mark may have knowingly hired illegal aliens at its meat processing and packaging facility, and that many of these aliens are utilizing fraudulent identification belonging to U.S. citizens.”

A Fresh Mark spokesman confirmed that Homeland Security Investigations was at company locations in Salem, Canton and Massillon, but referred all questions regarding the events to Homeland Security. The Salem plant was operational Wednesday with a full employee parking lot and continues to have signs posted that applications are being accepted.

Salem Police Chief J.T. Panezott said his department’s responsibility during the raid was strictly traffic control at the scene, but added, “I didn’t want to see news stories about kids that weren’t taken care of. We did everything in our power to make sure kids were our top priority.”

Homeland Security cooperated with that and Panezott said Children Services personnel came to the scene. With help from interpreters and church members and assistance from the police department, they were able to identify families with children at home or with babysitters. Officers did not go to the homes with the school personnel, church members or social workers, but were available at First Christian Church where everyone gathered Tuesday night. Members from First Christian Church and St. Paul Catholic Church stepped up to help the Hispanic people they’ve already been serving for many years.

“We have great community support when people are in need,” Panezott said.

Dray-Bardon, who directs the agency overseeing Children Services, said this was a community crisis for them, not a neglect or abuse investigation — they were strictly providing assistance, determining there were 35 families with children, with about 50 to 60 kids involved ranging in age from infants to teens and everything in between. Between the two churches, Salem school staff and Head Start staff through the Community Action Agency, they came together and Children Services personnel made sure the children had a safe place to stay. In the end, she said none were taken into the county’s custody.

Salem Superintendent Dr. Joe Shivers said he received a call from assistant superintendent/high school principal Sean Kirkland about what was happening and he alerted other staff members and talked to Pastor Hery Salamanca, who handles Hispanic Outreach at First Christian Church across from the high school. Food Service Director Michele Fisher, high school cafeteria worker Mary Ann Mason and Shiver’s two sisters, Mary Beth and Margie, who are both teachers at Southeast, headed to the cafeteria to prepare food. A number of school employees helped transport the food to the church and served it there. He said one of the teachers took home five children to help out.

Shivers said the city has a history of stepping up, from Underground Railroad, to the women’s suffrage movement and in present times to assisting the Hispanic community. He noted that 6 percent of the student population in Salem schools is Guatemalan and the teachers know a lot of the students and families affected by the raid.

He said there were people driving by and cheering and honking their horns during the raid which he found incomprehensible and it saddened him. He said that’s not the Salem he wants to be a part of, noting that the true Salem Quakers were the ones helping out.

Head Start Director Christine Malloy also praised how the community stepped up and how her preschool staff started calling each other and just up and went, offering to help because they also had students and families affected. She said they work closely with Salamanca and the church throughout the school year making sure the families have the resources they need. She was proud of her staff.

Sr. Rene Weeks, OP, who directs the Hispanic ministry at St. Paul Catholic Church, said their primary goal Tuesday night was to make sure there weren’t any children home alone and to give people a place to feel safe. She noted that 40 to 45 of the detainees arrested during the raid were later let go after their documentation confirmed they were legal. She also said there were some sent home who had small children and were the only parent for children. They were provided with court dates.

On Wednesday, Centro San Pablo was open at St. Paul Church to help meet the needs of the population, including having immigration attorneys on hand to meet with them. Weeks said it’s not clear what they need donated to help the families at this point, but said money is always useful. She said donations can be sent to St. Paul or to First Christian Church and designated to help the Hispanic population.

She went to the plant to help out a family when the raid was going on and said “I’m heartbroken. I mean it splits up families.”

Centro San Pablo is normally open on Monday and Tuesday, but she said they’re staying open extra hours this week for the families.

“This is a place they feel safe coming,” she said.

mgreier@salemnews.net

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