• Photographs taken following an Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid in Mississippi showed children of detainees, some as young as four years old, huddling together.
  • In a pre-planned action, roughly 600 US immigration officials raided a number of food processing plants throughout the state and arrested 680 mostly Latino employees.
  • The children were left alone, according to local reports, and people volunteered to take them to a gym.
  • The gym’s owner told INSIDER that it currently had “everything we need” after people started donating food and suppplies.
  • The gym’s owner added that all the children were reunited with a guardian by Wednesday evening.
  • In a statement to INSIDER, a spokesman did not confirm the reports but said the detainees “were advised … to let ICE officers know if they had any children who were at school or childcare and needed to be picked up.”
  • The spokesman also said the detainees were allowed to use cellphones to “make arrangements for the care of their children or other dependents.”
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Striking photographs taken by a local journalist after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid in Mississippi showed the children of detainees huddling together.

In a pre-planned action, roughly 600 US immigration officials raided a number of food processing plants throughout the state and arrested 680 mostly Latino employees, according to The Associated Press. The owners and employees were reportedly implicated in a federal criminal investigation.

“It was a sad situation inside,” Domingo Candelaria, a worker at one of the plants, said to The Associated Press.

WJTV reporter Alex Love took photos of some of the children and wrote on Twitter that their guardians were taken by immigration officials to a military hangar for processing.

"Many are left scared [and] crying after coming home from school [and] being locked out without their parents," Love reported.

People reportedly volunteered to take the children to a gym to spend the night, and food and drinks were donated to the children.

ICE acting director Matthew Albence told The Associated Press earlier on Wednesday that the raids were a "long-term operation" and "racially neutral."

In a statement to INSIDER, a spokesman said he could not confirm the reports because "ICE was not present."

"What I can say is that every law enforcement agency in the nation arrests persons who may be parents when those persons commit arrestable offenses, and this agency has taken and is continuing to take extensive steps to take special care of situations," ICE Southern Region Communications director Bryan Cox said in the statement.

Cox said the detainees "were advised ... to let ICE officers know if they had any children who were at school or childcare and needed to be picked up."

The detainees were also allowed to use cellphones to "make arrangements for the care of their children or other dependents," and that officials were instructed to contact nearby schools to inform them of the operation.

Jordan Barnes, the owner of the Clear Creek Bootcamp where the children were being housed, said he was arranging for food and transportation for the children.

"I understand the law and how everything works, but ... everybody needs to hold the kids first and foremost in their minds," Barnes said to WJTV. "And that's what we've tried to do here."

Barnes told INSIDER the children were between four and 15 years old, and that all of them were reunited with a guardian by Wednesday evening. He added that the gym had "everything we need" after people started donating supplies.