GREELEY, Colo. -- The Immigration and Custom Enforcement raid of six Swift & Co. Plants was characterized Wednesday as the "largest workplace site enforcement action ever" by a federal official on Wednesday.

"This is a serious problem, not only in respect to immigration, but with respect to national security," said Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff during a Wednesday news conference.

The raids were a result of a 10-month investigation that began with identity theft. ICE agents took hundreds of people in custody, looking for illegal immigrants working at the Swift plants in a nationwide ID theft crackdown.

"This is not only a case of illegal immigration, which is bad enough. It is a case of identity theft and the violation of the privacy rights and the economic rights of innocent Americans," Chertoff said.

ICE said 1,217 of the workers detained during the nationwide raids were being held on immigration charges alone and only 65 were facing identity-theft or other criminal charges. Of the Greeley workers who were detained, 250 of them are facing administrative immigration charges and 11 are facing criminal charges, ICE said.

The criminal charges are related to identity theft or other violations, such as re-entry after deportation.

"One victim in Texas stated that his personal information was used by someone else for employment. As a consequence of that identity theft, the victim reported that he was pulled over and arrested on one occasion because the suspect used his identity information to conduct illegal activity," Chertoff said.

The agency said more charges were possible as the investigation continues. Chertoff also said that Homeland Security would continue to investigate businesses that employ workers with fraudulent or stolen identification.

"This is going be a deterrent against illegal workers. It's going to cause them to say, 'This happened in Swift. It could easily happen somewhere else,'" Chertoff said. "In fact, I can guarantee you that we are going to keep bringing these cases."

Chertoff did say many companies are concerned they won't have enough workers if these raids continue. He said he believes the long-term solution is to create a temporary worker program that answers that economic need without putting people in a position to break laws.

The arrested workers were from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Peru, Laos, Sudan, Ethiopia and other countries, according to ICE officials.

Families In Limbo

Relatives of the detainees are having an extremely difficult time getting information about their loved ones.

One woman, identified as Elena, said her children cried all night when their father didn't come home Tuesday night. She said she spent all day on the phone trying to figure out what happened to her husband but received no response from anyone.

Some of those arrested remained in detention centers in Denver and received visits from the union and officials from the Mexican consulate on Wednesday, according to a union spokesman.

"We are trying to pair up husbands with wives, and wives with husbands, or children with their parents. There's still a lot of uncertainty. I also want to communicate to Swift administrators that we need information," said Sylvia Martinez with Latinos Unidos. "We have yet to receive a list of names and the number of people that were actually taken during the raid. That's unconscionable. That is unacceptable."

Women told 7NEWS that their children are worried about the fates of their fathers.

The union went to federal court Wednesday to demand those who were arrested be released because they were interrogated and detained illegally, and they were not advised of their rights. The United Food and Commercial Workers union said it's serving the complaint on the Department of Homeland Security and on ICE.

"ICE can come in here, wipe their feet on us and walk away. As if nothing happened. And this is unacceptable," said Greeley resident Priscilla Falcon.

Will Swift Be Prosecuted?

Meat producer Swift & Company had estimated that up to 40 percent of its workers could be removed in immigration raids, costing the company up to $100 million.

Weld County District Attorney Buck speculated that the raid was delayed one day after ICE officials learned that Japanese officials were touring the plant on Monday, investigating beef recently shipped to Japan from the plant that did not have the proper documentation.

Federal officials would not confirm the report but emphasized the raid was the result of complaints of identity theft throughout the United States.

Other plants in the raid included beef plants in Grand Island, Neb., Cactus, Texas and Hyrum, Utah, and pork plants in Marshalltown, Iowa and Worthington, Minn.

"Swift has never condoned the employment of unauthorized workers, nor have we ever knowingly hired such individuals," Swift & Co. President and CEO Sam Rovit said in a written statement.

Swift had known about the investigation into its workers for months.

Rovit said the company learned of the federal investigation last March, but had been "rebuffed repeatedly" when it offered to cooperate. Rovit said the company had participated since 1997 in a federal program known as Basic Pilot, which allows employers to use a federal database to verify documents presented by job-seekers.

While the federal program confirms a Social Security number is valid, it does not detect identity theft and cannot tell if more than one person is using the same number.

Since all the Social Security numbers used by the workers were valid, nothing came up amiss.

"(Swift) did participate in Basic Pilot and, as a consequence of participating in that program, if you participate in good faith then you are not going to be charged criminally or be held civilly liable," said Chertoff.

No charges had been filed against the company. A new state law that takes effect Jan. 1 penalizes companies that knowingly hire illegal immigrants.

Buck said it would be an "injustice" if Swift management employees were not prosecuted for any possible involvement in the case. He said he didn't know whether any Swift employees were accused of helping the suspected illegal immigrants get stolen identities.

"But if they helped, they should be held accountable," Buck said.

The plants in the raid represent all of Swift's domestic beef processing capacity and 77 percent of its pork processing capacity.

In a written statement, Swift said all shifts were operating at all the plants on Wednesday but production was expected to be below normal in the short term. The company did not say how long it would be before production returned to normal.

The statement did not say how much production was lost Tuesday or how long it would be before it returned to normal. The blow to Swift's 20,000-person global work force came after the company cheered the resumption of U.S. beef exports to Japan after being blocked for 2 1/2 years.

Swift & Co. Describes itself as an $8 billion business and the world's second-largest meat processing company.

The Greeley-based company had gone to court trying to block Tuesday's raids. It told a judge that it was using the federal program which allows employers to check worker documents in a database. Because of that, it said authorities shouldn't be allowed to disrupt business with workplace raids.

But following a closed door hearing in Texas last week, U.S. District Judge Mary Lou Robinson ruled that blocking the raids was contrary to the public interest. She also said the government has known since at least August 2005 that the database could not detect identity theft.

Like others in the domestic beef industry, Swift was hurt when Japan banned U.S. beef in December 2003 after mad cow disease was reported in a U.S. herd. The ban was eased this summer after U.S. and Japanese officials agreed to strict restrictions and checks at American meat processing plants.

However in November, Japan halted beef imports from the Greeley plant after a shipment arrived without proper documentation and faced a tour by Japanese officials.

Privately held Swift & Co. traces its roots to 1855, when 16-year-old Gustavus Swift bought his first heifer and started the business with a $20 loan from his father.

It later operated as ConAgra Meats Co., the fresh beef and pork processing business of ConAgra Foods Inc., which also acquired the Greeley-based family business Monfort Inc., at one point the world's largest cattle feeding operation.

Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst Inc. and Booth Creek Management Corp., run by former Vail ski area owner George Gillett Jr., bought a majority interest in the fresh beef and pork processing business of ConAgra Foods Inc. for $1.4 billion in 2002.

It Starts With Identity Theft

Authorities say hundreds of U.S. citizens and legal residents may have had their identities stolen in a scheme designed to help illegal immigrants work at Swift.

The victims who had their identities stolen come from a number of different states but many have one thing in common; many of the victims lost their wallets at some point, 7NEWS reported.

According to affidavits obtained by 7NEWS, three of the ID theft victims live in Colorado but the majority of the victims live in Texas.

"The victims of these crimes also deserve their day in court, and I hope they receive some justice," Buck said.

One of the victims discovered that her identity had been used when the Internal Revenue Service refused to give her a $5,400 refund because they mistakenly believed she had not claimed $120,000 in past wages.

A victim from Lubbock, Texas told authorities that the ID theft had negatively affected his ability to apply for loans and other credit.

While some critics question the timing of the raid -- right before the Christmas holiday -- Buck said that his sympathies are with the ID theft victims.

"People that can't buy their kids Christmas presents in a few weeks because they've had their identity stolen, because they're dealing with the IRS and have to hire lawyers to defend them -- those folks are the people we should focus on," Buck said.

Immigration officials were "looking very aggressively" at who may have sold the identities to the workers in several cases. ICE had uncovered several different rings that may have provided illegal documents, officials said.

Some immigrants targeted had genuine U.S. birth certificates and others had other kinds of false identification.

"The significance is that we're serious about work site enforcement and that those who steal identities of U.S. citizens will not escape enforcement," said Julie Myers, assistant secretary for ICE.

Police Department's Role

Police in Greeley, Colo., helped direct traffic and control the crowd outside the plant. Police Chief Jerry Garner said ICE officials alerted his department Saturday of the impending raid.

Last spring, Colorado passed a law withholding state funds from cities unless their police cooperate with federal immigration authorities. The law is targeted at so-called "sanctuary cities," which discourage or prevent police from helping enforce immigration laws.

Garner said no one was injured and his officers made no arrests.

Impact On Families, Economy

Some have called the raids heavy-handed and criticized the effect on families.

Weld County Social Services had a large influx of cases after hundreds of workers were arrested.

Swift had been tipped to the planned raid earlier, but it caught Weld County Social Services by surprise. The agency is responsible for the welfare of families and children in the county and it expected many families would be affected by the loss of income.

"Our wish would have been they would have let us know beforehand," said Judy Griego, director of Weld County Social Services, speaking to the Greeley Tribune. "We have kind of collapsed around this situation internally. Frankly, we don't know how many kids are involved in this now. It's kind of guesswork."

The top priority, Griego told the newspaper, is to find relatives or friends of detained parents. They would be first-choice caretakers, while the county would provide "wraparound services" such as emergency food or financial support.

All foster-care facilities in Weld and Larimer counties were put on alert by Weld County commissioners.

Weld County merchants were expected to feel the economic blow from the raid as well.

With about 2,500 employees in town, Swift has the largest employee base in Greeley, Chamber of Commerce President Sarah MacQuiddy said. The plant lost 261 employees to the roundup Tuesday.

"Quite honestly, you're looking at two weeks before Christmas, and there is buying power leaving the economy," MacQuiddy said. "I'm sure that Swift will be able to survive this. But if they don't, it's really sad. The issue being made out of the illegal aliens is minuscule compared to the impact that Swift has on our economy."

The starting hourly wage is $11.75, topping out at $13.35, a union representative said. But with the unemployment rate running at 4 percent, it was unclear how difficult it would be to find enough workers to fill jobs of arrested employees who are unable to return.

A full page ad in Wednesday's Greeley Tribune touts a $1,500 signing bonus for new Swift employees. It said all shifts, all experience levels are needed.

ICE officials have established a hot line for family member of workers who may have been detained. That toll-free number is 1-866-341-3858.

7News partner The Greeley Tribune has extensive coverage of the raid and its fallout.