Striking photos show children huddling together after their parents were arrested in an ICE raid in Mississippi

• Photos taken after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid in Mississippi showed detainees' children, some as young as 4 years old, huddling together.
• In a planned action, roughly 600 US immigration officials raided several food-processing plants throughout the state and arrested 680 mostly Latino employees, The Associated Press reported.
• The children were left alone, but people volunteered to take them to a gym, the reporter who took the photos said.
• The gym's owner told INSIDER that it had "everything we need" after people donated food and supplies, adding that all the children were reunited with a guardian by Wednesday evening.
• In a statement to INSIDER, an ICE 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 photos taken by a local journalist after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid in Mississippi showed the children of detainees huddling together.

In a planned action, roughly 600 US immigration officials raided several food-processing plants in the state and arrested 680 mostly Latino employees, according to The Associated Press. The owners and employees had been implicated in a federal criminal investigation, the report said.

"It was a sad situation inside," Domingo Candelaria, a worker at one of the plants, told the AP.

Alex Love, a reporter for the local CBS affiliate WJTV, tweeted photos of some of the children whose guardians were taken by immigration officials to a military hangar for processing.

"Many are left scared & crying after coming home from school & being locked out without their parents," Love said.

Love said that people volunteered to take the children to a gym to spend the night and donated food and drinks.

ICE's acting director, Matthew Albence, told the AP that the raids were a "long-term operation" and described them as "racially neutral."

In a statement to INSIDER, Bryan Cox, ICE's southern region communications director, 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," Cox said.

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."

He added that the detainees were allowed to use cellphones to "make arrangements for the care of their children or other dependents" and that officials were instructed to inform nearby schools of the operation.

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

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

Barnes told INSIDER that the children were between 4 and 15 years old and that they were all reunited with a guardian by Wednesday evening. He added that the gym had "everything we need" after people donated supplies.

SEE ALSO: Immigration officials arrested over 600 mostly Latino workers in Mississippi food processing plants, the largest raid in at least a decade

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