A little more than a year after ICE arrested 12 workers at Kaolin Mushroom Farms’ Alpine Plant in Avondale, only half of them have been deported, writes Laura Benshoff for WHYY.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers came to the farm in the early hours of April 26, 2017 and led the workers away in an unmarked white van.

“We know they came before 7 AM; we know they were armed,” said David Secor, a Villanova law student who has been working with one of the arrested men through the university’s Farmworker Legal Aid Clinic.

Farm owner Michael Pia said that he was unaware that ICE had a warrant.

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The arrests were part of a crackdown on unauthorized immigrants in the workplace announced by the Department of Homeland Security’s interim director, Tom Homan.

Of the 12 who were arrested, six have accepted deportation, two sought motions to suppress, and at least two are in immigration court pursuing other forms of relief.

“Many people, within a day or two of the arrest, accepted deportation because, what was the hope?” said Caitlin Barry, director of the Farmworker Legal Aid Clinic at Villanova.

Read more about the arrests from WHYY here.

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