By DAVID McLEMORE Staff Writer

Sixteen months ago, federal agents swept into the Panhandle town of Cactus, Texas, in Moore County as part of a massive raid of Swift & Co. beef processing plants across the country. They arrested 297 workers on immigration violations and sent hundreds more fleeing the community for fear of more raids.

Days after immigration sweeps this week at poultry processing plants in five states, Dumas City Manger Vince DiPiazza has advice for communities reeling from the effects of such raids: The more things change, the more they stay the same.

"Things were a little rocky in the short-term, but the upheaval of the raids hasn't hurt us financially," Mr. DiPiazza said. "Swift aggressively brought in new workers and had the plant working to capacity within months."

But with the new workers has come a fresh set of challenges.

Swift's new owners, a Brazilian firm, recruited a different set of foreign workers to fill the gaps left by the Mexican and Central American workers caught up in the ICE raid in December 2006. This time, they hired refugees brought into the U.S. on a special visa.

Influx of refugees

Since January, roughly 400 members of the Karen and Chin ethnic groups from Burma have moved into Moore County from Houston and other cities, drawn by the $12-an-hour jobs. A similar number of Somali refugees living in Amarillo also work at the Cactus plant.

The Burmese, most of whom speak little English, have added a bewildering mix of languages and cultural values that have brought change to the Panhandle – and created special problems for the school district, the hospital district and community services, said Moore County Judge Rowdy Rhoades.

"It put a lot on our plate, and we're still trying to deal with it," he said. "The Burmese speak several different dialects and not a lot of English, which has the school district jumping to teach them."

Steve Corbin, a volunteer worker with the Burmese from the First Baptist Church of Dumas, said Panhandle residents have been very welcoming to the newcomers.

"There's a few rednecks who don't understand, but once people find out they came to America to escape persecution and then see how gentle and hardworking they are, they do what they can to make the Burmese feel at home," Mr. Corbin said.

The Dumas Independent School District has worked with Swift officials to expand English-as-a-second-language classes for Burmese students. Swift also has agreed to fund an office in Dumas with two Burmese caseworkers to help newly arrived Burmese transition into the community.

The county would like some federal help in paying for the extra costs to the schools, hospitals and police, Mr. Rhoades said. But "we don't have a solution yet," he said. "We'll just have to pay attention to the details and deal with it. It's just another test."

Mr. Corbin said the community is "happy to have them here and the Burmese have fallen in love with Dumas and Cactus."

"They are a very gentle and hardworking group of people and the local churches and citizens have pitched in to minimize the culture shock," she said. "But there's a bit of culture shock on both sides."

Mr. DiPiazza agrees, saying many workers were unprepared for Panhandle weather.

"It was almost as though they were left here overnight," he said. "The Burmese didn't know the basics – how to find a place to live, how to get the utilities turned on. But we're determined to make this work."

Meanwhile, the old workforce in Cactus is still reeling from the upheaval created by the 2006 raids.

"We still have families separated by the raids. Kids that haven't seen their mother or father since the raids," said Imelda Maldonado of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, Local 540. "After the raid, about 600 people left Cactus for good out of fear.

"And many of the workers, American citizens, are still so shook up by the way ICE conducted the raids, they'll start shaking and break into tears, sure the agents are coming back."

The effects of the raids, code-named Operation Wagon Train, were far-reaching.

On Dec. 12, 2006, ICE agents decked out in SWAT gear hit plants in six states operated by Swift, one of the nation's largest processors of pork and beef.

Of the 297 detained in Cactus – from such countries as Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and Peru – 53 were charged with felony immigration charges.

Eight pleaded guilty to unlawful re-entry and were sentenced to 100 days in prison. One pleaded guilty to aggravated felony of unlawful re-entry after deportation and was sentenced to 21 months in prison.

The remainder – 44 people – pleaded guilty to aggravated identity theft, fraud in connection with an immigration document, false representation of a Social Security number or false representation of U.S. citizenship and received sentences ranging from six months to a year and a day.

Workers' lawsuit

After the raids, the union representing the workers filed suit against Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Assistant Secretary Julie Myers, who leads ICE, to halt what it called illegal raids.

The suit alleges ICE agents violated workers rights by illegally detaining U.S. and naturalized citizens during the raids and by unnecessarily treating people roughly.

"Our people are still feeling the effects," Ms. Maldonado said. "It's like it happened yesterday."

Mr. Rhoades said the county is learning to deal with the effects of change.

"I do wish the federal government could reach an agreement with Mexico to let the folks who are looking for work come on up and work in the meat processing plant," he said. "They'd been our neighbors for a long time. We were familiar with them."