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2021/02/02 07:08 ATLANTA (AP) Immigrant advocates say they fear workers at a Georgia poultry plant where a liquid nitrogen leak killed six people may not come forward to federal investigators for fear of arrest and deportation. Speaking at a news conference, lawyer Shelly Anand called Monday on the U.S. Department of Labor and U.S. Department of Homeland Security to work together to guarantee any of the workers in the country illegally be shielded from deportation. Anand, executive director of the Atlanta-based immigrant rights nonprofit Sur Legal Collaborative, called on both federal departments “to find a way to protect these workers by granting them deferred action or continued presence.”
It’s not clear if any such protection will be forthcoming, though. The Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Labor did not immediately answer questions Monday about whether workers who are talking to the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, part of the Department of Labor, would be safe from deportation.
Of the six workers who died Thursday after the nitrogen leak at the Foundation Food Group plant northeast of Atlanta, five were Mexican citizens. It’s unclear if any of them were in the country illegally. But that and other plants in Gainesville, the hub of Georgia’s mammoth poultry industry, rely on a heavily Latino workforce - often a mix of people with and without legal status.
After six employees of a Georgia poultry plant died in a freezing fog of liquid nitrogen vapor, worker advocacy groups and state lawmakers are pushing for changes to immigration policies to protect undocumented employees.
Foundation Food Group’s plant is seen from the Memorial Drive entrance in Gainesville, Ga., last Friday. (Scott Rogers/The Times via AP)
ATLANTA (CN) After a deadly liquid nitrogen leak inside a Georgia poultry plant Thursday, legislators and worker advocacy groups called for changes to federal policies which they say prevented the plant’s many undocumented workers from getting necessary health care.
More than 130 workers were exposed to liquid nitrogen before they were evacuated from the Foundation Food Group plant in Gainesville, Georgia. Five workers died at the scene and 12 were taken to a local hospital with serious injuries, where one died.
Investigators Seek Cause of Nitrogen Leak that Killed 6 at Georgia Poultry Plant February 1, 2021
The investigation into a deadly liquid nitrogen leak at a Georgia poultry plant continued Saturday with authorities saying they were trying to determine what caused a break in the recently installed system.
Six workers died on Thursday after the liquid nitrogen release at Foundation Food Group. About a dozen others were injured and taken to a hospital, and 130 people had to be evacuated. The search for answers came as several hundred people attended a Saturday afternoon vigil outside the plant, several sobbing for loved ones who died.