After Omaha, Nebraska largest worksite immigration raid, a community works to recover

Glenn Valley Foods and the city's residents work to forge ahead following the raid's chilling effect on the local workforce and the community at large.

OMAHA, Neb. — Every seat in the waiting area of Glenn Valley Foods was occupied with people filling out job applications early Thursday afternoon, two days after the meatpacking plant became the center of the largest worksite immigration raid in the state of Nebraska so far this year.

Dozens of prospective employees, many of them Spanish speakers, had been coming in and out of the plant all day. Some were hoping to land a new job; others were coming in for training.

The scene gave the company’s president, Chad Hartmann, a glimmer of hope amid the chaos that ensued after Tuesday's raid purged roughly half of his staff — many of whom had been longtime employees of the company, which has been processing boxed beef for more than 15 years.

Hartmann had never seen or experienced a raid before. He is finding out in real time that “there’s no playbook” on how to move forward after one, Hartmann told NBC News.

The process of re-hiring new workers, Hartmann said, feels like asking someone to replace a family member. “You cannot, in my mind,” he said. “They were part of our family, and they were taken away.”