Three food processing plants in Mississippi were found to have not just paid their workers, who were illegal aliens, with unlawful wages-one of the plants also violated child labor laws.

Last year, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) conducted its largest workplace raid in the past decade in Peco Foods Inc., Koch Foods and Pearl River Foods LLC.

Each was hit with Labor Department violations after ICE found that they were paying illegal aliens with unlawful wages and, in one case, was turning to child labor.

During the August 2019 raid, there were 680 illegal aliens arrested from the food plants. On the same day, ICE said some of them were also released back into the U.S. on "humanitarian grounds."

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The workers were primarily from Central America and Mexico.

Food Plants Agree to Pay Back Wage

In a report from The Philadelphia Tribune, it was said that at least $45,000 was released in back wages to some 129 workers as part of the companies' settlement.

The plants had some sort of salary related dispute, which they agreed to settle.

Pearl River Foods was said to have made illegal deductions to the salaries of the workers.

At Koch Foods, there was refusal to provide workers with overtime bonuses. The overtime pay was incorrectly computed, which made paychecks hit below minimum wage.

This plant was also found violating child labor requirements as the authorities found out that they were letting a 15-year-old minor do meat processing.

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Under federal law, children under 18 years of age are not allowed to work. So Koch was fined by the Labor Department of $1,693.

"Child labor laws exist to ensure that when young people work, the work does not jeopardize their health and well-being," Audrey Hall, the local Wage and Hour Division's district director told Clarion Ledger.

Hall also said employers should equate each employee's work schedule with the pay they receive.

Peco Foods was one of the food plants involved in the 680 arrested workers who were in the country illegally or forged documents to get employed.

It's unclear if all food plants were related to the August 2019 raid.

Officials Believe Illegal Aliens 'Take Jobs' from Americans

The raids brought up outcry from critics who said children were being separated from their parents.

They said workers were the ones being unfairly targeted instead of having authorities run after the companies that employed them.

But federal officials justified that the raids were fair since people who illegally entered the country stole Social Security numbers to gain work.

Reports coincide with this, saying there were at least 400 American citizens who had their identities stolen so aliens could gain employment.

U.S. Attorney Mike Hurst also claimed that people who were in the country illegally "take jobs" from Americans and depress their wages.

According to Breitbart, some 200 people in the raid have some prior criminal record and at least 80 of them have been convicted thus far.

On that note, only four of the managers from two plants were charged for illegally hiring them. Executives from all of the raided plants were not charged with a crime.