"I don't know how she is, I don't know anything," he said in Spanish at a community informational meeting, which was conducted mostly in Spanish, for families affected by Tuesday's raid.

Nearly 200 people attended the meeting Wednesday night at Iglesia de Dios (Church of God) Ebenezer in Hyrum. Some had had brief conversations with friends or family members. Others had not received any word.

Religious leaders, community advocates and representatives of government agencies answered questions.

Alex McBean, an attorney with Utah Legal Services, warned those present about scam artists who might try to contact them and give them false hope. "There are very, very few cases that have hope to avoid deportation," he said.

One plant worker, Nelson Moran, was separated from his cousin at the plant Tuesday.

"No one was allowed to leave for several hours while people were asked for their papers," he said. Moran is hopeful that his cousin, Wilton, will avoid deportation. However, he shook his head as he said in Spanish, "It's not good."

Leo Bravo, director of the Multicultural Center of Cache Valley, said that the arrests had left many broken families and his Logan center will be open 24 hours a day to help those in need. Families and friends took in children who were left stranded when their parents were arrested.

In Washington, ICE director Julie L. Myers said the investigation started last February, based on tips to the agency's hotline and discoveries by agents that some Swift employees might be illegal immigrants using fraudulent information to get a job.

"The use of fraudulent documents has been a significant problem," Myers said. About 30 percent of employment-verification documents were suspect, Myers said. How workers obtained the identity information is unclear.

Cache County Attorney N. George Daines, who was in Washington on Wednesday to represent cooperation between local officials and the federal government, said 58 criminal cases have been filed with four felony charges: three counts of forgery and one count of identity theft. Of the 58, as of Wednesday afternoon, 30 suspects had been picked up and were in the county jail. The remaining arrests still needed to be processed, he said.

Daines predicted that convictions would probably be easy to obtain because the federal investigation into the alleged identity theft and forgery had produced affidavits outlining all the evidence needed for the trials.

"It's a slam dunk," Daines said. "They have done all the investigating. We can easily file the charges."