NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — Advocacy groups and public officials yesterday decried “a humanitarian crisis” that they say has torn families apart and left dozens of children adrift while their parents remain in federal detention following Tuesday’s federal raid of a local textile plant.

Immigration agents from around the country seized 327 workers — most of them women — at the Michael Bianco Inc. plant on West Rodney French Boulevard. Predominantly from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, the detainees are all charged with being in the country illegally and face deportation.

Sixty detainees have been released on humanitarian grounds since Tuesday, according to Paula Grenier, spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Boston. Grenier said those grounds included “being a primary caregiver” in the family, pregnancy, or medical or health issues.

ICE agents also arrested the company’s owner, Francesco Insolia, and his top three managers on charges they deliberately recruited and exploited illegal immigrants to help meet the demands of their more than $170 million in federal Department of Defense contracts.

The company manufactures military backpacks and protective gear for U.S. forces. A spokesman for the U.S. Army Soldiers System Center in Natick, Mass., which oversees the work, said that a Department of Defense inspector maintains an office at the plant, but was unaware that any of the workers were undocumented.

But while some public officials applauded ICE for targeting exploitive employers of illegal immigrants, the fallout from detaining more than half the company’s work force — and leaving children adrift — caused public protest.

Immigrant and social-service advocates said the raid left dozens of young children in the care of relatives, friends or volunteers — who were financially and emotionally hard-pressed to handle breastfeeding infants or tearful children while their parents remained in legal limbo.

“These mothers need to be reunited with their children. We have breastfeeding babies who need to be with their mothers. This is not a legal issue at this time: this is a humanitarian issue,” said Bethany Toure, of the New Bedford Community Connections agency, which works with the state’s Department of Social Services.

Should the mothers not be returned, “we will mobilize as a community” for their release, Toure said at a news conference held at the Our Lady of Guadalupe at St. James Church.

Carlos Miranda, 24, a construction worker from Honduras, was among those who spoke at the news conference. Miranda said his nine-month-old daughter is so confused by her mother’s absence that the baby keeps trying to breastfeed at Miranda’s chest.

“My daughter is suffering a lot and will die without her mother at her side,” said Miranda. He added that his girlfriend, Marisela Inestroza — who is the child’s mother — remained with the other detainees at the Fort Devens detention center in central Massachusetts, for not having proper work documents.

Governor Patrick said he was concerned that the children of the detainees might not be receiving proper care.

“We are particularly concerned about the Guatemalan community and the risk that they may be fearful about disclosing the existence or whereabouts of their children given their history with government agencies,” he wrote in a letter asking U.S. Rep. William Delahunt to ensure federal authorities allow social workers access to the detainees.

“We’re continuing to get stories today about infants that were left behind,” said Corrin Williams, director of the Community Economic Development Center of Southeastern Massachusetts. She called it “a widespread humanitarian crisis” for New Bedford.

An ICE spokesman said no children were stranded, and that the agency had coordinated with state officials on Monday afternoon. Those still in custody were given the option of letting their children stay with a guardian or putting them in state care.

“We had an agreement in place,” said Marc Raimondi. “We are not aware of anyone who had any children that weren’t being cared for.”

Political leaders pushed for humanitarian efforts to help the affected children, and underscored the need for immigration reform.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., joint sponsor of the 2005 McCain-Kennedy immigration reform bill, said the raid “further highlights the immediate need for reform of our broken immigration system. We need to hold businesses accountable for the status and treatment of workers they hire. And the best way to end the exploitation of undocumented workers is to put them on a path to earn legal status.”

Kennedy said he was “deeply disturbed that dozens of young children may have been left stranded after the arrest of their parents.”

An affidavit released yesterday by U.S. Attorney Michael J. Sullivan’s office detailed how, over the course of an 11-month criminal investigation, owner Insolia and some of his managers deliberately sought to hire illegal workers, even instructing them where to buy fake identification and Social Security numbers.

According to the affidavit, an undercover agent who posed as an illegal immigrant seeking a job tape-recorded conversations with Ana Figueroa, the company’s payroll manager, who told the undercover agent that she “could buy one from an MBI employee named “Felix” for about $60.”

The four defendants from the Bianco plant appeared in federal court before U.S. Magistrate Judge Leo Sorokin on Tuesday and were released. Besides Insolia, they include Figueroa, Dilia Costa, and Gloria Melo.

They are due back in court on March 26 for a probable cause hearing, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

A fifth defendant, Louis Torres, who was arrested on charges of selling fraudulent identification cards to employees, remains in federal custody. He is scheduled to have a probable cause and detention hearing on Monday.

According to a spokesman for the U.S. Army Soldiers System Center in Natick, Mass., a representative from the Department of Defense has an “on-site” office at the plant, where he is charged with inspecting all of the gear that is shipped to the military.

The spokesman, Jerry Whitaker, said the contract language spells out that it is the manufacturer’s responsibility — not the Army’s — to ensure that undocumented immigrants are not employed at the plant.

He also said he does not know whether Michael Bianco Inc. will continue to hold the contract to make the vests and backpacks.

According to the affidavit filed by an ICE special agent that the U.S. Attorney’s Office released yesterday, Insolia established the plant in 1985, specializing in the manufacture of handbags and other leather goods. A 2003 story in The Standard-Times of New Bedford said the company moved from Lawrence to New Bedford to take advantage of “a skilled and reliable labor force.”

A few years after settling in New Bedford, the firm considered a second move to Providence. The firm, which also had plants in the South American country of Uruguay, never moved.

In 2001 and 2002, Insolia employed approximately 85 people. Subsequently, Insolia won Department of Defense contracts to manufacture products for the U.S. military, including “Aircrew Integrated Recovery Survival Armor Vest and Equipment, and Air Cremen’s Survival Vest.”

In 2004, Insolia “significantly expanded MBI’s operations,” and his work force, when he received much larger contracts.

In August, the Defense Department awarded M. Bianco Inc. a $138,562,131 “firm-fixed-price contract” to manufacture “modular lightweight load-carrying equipment (MOLLE) systems for soldiers, described as backpacks that soldiers wear to carry weapons, ammunition and supplies. That contract runs through 2010.

The current work force has topped 600 people.

Yesterday morning, workers arrived in steady numbers at 89 West Rodney French Blvd. Most declined to talk, and a woman from the front office shooed reporters away, saying simply that people “were working.”

According to some televised reports, Insolia had returned to the plant.

In the parking lot across the street, dozens of family and friends of the detainees waited for hours for a bus they’d heard was coming from Fort Devens, carrying some of the detainees who’d been released.

Ada Rivas said she was waiting for her daughter, and meanwhile caring for her 3-year-old granddaughter.

“She’s crying and she say, ‘I need my mommy. Where’s my mommy.’ I say, ‘Your mommy is working. She’s coming tomorrow’ ”

The buses never came.

With reports from Journal staff writer W. Zachary Malinowski, projo.com staff writer Steve Peoples and the Associated Press.

kziner@projo.com