CAN MY EMPLOYER FIRE 100'S OF PEOPLE RIGHT BEFORE THE BUSINESS CLOSES TO AVOID PAYING UNEMPLOYMENT?

I work for a billion dollar company we are paid hourly. The company I work for has a few different contracts (departments) like a beauty dept, a cell phone dept. within the same building. There were 400 employees in my group. Just as it was announced the cell phone contract had been lost and the business was closing down, tons of people were taken one by one very quickly and fired and escorted out of the building by security guards, they were told they were being fired for small violations, then the remaining group that wasn't fired were offered night shift and overnight hours all so nobody could file and qualify for unemployment, isn't there anything that can be done to help. Now there are only about 80 of us left and they are still calling people in the office to fire them, I know technically if they offer you a job they don't have to pay you unemployment, but they offered everyone the same exact bad hours then when they turned them down they didn't even let them put in a two week notice they were escorted from the premises. Life certainly isn't fair. But is it legal?