October 1999 Volume 5 Number 4

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The INS in 1998-99 devised new ways of discouraging US employers from hiring
unauthorized workers without disrupting production or bothering US citizens
and legally authorized workers. One of these new operations was Operation
Vanguard, which subpoenaed records from meatpacking employers in Nebraska,
compared the information provided against Social Security Administration
records, and then told employers to ask employees who appeared to be unauthorized
to clear up discrepancies in their records or face INS interviews. The INS
then visited meatpacking plants and interviewed only workers already identified
as potentially unauthorized.

The INS had planned to move Operation Vanguard to Iowa
and other Midwestern states, but SSA stopped permitting INS agents to check
subpoenaed employee records against its database, citing workers' privacy
concerns. SSA says that, under the Privacy Act, it can check on the status
of workers if the INS has "reasonable cause" to believe that a
person is unauthorized. Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-NE) urged the INS and SSA to
resolve the issue so that Vanguard can expand and not leave Nebraska at a
competitive disadvantage as the only Midwestern state with an authorized
meatpacking work force.

In Nebraska, INS used Social Security Administration
records to check on the status of 26,000 employees in 66 plants; the INS
found that 4,500, or 17 percent, may have been invalid. Employers were notified
about the discrepancies and were instructed to ask employees to visit SSA
or INS offices to clarify their status before the INS visited the plants
for in-person interviews. About 3,500 employees quit before the INS arrived
including, according to press reports, legally authorized workers who had
unauthorized family members living with them. Of the 1,000 workers interviewed,
the INS apprehended 35 unauthorized workers.

There are about 20,000 workers employed in meatpacking
plants in Iowa. There is little penalty for workers in changing jobs—wages
and benefits are similar across packinghouses—and it is easy to find
jobs in areas where the INS is not investigating employees.

Operation Vanguard united opponents of INS enforcement.
In July 1999, the National Council of La Raza asked President Clinton to
suspend Vanguard, citing its "potential for extreme discrimination against
our nation's ethnic minorities." The INS countered that Vanguard proves
that computer matching on an industrywide basis can drastically reduce the
presence of unauthorized workers.

The American Meat Institute complained that expanding
Vanguard might cause pork prices to decline. If unauthorized workers were
scared away from their jobs and meat "dis-assembly lines" were
slowed, the AMI said, then fewer hogs would be purchased by meat packers,
lowering prices to farmers.

Nebraska Governor Mike Johanns condemned Operation Vanguard,
and appointed a panel, headed by the lieutenant governor, to develop recommendations
to deal with undocumented workers. During the panel's first meeting on September
29, 1999, the panel promised to investigate: 1.)Does the Immigration and
Naturalization Service's Operation Vanguard belong in the workplace; 2.)
Are the impacts of the program such that conditions will improve for workers
in meatpacking plants; 3.) How does Vanguard relate to the treatment of people
who are residents of Nebraska from another country; 4.) What is the impact
of Vanguard on the state's livestock industry; 5.) What is the impact of
Vanguard on communities?

INS Central US district director Mark Reed says that,
now that the INS has found an effective enforcement tool, the US must decide
if strict sanctions enforcement is what the US wants. The INS in September
1999 said that, if it cannot do record checks, it may have to revert to disruptive
workplace raids.

The Teamsters placed the local union involved in a month-long
strike against IBP in Walulla, Washington in trusteeship in July 1999. The
move lead to charges from the Teamsters for a Democratic Union that the Teamsters
were trying to block the election of leaders sympathetic to the needs of
1,200 immigrant meatpackers in elections scheduled for November 1999. The
strike was settled with an agreement that raised starting wages from $7 to
$8.50 an hour but cut the company's retirement contribution.

Rogers
. The newly elected mayor of Rogers, Arkansas, Steve Womack, has proposed
a city agency with bilingual staff to provide a one-stop place for newly
arrived immigrants to learn about their rights and responsibilities. Rogers
was estimated to have about 12 percent, or 4,448 Hispanic residents in 1998.
Womack defeated former Mayor John Sampier, who embraced the influx of Hispanics
into the area to work in poultry plants.

Northwestern Arkansas has many poultry processing plants,
with some owned by Tyson Foods, the largest US poultry processor. Tyson
in 1998 had an average 73 percent turnover in 84 US chicken processing plants
in 21 states. With 72,000 processing employees, this means that Tyson has
1,000 unfilled jobs on most days. Most Tyson employees earn $7 to $8 an
hour, or $14,000 to $16,000 a year.

Neither Tyson nor any government agency studies what
happens to employees who leave--the focus seems to be on recruiting new hires
rather than tracking ex-employees. Most poultry companies rely on networks
of current employees as well as independent recruiters to find additional
workers.

A Walmart-owned bank in Rogers, First National Bank and
Trust Co., took the lead in creating a win-win situation for newly arrived
Hispanic workers and poultry processors. Many of the immigrants were from
rural areas in Mexico and had never used checks or credit cards. By teaching
the immigrants, in Spanish and at the work place, how to use credit, how
to qualify for mortgages to buy starter homes that cost $60,000 to $70,000,
the bank got more business and the poultry firms reduced employee turnover.

Tyson and other poultry firms invited the bank into the
plant to make presentations on credit and mortgages, and the bank had instant
access to employment and earnings information; First National had 60 percent
of the banking business among one firm's employees after two years. First
National also developed a way for immigrants to establish a credit history
for $15. The bank offers borrowers a $500 loan that requires six monthly
payments; the $500 does not leave the bank, it is invested in Certificates
of Deposit. The certificates earn almost as much interest as the loan payments,
reducing the cost to the borrower, who develops a credit history after 12
months that permits the bank to provide mortgage financing for home purchases.

There is an anti-immigration movement in Rogers—leaders
of the Americans for an Immigration Moratorium testified several times before
Congress.

Mike Sherry, "Panel to Explore 5 Concerns On Immigration
Enforcement," Omaha World-Herald, September 30, 1999. Mike Sherry,
"INS Not Ruling Out More Raids," Omaha World-Herald, September
14, 1999. Nancy Cleeland, "Trustee Takes Over Meatpackers' Local,"
Los Angeles Times, July 13, 1999.