The INS in 1998-99 devised a new way
to discourage Midwestern meatpackers from hiring unauthorized workers without
disrupting production or bothering US citizens and legally authorized workers.
Under Operation Vanguard, the INS 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.
Under Operation Vanguard in early
1999, the INS checked on the status of 24,148 meatpacking employees and found
4,495 with questionable documents who were asked to appear before the INS when
it visited the plant. Most of those to be questioned disappeared before the INS
arrived; the INS interviewed 1,042 workers and arrested
34.
The INS had planned to move Operation
Vanguard to Iowa and other Midwestern states in summer 1999, but SSA stopped
permitting INS agents to check subpoenaed employee records against its database,
citing privacy concerns. According to SSA, the purpose of SSNs is to track
worker earnings to determine their eligibility for Social Security benefits, not
to aid the INS in the enforcement of immigration laws. 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.
The INS thus developed a back-up
plan, which involved using a private data processing firm to check on the status
of Midwestern meatpacking workers for about $2 a name. The INS would still
subpoena the employee records of meatpackers and other employers, but before
submitting worker SSNs to the SSA, a private firm that has databases of
information on most Americans, including SSNs, would screen employees—only
the SSNs identified by the private firm as questionable would be submitted to
SSA for verification. As of spring 2000, the Midwestern region of the INS was
awaiting approval from INS headquarters to implement this revised approach to
Vanguard.
The INS considers Vanguard a way to
effectively remove illegal workers from the workplace without raids. Critics
charge that Vanguard targeted Hispanics, violated the privacy of workers and led
to an uncomfortable work atmosphere, reduced livestock prices as workers quit or
were fired, and increased the number of people receiving state aid, since
unauthorized workers could not work but had, for example, children eligible for
assistance.
Nebraska Governor Mike Johanns
appointed a 25-member panel, chaired by Lieutenant Governor Dave Maurstad, to
examine Vanguard and to develop recommendations to deal with unauthorized
workers. At its final meeting in March 2000, the tone of the recommendations
was clear, as the panel concluded that: (1) the INS should limit its enforcement
activities to workplaces suspected of having unauthorized workers, rather than
using industry-wide post-hire programs such as Operation Vanguard; (2)
Vanguard did not improve wages and working conditions; (3) Vanguard reduced
cattle prices; and, (4) Vanguard increased case loads for state Spanish-speaking
social service workers and increased demands at food pantries and
community-funded social services.
Just before the Iowa caucuses in
January 2000, two organizations that advocated less immigration,
Population-Environment Balance and the Federation for American Immigration
Reform, ran ads showing pictures of Storm Lake, Iowa that asserted that "quality
of life is but a memory" in a city in which immigrants were recruited to work in
pork processing plants. Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack said "We deplore this
propaganda campaign," and Texas Governor George W. Bush said that the
anti-immigrant ads reflected "the xenophobic, dark side of American politics."
Storm Lake, a city of 8,800 in 1990,
is home to two meat-processing plants that employed almost 2,000 workers in the
mid-1990s. Storm Lake had three major waves of immigrants over the past 15
years--two types of Lao immigrants, Mexican Mennonites, and other Mexican
immigrants. The Lao immigrants were recruited via private networks, and the
Mexican Mennonites and the other Mexican immigrants were recruited with the
active support of IBP. Storm Lake is divided over the effects of the
immigrants. A rising percentage of school children do not speak English,
prompting spending for English as a Second Language programs and bilingual
teachers. IBP counters that it has a $36 million annual payroll in the area and
that schools might close if the plant shuts down.
The IBP plant in Perry, Iowa, is
sponsoring English classes for the employees. The plant has 1,000 workers,
about half of whom are Mexican and Latin American immigrants. IBP pays for the
twice-weekly classes that are run through the Perry school district's education
program. Employees must attend at least 80 percent of the classes or the $55
fee will be deducted from their paychecks.
The INS removed 423 unauthorized
aliens from Nebraska and Iowa in FY94, and expects to remove 3,000 in
FY2000.
Smithfield Foods has become the
largest pork processor in the US, with annual sales of $4 billion accounting for
20 percent of US pork. Smithfield bought the No. 2 pork company, Murphy Family
Farms, for about $290 million in 1999.
Unlike most other meatpackers,
Smithfield raises many of its own hogs, which worries farmers who raise hogs for
the four meatpackers who process 60 percent of US pork. Smithfield operates
five plants, including one that can process 32,000 hogs a day in Tar Heel, North
Carolina, which helps to explain why the number of Latino immigrants has been
rising so sharply in the 1990s.
Indiana. A series of articles
in the Indianapolis Star profiled the towns of Delphi and Logansport in Indiana.
Delphi is home to Indiana Packers and there is an IBP in Logansport, 20 miles
away. Both companies depend heavily on Mexican workers to work in their
meatpacking plants. IBP employs recruiters in Mexico, although most of the
employees from outside Indiana learn about jobs in Indiana by word of mouth.
Plant officials believe that more than 50 percent of IBP's 1,650 employees are
Hispanic and Indiana Packers report that between 30 and 40 percent of their
1,300 workers are Hispanic.
The Indiana story appears to involve
migrant workers settling and moving into year round jobs. Some 7000 to 10,000
farm workers are hired every year in the state, and some of the labor
contractors who organized workers to pick vegetables or detassel corn realized
that they could also supply workers for landscaping, construction, and
meatpacking. These pioneers got established in nonfarm industries, and word of
mouth enabled their friends and relatives to avoid the fields and move directly
into nonfarm jobs.
Delphi has 600 Mexican residents in
the town of 5,000. "We have to learn to live with other folks, for all of us to
get along," said Delphi mayor Sam Deiwert. An undocumented worker at the Indiana
Packers plant said she believed that the company preferred undocumented workers
because they work "hard and scared," not complaining when asked to stand for
their eight-hour shift, with a 15-minute break in the morning and a 30-minute
lunch period. Every eight to 12 seconds, another carcass or another piece of
meat has to be cut, sliced or trimmed on the disassembly line, a total of 11,000
pigs a day.
Injuries are common in meatpacking.
Between 1997 and 1999, 10 Indiana Packers workers had a body part amputated at
work and in 1993 a worker died after accidentally stabbing himself in the side
with an eight-inch boning knife. During the first 11 months of 1997, when IBP
was employing 1,200 workers, the company reported 1,097 work-related injuries
and illnesses.
Changes in meatpacking workforces are
soon evident in schools. In Logansport, 25 Hispanic children, most Mexicans,
enrolled in the local school system in 1996 after IBP reopened the packing
plant. Teachers say they were overwhelmed at the task of teaching children who
knew little English. In the 1999-2000 school year, there are 450 Hispanic
students enrolled in the district's seven schools, which have a total of 3,900
students.
An estimated $1 million is spent to
provide special instruction and services for the students in Logansport. The
schools also received $325,000 in federal migrant education funds—the ME
program defines meatpacking jobs as agricultural, and makes the 363 children of
meatpacking workers who moved into the area eligible for supplemental services.
Poultry. Siler City, a town of
5,000 in North Carolina, has been transformed by immigration, as
chicken-processing plants recruiting workers in Florida set migration networks
in motion that now bring workers directly to mid-North Carolina. North Carolina
has many cities and towns that have seen an influx of Hispanic migrants.
Between 1990 and 1998, the Hispanic population in North Carolina grew 110
percent; 102 percent in Georgia; and 90 percent in Tennessee. Every Southern
state except West Virginia has experienced a growth in its Hispanic population.
Eighty percent of the workers cutting
chickens at the two poultry plants in Siler City are recent arrivals from
Mexico, Nicaragua and other Latin American countries. Some local residents
complain about the additional education, health, and social service costs
associated with the immigrant influx; others note that the immigrants sustain
local industries and thereby preserve jobs for local workers. Latinos are the
majority of K-12 children, and the majority of maternity patients in local
hospitals, and local residents complain that many immigrants drive without
licenses and insurance.
David Duke, president of the National
Organization for European American Rights, was the featured speaker at a
February 2000 anti-immigrant rally in Siler City. He said that his organization
would help the INS round up unauthorized Mexican migrants: "The immigrants are
not hard to find, but if your agency needs help in locating them, a number of
local residents have offered to volunteer their time to help show you the
way."
Hall County, about 50 miles northeast
of Atlanta, Georgia, has also been transformed by Latino immigrants who were
drawn to poultry plants in the area. The Hispanic population of the
115,000-resident county is estimated to be 10,000 to 52,000; in one elementary
school, 90 percent of the children are Hispanic. Law enforcement agencies are
hiring Spanish-speaking officers and government workers are being encouraged to
learn conversational Spanish.
In November 1999, the Washington Post
reported that "hundreds of white-collar, middle-class Koreans" were paying up to
$30,000 each for the privilege of working in Delmarva poultry plants in order to
become US immigrants. The US admits 10,000 to 15,000 unskilled immigrants each
year and Perdue Farms sponsored the Koreans for admission, demonstrating to the
satisfaction of the US Department of Labor that US workers were not available.
The Koreans paid fees to private
brokers in Korea and made contracts with the brokers promising to work one year
in poultry processing in the US or forfeit a $5,000 bond.
In February 2000, Perdue announced
that it was ending the program. Perdue said it was unaware of the one-year
agreements and the bonds, and that it had made "personnel changes" in its human
resources department. The scheme apparently began under previous owners of a
poultry processor bought by Perdue in 1995; Perdue has placed signs in Korean in
its plants that say: the "company does not have a one-year employment
rule."
Terry Horne, "Many of the jobs take a
heavy physical toll," Indianapolis Star, April 4, 2000. Mike Sherry, "Panel:
Vanguard didn't help conditions," Omaha World-Herald, March 16, 2000. Thomas
Beaumont, "IBP pushes English classes," Des Moines Register, March 25, 2000.
Sue Anne Pressley, "Hispanic influx changing Siler City, NC and America,"
Washington Post, March 19, 2000. Mike Sherry, "Panel on INS to Write Report,"
Omaha World-Herald, March 6, 2000. "Perdue scraps immigrant worker program,"
UPI, February 28, 2000. Peter Pae, "Perdue Ends Program For Korean Immigrants
Brokers Charged Workers High Fees," Washington Post, February 25, 2000. Rick
Badie, "The changing face of Hall," Atlanta Journal and Constitution, February
2, 2000. General Accounting Office. 2000. Pork Industry: Trade Barriers and
Other Factors Limit Federal Programs' Potential to Increase Exports.
GAO/RCED-00-41, February 1.
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