The House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security and International Law held a hearing February 13, 2008 on the tactics used by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to raid six Swift & Co. meat processing plants on December 12, 2006. Some 1,282 workers were detained during what ICE called its largest-ever workplace raid.

The hearing featured a US-born worker complaining that he was detained for eight hours, including an hour in handcuffs, and was not allowed to contact his family or union. A suit alleging that ICE violated the constitutional rights of US citizens and lawful workers during the Swift raids is pending.

Swift was sold to Brazilian-based JBS in 2007, the world's biggest beef producer. JBS expanded again in 2008 by buying the beef-producing units of Smithfield Foods, which processes 8,000 cattle a day, becoming the largest US beef producer. JBS now owns the third (Swift), fourth (National Beef), and fifth (Smithfield)-largest US beef packers, and can slaughter 42,500 cattle a day. JBS processed about nine million cattle around the world in 2007, generating $12 billion in revenue.

Several employees of the human resources department of George's Processing Inc., in Butterfield, Missouri were convicted in federal court of harboring illegal aliens in January 2008. ICE agents raided the plant on May 22, 2007 and arrested 136 workers, including 28 who were charged with immigration and identity-theft violations.

Three former employees of Smithfield Foods Tar Heel pork-processing plant, which has 5,000 employees about 100 miles south of Raleigh, were sentenced in January 2008 to 18 months in prison for using false documents to get jobs. In August 2007, immigration authorities arrested 28 employees at the plant.

Columbus Junction, Iowa was transformed by immigration, largely because Tyson re-opened a meatpacking plant and began recruiting workers along the Mexico-US border. The population rose to almost 2,000; 40 percent of residents are Hispanic.

Town leaders are generally pleased with the changes brought by immigration, but many adults cannot communicate because of language barriers. No Latinos sit on the City Council or the School Board, but there is political activism among second-generation bilingual Hispanics. Median household income is lower than the state average, as is the percentage of residents who have a college education.

Interviews with some of the immigrant workers find that most take pride in working, most had their best-ever jobs in Iowa, and "best jobs" include a chance to learn English. Tyson was praised for offering workers the opportunity to learn English and get high-school equivalence diplomas. Some of the workers interviewed wanted to maximize hourly wages, explaining that they detassel corn during summer months to earn extra money.

Immigrant workers cited several needs, including some type of public transportation system, facilities to learn English at the workplace (which workers had to reach via various methods of car pooling), and medical attention in their own language in or near the work place. The local housing stock includes a number of fix-up houses that were bought by immigrants and improved, often with their own work and credit extended by big-box home improvement stores. Some of the houses being improved are outside the city, where building codes and zoning laws do not apply.

Linda Lantor Fandel, "In Columbus Junction, Anglos, Latinos build community together - and apart," Des Moines Register, November 25, 2007.