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Beef. Brazilian-based JBS bought Swift in 2007; Swift's financial condition deteriorated after December 2006 raids at six plants that removed 1,200 unauthorized workers. JBS-Swift raised wages after the unauthorized workers were removed, intensified recruiting, and returned to full operation within six months.

Some of the workers hired to replace the unauthorized were Somali refugees recruited in the Minneapolis area. As legal US residents and workers, some were aggressive in requesting accommodation for their Muslim religion, including requests to adjust the dinner break during Ramadan in September 2008. Somalis at the JBS-Swift plant in Grand Island, Nebraska wanted the dinner break moved from 8:30 pm to 7:30 pm, but Latino workers opposed a compromise that would have ended the shift at 7:45 for dinner because they would lose an hour of work. A similar dispute at the JBS-Swift plant in Greeley, Colorado led to a strike and 100 Somalis being fired.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on August 31, 2009 charged that JBS-Swift engaged in a pattern and practice of discrimination in its Grand Island and Greeley plants by firing the Somalis who demanded accommodation for their religious beliefs. JBS-Swift countered that it established prayer rooms in its plants, and that the striking workers violated the union contract. JBS-Swift said: "Meatpacking provides first generation Americans jobs, and we are at the center of the melting pot" in dealing with integration issues.

The United Food and Commercial Workers implemented a three-year contract at the 1,100-employee JBS Swift beef processing plant in Hyrum, Utah in July 2009, bringing to 10,000 the number of JBS-Swift workers represented by the UFCW. UFCW Local 222 ratified a 54-month contract at Tyson Fresh Meats Inc in Dakota City, Nebraska covering 3,400 workers and raising wages by $1.55 an hour through 2013.

Poultry. A May 12, 2008 raid at the Agriprocessors meat packing plant in Postville, Iowa resulted in the removal of a third of the 900-strong labor force. The plant went bankrupt and was sold for $8.5 million to SHF Industries in July 2009, but the population of the 2,300-resident town shrank during the hiatus. In October 2009, the first trial of former Agriprocessors CEO Sholom Rubashkin began in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Rubashkin faces trials on fraud and immigration charges.

SHF, which renamed the plant Agri Star Meat and Poultry LLC, announced in October 2009 that it would hire only local workers and use E-Verify to screen them when it expands from the current 400 workers. Wages are to be raised to at least $1 more than the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, and employment is to expand to up to 800.

Grey, Devlin and Goldsmith in Postville USA emphasize that many small Midwestern towns resemble Postville. A quarter or more of residents are immigrants from rural Latin America, most are unauthorized, and their US-born children bring diversity to area schools and health care facilities for which most are not prepared. Grey, Devlin and Goldsmith argue that Postville was coping well with diversity until the immigration raid, which reduced the town's population and may have created a death spiral for local housing prices.

North Carolina-based House of Raeford, a large chicken and turkey processor, is hiring more Blacks and fewer Hispanics. The workforce at its main Raeford, North Carolina plant shifted from 80 percent Hispanic to 70 percent African American over the past two years.

In July 2009, a federal grand jury charged House of Raeford subsidiary Columbia Farms with knowingly hiring unauthorized workers at its Greenville, South Carolina, plant; a raid in October 2008 resulted in the arrest of 300 workers. Privately owned House of Raeford, which has about 6,000 employees and $600 million in annual sales, has not signed up for E-Verify.

Arkansas-based George's Processing paid a $450,000 fine in September 2009 as part of a settlement resolving charges after 136 workers were arrested at its 4,000-employee Cassville plant in southwestern Missouri in May 2007.

Nigel Duara, "Iowa kosher slaughterhouse owner says he'll hire local workers, avoid past owner's mistakes," Associated Press, October 13, 2009. Franco Ordo¤ez, "At House of Raeford, far fewer Latino workers," Charlotte Observer, August 12, 2009. Grey, Mark, Michele Devlin and Aaron Goldsmith. 2009. Postville USA: Surviving Diversity in Small Town America. GemmaMedia. www.GemmaMedia.com