Operation Vanguard remained on hold in Nebraska and Iowa in summer 2000, waiting for INS headquarters to grant permission to continue and expand the practice of subpoenaing from employers' data provided by newly hired employees on I-9 forms and checking the data against Social Security Administration and INS databases.
In 1999, the INS in Omaha subpoenaed records from 111 meatpacking plants in Nebraska, compared employee I-9 information against SSA and INS records, and told employers to ask employees who appeared to be unauthorized to clear up discrepancies in their records before the INS came to the plant to interview them. During the plant visits, the INS interviewed only workers already identified as potentially unauthorized.
In 51 of the plants, typically small operations, there were no discrepancies between I-9 information and SSA and INS data, and thus no plant visits. However, 36 of the other 60 plants had one or more employees with discrepancies between the data on the I-9 form and SSA/INS data bases. These 60 plants had 24,148 employees, including 4,495 employees or 19 percent with discrepancies who were asked to appear before the INS when it visited the plant. However, 3,152 quit before the INS arrived in May 1999; 1,042 were interviewed and 34 were apprehended.
SSA in summer 1999 stopped permitting INS agents to check subpoenaed employee I-9 information against its database, citing privacy concerns. According to SSA, the purpose of SSNs are to track worker earnings for the to determine Social Security benefits, not to aid the INS to enforce immigration laws. The SSA said it would check the data of workers that the INS has "reasonable cause" to believe are unauthorized, but not all the workers in an industry such as meatpacking.
The INS then found a private data processing firm to check I-9 information subpoenaed from employers at a cost of $2 a name. Under this backup plan, the INS would submit only the information of questionable employees to SSA. Vanguard has been on hold as INS headquarters evaluates the effects of 1999 enforcement as well as the back-up plan for verifying I-9 information. Vanguard supporters emphasize that checking employee records is far cheaper and less disruptive than plant raids. During the six months that Vanguard was most active in 1999, the INS spent $528,000 and opened 3,500 jobs. By comparison, $234,000 was spent on one 1992 raid on a Monfort Inc., plant in Grand Island that resulted in 307 arrests and removals from the US.
Vanguard had many effects. In Nebraska, a 16-member task force was formed to study the effects of immigration enforcement on the livestock slaughtering and manufacturing industries as well as the effect of immigration on education, housing, and the justice system; it is to report its findings to the Legislature and Governor Mike Johanns by August 31, 2001. Nebraska pledged to ensure compliance with a Nebraska Meatpacking Industry Workers Bill of Rights that assures, for example, the right to organize, to have a safe work place, and to be paid for the work they do. For more information: http://www.dol.state.ne.us/commiss/WBORFinal.htm)
Most migrant advocates said that both raids and Vanguard data checks were disruptive to migrant families, and that the US should consider some type of amnesty or guest worker program instead.
Arkansas. It is often suggested that Hispanics dominate poultry processing work forces in the Ozarks, but Tyson reported that only one-fourth of its 7,500 employees in Washington and Benton counties are Hispanic. Chicken catchers, who are considered independent contractors, are predominantly Hispanic. In the 1990s, the Hispanic population grew more than 100 percent in Christian, Stone and Taney counties in Missouri, as Missouri's Hispanic population rose to 93,028 in 1999 from 62,149 in the 1990 census.
The Census estimated that the Hispanic population grew 224 percent in Benton County and 187 percent in Washington County between 1990 and 1998, to about 9,000. Local businesses are beginning to cater to Hispanic customers. For example, it is estimated that half of the Latino adults in the United States have bank accounts, compared with 80 percent of all US adults.
Many Midwestern employers recruit workers through agencies located in south Texas. Tyson and most other poultry processors submit data on newly hired non-US citizen to the INS's Basic Pilot Program, which checks the information against INS databases.
Iowa. Iowa's Strategic Planning Council in August 2000 recommended that the state be designated an "immigration enterprise zone" so that it could seek exemptions from federal immigration quotas, making it easier for 310,000 foreigners to immigrate to Iowa between 2000 and 2010. For more information: http://www.iowa2010.state.ia.us/ Iowa's three million residents are two percent foreign-born, compared to an average 10 percent foreign-born among the 275 million residents of the US.
The Federation of American Immigration Reform charged that the Strategic Planning Council was being manipulated by the meatpacking industry to get additional employees.
Immigrants in Iowa are associated with meatpacking. An Iowa poll found that 58 percent of Iowa adults oppose the proposal to encourage immigration; 34 percent approve of such a policy; the opposition to immigrants was strongest in the southwest and in rural areas. Most of those polled agreed that foreigners do not displace Iowans; 59 percent agreed that immigrants are filling jobs that otherwise might go unfilled, while 32 percent believe that immigrants are taking jobs Americans would fill.
A $100 million beef-packing plant has been proposed for central Iowa; it would create 1,100 jobs. Many Iowans are opposed to having the plant locate in their community, but in a statewide poll, 71 percent said such a large meatpacking plant would be good for Iowa's economy, compared to 18 percent who do not want the plant built. About 28 percent of Iowans said they would oppose a new packing plant in their community, 22 percent would welcome it, and 45 percent say they would accept it.
Iowa accepted about 10,000 Vietnamese in the 1970s. Governor Tom Vilsack, the first Democratic governor in 30 years, said that they were accepted because the federal government provided generous integration assistance. The Latinos who arrived in the 1980s and 1990s, by contrast, generated negative feelings because their entry and integration was not anticipated or supported by the federal government.
Unions. Many of the meatpacking plants are unionized, and union organizers are trying to organize the rest of the plants. The National Labor Relations Board announced in August 2000 that it would issue a legal complaint on a charge filed by the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union that alleged that ConAgra Inc., the second-biggest United States food company, committed an unfair labor practice by videotaping union organizers in June 2000 when they talked to workers at an Omaha plant. The UFCW, with 1.4 million members, represents 25,000 ConAgra employees in 70 workplaces in the U.S. and Canada.
William Claiborne, "Iowa Looks Abroad for Workers," Washington Post, September 15, 2000.
Jonathon Roos and John McCormick, "Majority: Don't Recruit Immigrants," Des Moines Register, September 3, 2000.
Cristal Cody, "Business's new boon: Presence of Hispanics is mixed blessing for NW companies," Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, August 20, 2000.
Cindy Gonzalez, "Vanguard Remains In Limbo," Omaha World-Herald, July 16, 2000.
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