Raids in 6 states met with anger, cheers

[JustTheFacts]

If Swift has never knowingly hired illegal immigrants, then why did they ask a Federal Judge to block the raids??? :confused:


By KIM NGUYEN, Associated Press Writer

GREELEY, Colo. - Outside a meatpacking plant fence, a frustrated Tony Garcia watched as Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents swarmed inside to arrest illegal immigrants suspected in an identity-theft scheme.

"We need help," he yelled. "We need answers."

But most of his questions Tuesday had to wait. No names were released, and authorities did not say how many people were arrested. There was only the sight of dozens of workers being taken to law enforcement buses as agents swept through Swift & Co. plants in six states.

At the Swift plant in Grand Island, Neb., as many as 250 workers from a shift of more than 600 were detained, local union spokesman Mike Mary told The Washington Post.

In Colorado, Garcia worried about the schoolchildren whose parents were arrested at the Swift plant in Greeley.

"Who is going to pick them up?" he asked.

The raids followed a 10-month investigation into illegal immigrants suspected of buying or stealing other people's identities to secure U.S. jobs. The scheme may have had hundreds victims, officials said.

Immigration officials last month informed Swift that it would remove unauthorized workers on Dec. 4, but Swift asked a federal judge to prevent agents from conducting the raid, arguing it would cause "substantial and irreparable injury" to its business.

The company estimated a raid would remove up to 40 percent of its 13,000 workers. Greeley-based Swift describes itself as the world's second-largest meat processor with sales of about $9 billion.

After a closed hearing, a judge on Thursday rejected Swift's request, clearing the way for Tuesday's raids at the plants in Greeley; Grand Island; Cactus, Texas; Hyrum, Utah; Marshalltown, Iowa; and Worthington, Minn.

The six plants represent all of Swift's domestic beef processing capacity and 77 percent of its pork processing capacity.

Advocates of stricter immigration control praised the raids and pointed out that they targeted people suspected of committing other crimes in addition to being in the U.S. illegally.

"I'm glad that ICE is enforcing our immigration laws in light of the illegal immigration crisis we face across the country," Sen. Wayne Allard (news, bio, voting record), R-Colo., said in a statement.

Others called the raids heavy-handed and criticized the effect on families.

"They are taking mothers and fathers, and we're really concerned about the children," said the Rev. Clarence Sandoval of St. Thomas Aquinas Roman Catholic Church in Logan, Utah. "I'm getting calls from mothers saying they don't know where their husband was taken."

United Food and Commercial International Workers union spokeswoman Jill Cashen told the Post workers taken from the Worthington, Minn., plant were bused to South Dakota.

She said Tuesday that attorneys for the union would ask federal judges in all six states for injunctions to halt the raids.

Mexico's Foreign Relations Department also pledged to ensure that any Mexicans caught up in the raids have "their human rights fully respected, and are given all the necessary assistance, orientation and consular protection."

No charges were filed against Swift.

In a written statement, President and CEO Sam Rovit said the company has never knowingly hired illegal workers and does not condone the practice.

Swift uses a government pilot program to confirm whether Social Security numbers are valid. Company officials have raised questions about the program's ability to detect when two people are using the same number.

Immigration agents have also staged immigration raids at poultry plants in the South. In July 2005, nearly 120 people were arrested at an Arkadelphia, Ark., facility. Three months ago, agents raided a poultry plant in Stillmore, Ga., arresting a similar number who worked there or lived in surrounding counties and busing them to immigration courts in Atlanta, 189 miles away.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061213/...ration_raid_13

[palerider88]

"In a written statement, President and CEO Sam Rovit said the company has never knowingly hired illegal workers and does not condone the practice."

Oh yeah, right!!!! And I'm the Queen of Sheba! LOL

[BP348]

It's all just a big game. How can they go in and get all these people and not file any charges against the company?

The identity-theft part was good.

Wish they would have let us play ;)

If the people were upset about ICE doing the arrest then they would have flipped if USBP would have been in on it.

[RO56]

If Swift has never knowingly hired illegal immigrants, then why did they ask a Federal Judge to block the raids???

Would you have NO problem if a few dozen police officers showed up at your house, for no apparrent reason and without probable cause, and wanted to search your house for something (whatver it was)?

I'm not supporting Swift. Obviously, if they led out a few dozen illegals, something was going on.

But I'm saying that, in general, just because you're right/clean/law-abiding, you don't have to relinquish your Constitutional rights and protections.

[Taz_bb2]

Would you have NO problem if a few dozen police officers showed up at your house, for no apparrent reason and without probable cause, and wanted to search your house for something (whatver it was)?

The only flaw in your arguement is that they HAD probable cause. Without it, they never would have got the OK to go in for the sweeps from the Federal judge.

If you have nothing to hide, and have done nothing wrong, the BEST way to prove it is to allow them free access. Then who looks bad when nothing is found?

[RO56]

The only flaw in your arguement is that they HAD probable cause. Without it, they never would have got the OK to go in for the sweeps from the Federal judge.

I didn't say that THEY didn't. That's why I highlighted the words "in general" in my response.

If you have nothing to hide, and have done nothing wrong, the BEST way to prove it is to allow them free access. Then who looks bad when nothing is found?

Again, I agree. I'm in the same camp. And I have nothing to hide, so I have no problems.

I'm just saying that, IN GENERAL, you should not be expected to give up a constitutional protection, simply because you are law-abiding or "clean".

[RO56]

Is the liberalism in today's journalism not obviously oozing from every single article that's written in the predominately liberal-agenda driven media?

Think about this subject. Read the headline. Read the article. What does it say to you?

Do you know what it says to me?

It says: IF YOU DON'T SUPPORT AMNESTY FOR ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS, YOU WILL PAY HIGHER PRICES FOR YOUR MEAT.

Of course we will pay higher prices for meat if cheap, illegal labor doesn't fill the plant payrolls. Duh! Consumers, not business owners, always bear every price increase, no matter what causes it.

Whether true or not, this article is nothing more than a blantant attempt to convince the reader to support amnesty by scaring them - telling them that prices will rise if they don't support amnesty for illegal immigrants.

Immigration raids may affect meat prices
By ROXANA HEGEMAN, Associated Press Writer
Fri Dec 15, 5:56 AM ET

WICHITA, Kan. - When hordes of police and immigration officials stormed meatpacking plants in six states this week, the illegal workers arrested may not have been the only victims.

Consumers and the industry itself may be feeling the repercussions in a shortage of meatpackers, higher wage costs and, ultimately, higher prices for the beef that lands on America's tables at home and in restaurants.

Some analysts see the current emphasis on enforcement in the meatpacking industry as the precursor to getting an immigration bill through Congress — by demonstrating the government's capability to enforce laws at the work site.

"The meatpacking industry has become dependent on an unauthorized labor force, and it is not good government to destroy an entire industry. In some way, there is going to be a meeting of the minds," said Mark Reed, a former immigration regional director who now runs his own consulting business, Border Management Strategies, in Tucson, Ariz.

Every labor-intensive industry — the hotel industry, the construction industry, agriculture — will be similarly impacted, he said.

"It just happens the meatpacking industry is in the cross hairs right now," Reed said.

Continued massive immigration raids would cut cattle prices paid to cattle feeders and cattle producers while raising the cost of beef for consumers, said James Mintert, an agricultural economist at Kansas State University.

It would also reduce the available labor supply — putting the U.S. meatpacking industry in a position more comparable to the Canadian slaughterhouses, which have much higher labor costs because they have less access to cheap immigrant labor.

"You are going to end up paying higher wages," Mintert said.

Swift & Co. said its meatpacking plants were running at reduced levels a day after nearly 1,300 employees were arrested in a massive immigration sweep that temporarily halted operations.

Cattle slaughter numbers had been running about the same as a year ago the day prior to arrests. The immigration sweep on Tuesday cut the nation's daily cattle slaughter numbers by 9 percent, Mintert said.

Still, Mintert cited preliminary data from the Agriculture Department's federally inspected slaughter numbers showing that by Wednesday slaughter numbers nationwide had recovered and were up a fraction from a week ago as other meatpackers picked up the slack at Swift's plants.

"It looks like what took place had limited impact — we had a one-day impact," he said.

Swift said in a written statement that its operations had resumed at reduced levels on Wednesday at the plants in Greeley, Colorado; Grand Island, Nebraska; Cactus, Texas; Hyrum, Utah; Marshalltown, Iowa; and Worthington, Minnesota. Production was expected to be below normal in the short term, but the company did not provide further details and did not return a call for comment.

At Tyson Foods Inc., the world's largest meat processor, the raids did not result in any significant change to the company's livestock buying efforts, and plants were operating normally at expected production levels, said Tyson spokesman Gary Mickelson.

It is uncertain how much impact increased immigration enforcement at the nation's slaughter plants would have on consumer meat prices.

"If the price of meat goes up a little bit, so what? There is nothing as expensive as cheap labor because we pay for this cheap labor in other ways — higher insurance costs, higher taxes," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies.

He cited a study his group did a few years ago looking at what impact the loss of illegal immigrant labor would have on consumer prices for fresh fruits and vegetables, a far more immigrant-intensive business than meatpackers.

Their study found that in summer the retail price of fresh fruit would go up 6 percent for the first couple of years, and then settle to about 4 percent higher, Krikorian said.

The last time a major shift in the nation's meatpacking industry occurred was in the 1960s and 1970s when the industry shifted away from the urban areas in the Midwest and located to the Great Plains, where they drew more on immigrant labor.

During the 60s and 70s meatpacking wages were relatively higher than at manufacturing plants, running about 14 to 18 percent above manufacturing wages at that time, Mintert said. By 2002, meatpacking wages were running 25 percent below manufacturing wages.

Accompanying the wage drop was the decline of unions in the plants. In the late 1970s, about 45 percent of the meatpacking industry was unionized. By the late 1980s, that had dropped to 21 percent as more immigrants took jobs in the industry, Mintert said.

Kevin Good, a senior market analyst for Cattle Fax in Denver, said any disruption to the cattle market from the raids will be short term as other plants absorb the excess cattle. He said beef prices so far have been relatively flat.

"It is part of doing business," Good said of the raids.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061215/..._meatpackers_2

[Cat_Doc]

Consumers, not business owners, always bear every price increase, no matter what causes it.

+1 Especially in the raised prices in restaurants around here within a few days of that dumb *** minimum wage increase being voted in by the ignorant. :mad:

[H.R. Cufnstuf]

I'll pay whatever they want for meat if it means they won't give jobs to illegals :mad: