Thread: Immigration raids yield jobs for legal workers UPDATED

Immigration raids yield jobs for legal workers

Updated 9m ago
By Alan Gomez, USA TODAY

When federal agents descended on six meatpacking plants owned by Swift & Co. in December 2006, they rounded up nearly 1,300 suspected illegal immigrants that made up about 10% of the labor force at the plants.

But the raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents did not cripple the company or the plants. In fact, they were back up and running at full staff within months by replacing those removed with a significant number of native-born Americans, according to a report by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS).

That was the most extreme example of what has become an increasingly common result of the raids: "They were very beneficial to American workers," according to Vanderbilt University professor Carol Swain.

"Whenever there's an immigration raid, you find white, black and legal immigrant labor lining up to do those jobs that Americans will supposedly not do," said Swain, who teaches law and political science.

Exactly who is filling the jobs has varied, depending on the populations surrounding the plants:

•Out West, one of the Swift plants raided by ICE, had a workforce that was about 90% Hispanic — both legal and illegal — before the raids. The lost workers were replaced mostly with white Americans and U.S.-born Hispanics, according to the CIS.

•In the South, a House of Raeford Farms plant in North Carolina that was more than 80% Hispanic before a federal investigation is now about 70% African-American, according to a report by TheCharlotte Observer.

•Throughout the Great Plains, a new wave of legal immigrants is filling the void, according to Jill Cashen, spokeswoman for the United Food and Commercial Workers union, which represents 1.3 million people who work in the food-processing industry. Plants are refilling positions with newly arrived immigrants from places such as Sudan, Somalia and Southeast Asia.

Recession plays a factor in shift

Steven Camarota of CIS said native-born Americans are not only willing to take on those jobs, but currently fill a majority of them.

Native-born workers outnumber immigrants 3-to-1 in construction jobs and 2-to-1 in farming, fishing and forestry jobs, according to Camarota.

T. Willard Fair, president and CEO of the Urban League of Greater Miami, said it has taken the greatest recession in a generation for poor Americans to line up to work in fields and factories.

"We'll take anything now," Fair said. "We're willing to be exploited for a while."

After ICE agents descend on poultry-processing plants, pork factories and meatpacking facilities across the USA, in some cases plant owners are forced to raise wages to get Americans to sign up, Swain said.

Catherine Singley, a policy analyst for the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), the nation's largest Hispanic civil rights organization, said the post-raid increases in salaries were also necessary for Americans to accept the harsh, dangerous working environments.

She said wages did not plummet in recent decades because of immigrants undercutting Americans, but because employers took advantage of the immigrant population fearful of seeking help from authorities.

"If you've got a segment of the workforce that's afraid to speak out against violations of their labor rights, then that drags down wages and working conditions for all workers," Singley said.

A report released last week by the NCLR found that the occupational fatality rate for Latinos remained the highest among ethnic groups in the country for the 15th straight year in 2007, when 937 Latinos died on the job.

"That's something that native-born Americans and native-born Latino workers are dealing with for the first time," she said.

New leverage for workers

As the face of factory workers changes, so do the issues that workers and employers must tackle.

Cashen said her union had to negotiate with plant managers in Nebraska and Colorado to allow employees to properly observe the Islamic holiday of Ramadan.

This month, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled that the Colorado plant was wrong to fire more than 100 Muslim workers who walked out during Ramadan last year in a dispute over prayer breaks.

"Ten years ago, we were negotiating to provide for Cinco de Mayo," Cashen said, referring to the Mexican holiday. "If you walk in the doors of a plant, you're going to see … the United Nations."

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I was surprised and pleased to find this article on the USA TODAY site.

I hope it is in the printed paper on Monday.

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RELATED

I.C.E. News Releases

September 15, 2009

Missouri poultry processing plant pays $450,000 fine for hiring illegal aliens

http://www.ice.gov/pi/nr/0909/090915springfield.htm

http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-171159.html

Of Course!! American's have been booted out of these jobs for YEARS!! I know this, because my dad was a welder in 1980 making $15 an hour, but was laid off and replaced by illegals at $8 and hour. Mr. and Mrs. Foster that owned Trailmaster Tanks should be ashamed of themselves!!! It changed his life for the worst!!

USA TODAY LETTERS

American workers benefit from immigration raids

Mark C. Ferguson - Salt Lake City

Thank you for the update regarding the aftermath of the controversial raids on plants employing illegal workers. Though this is an emotionally charged issue, the outcome proved to be a positive step toward employing jobless Americans, especially black and Hispanic Americans who are suffering the highest rates of unemployment. ("Immigration raids yield jobs for legal workers," News, Monday).

(Raid in 2006: Lisa Gallegos cries during a raid by Immigration and Customs Enforcement at a meat plant owned by Swift & Co. in Greeley, Colo./File photo by Richard M. Hackett, The (Longmont, Colo.) Times-Call, via AP)


Wages and working conditions cannot help but improve with the continuation of workplace enforcement and increasing the use of E-Verify, a database that businesses can use to confirm employees' legal status.

While the federal government continues to allow legal immigration of workers, at about 125,000 a month,15 million unemployed Americans should have every opportunity for re-employment and/or full-time employment. Replacing illegal workers, first with unemployed Americans and then legal immigrant workers, until the federal government regulates a sustainable legal immigrant worker quota, will bring integrity and legitimacy back into the American workplace.
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Foreign workers needed

Michael O'Neill - Wainscott, N.Y. b

Why in the world would USA TODAY cite such a discredited outfit such as the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) as a disinterested authority in the article "Immigration raids yield jobs for legal workers"? The organization was started by John Tanton, a eugenics advocate who has never found a positive aspect about immigrants, authorized or unauthorized.

The group has consistently seen all immigration and all immigrants as harmful, and strangely enough, all of its so-called studies confirm that.

Follow the money, rather than the biased "studies" of CIS. Here in New York's largest agricultural county, Suffolk, nurseries, vintners and farmers have had a severe shortage of workers. Immigrant workers make a huge positive contribution to our economy. It would never recover if we followed the skewed and slanted recommendations of CIS.
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Willing to work

Bruce Beals - Copperas Cove, Texas

Another myth concerning illegal immigration was debunked in USA TODAY's article "Immigration raids yield jobs for legal workers."

As Vanderbilt University professor Carol Swain discovered during her research, illegal immigrants really do take jobs from Americans, and many unemployed citizens are eager to fill those jobs when they are available, despite what some politicians and "immigrant rights" organizations have told us for years. The notion that some Americans willingly remain unemployed and poor, rather than work to support themselves and their families, has served as a flawed justification for narrow special-interest agendas and institutionalized illegal behavior.

It is, however, interesting that T. Willard Fair, president and CEO of the Urban League of Greater Miami, said, "We're willing to be exploited for a while," when commenting on poor or unemployed Americans taking jobs in fields and factories.

Unfortunately, a few Americans choose to characterize honest labor as a form of class warfare and exploitation. As long as they view unemployment as a viable alternative to honest work, a demand for illegal immigrants to fill jobs that could be performed by Americans will continue.

Posted at 12:10 AM/ET, September 18, 2009 in Immigration - Letters, Letter to the editor
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Well duh!!

There aren't 'Jobs Americans Won't Do", there are only 'Jobs Americans Won't Do at 3rd World Wages'!

Here is a nice little comparrison that I found somewhere:

Joe Legal vs. Jose Illegal

Here is an example of why hiring illegal aliens is not
economically productive for the State of California, or anywhere else in
our nation...

You have 2 families..."Joe Legal" and "Jose Illegal".
Both families have 2 parents, 2 children and live in California

"Joe Legal" works in construction, has a Social Security Number,
and makes $25.00 per hour with payroll taxes deducted...

"Jose Illegal" also works in construction, has "NO" Social Security Number, and
gets paid $15.00 cash "under the table". Joe Legal...$25.00 per hour x 40 hours
$1000.00 per week, or $52,000 per year.
Now take 30% away for state & federal tax.

Joe Legal now has $31,231.00

Jose Illegal...$15.00 per hour x 40 hours $600.00 per week, or $31,200.00 per year.
Jose Illegal pays no taxes...

Jose Illegal now has $31,200.00.

Joe Legal pays Medical and Dental Insurance with limited coverage
$1000.00 per month or $12,000.00 per year.


Joe Legal now has $19,231.00 … Jose Illegal has full Medical and Dental coverage through the state and local clinics at a cost of $0.00 per year.

Jose Illegal still has $31,200.00

Joe Legal makes too much money and is not eligible for Food Stamps or welfare.

Joe Legal pays for food $1,000.00 per month or $12,000.00 per year.
Joe Legal now has $ 7,231.00

Jose Illegal has no documented income and is eligible for Food Stamps and Welfare.
Jose Illegal still has $31,200.00

Joe Legal pays rent of $1,000.00 per month, or $12,000.00 per year.
Joe Legal is now in the hole... minus (-) $4,769.00

Jose Illegal receives a $500 per month Federal rent subsidy.
Jose Illegal pays rent $500.00 per month unsubsidized, or $6,000.00 per year.
Jose Illegal still has $25,200.00

Joe Legal now works overtime on Saturdays or gets a part time job after work to cover his
bills, like a good and responsible American does.

Jose Illegal has nights and weekends off to enjoy with his family.

Joe Legal's and Jose Illegal's children both attend the same school.

Joe Legal pays for his children's lunches while Jose Illegal's children get a government
sponsored lunch.

Jose Illegal's children have an after school ESL program.
Joe Legal's children go home.

Joe Legal and Jose Illegal both enjoy the same Police and Fire Services, but Joe paid for
them and Jose did not pay.

Do you get it now?
It's not a matter of being "nice" to illegals, they are LAW BREAKERS! Criminals!
The above situation is REAL and IS supported by the very politicians who are at this moment running this country into bankruptcy!

Don't vote/support any politician that supports illegal aliens...
It's PAST time to take a stand for America and Americans (the REAL ones)! YOU do the math!!!

Doesn't take a rocket scientist to see this one .... nope ...