“Warehouse Bosses’ Christmas Gift: Illegal Retaliation Against Immigrant Union Members.”Industrial Workers of the World. (Dec. 28, 2006). “This week owners from four different warehouses illegally threatened to call immigration or terminate union workers due to their immigration status in clear retaliation for the workers' union activities. Tuesday's march and picket will target Amersino Marketing Group, 161 Gardner Ave, Brooklyn, NY.” [read article]
McKinney, Matt. “Meatpacking Raids Illustrate How Much Industry Has Changed.”Star Tribune. (Dec. 25, 2006). “It doesn't seem that long ago to Jack Cagle that he was working in the state's meatpacking plants with folks who were proud of their jobs, able to raise families on their salaries and were not eager, despite the danger, to give up the work to outsiders.” [read article]
Associated Press. “Feds Seek More Illegal Workers in Meatpacking Plant Probe.”Fox News. (Dec. 21, 2006). "Raids at meatpacking plants in six states last week started with an investigation in early March that uncovered a potential of 4,300 illegal workers, only a fraction of which have been caught, U.S. Attorney Matthew Whitaker said Wednesday.” [read article]
UFCW Press Release. “Worker Impact of ICE Raids at Swift”(Dec. 20, 2006). “On behalf of the 1.3 million members of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to address this briefing panel about the impact of our broken immigration system on workers across the country.” [read article]
Black, Ken. “Visack Outraged By Fed Actions.” Times Republican. (Dec 20, 2006). "Gov. Tom Vilsack told local Latinos and Marshalltown leaders Tuesday he was outraged with the way the federal government conducted its raid on the Swift plant last week and was demanding answers." [read article]
Black, Ken. “Harkin Expresses Concern Over Handling of Swift Raid.” Times Republican. (Dec. 20, 2006). "Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, Tuesday called for a complete overhaul of the federal summit on the issue to be held in Marshalltown." [read article]
Overstreet, Tracy. “Union: Civil Rights Violations Occurred with Swift Raid.” The Grand Island Independent. (Dec. 20, 2006). "‘It's my opinion, and the opinion of the international union, if there's criminal action, we don't condone criminals or any kind of illegal activity,’ said Dan Hoppes, president of United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 22.’But, by the same token, they could have come into these plants with warrants and arrested these people who are in violation without completely disrupting the whole community and the Hispanic population and whoever may be an immigrant.’" [read article]
“Twenty Indicted in Swift Sweep.” Associated Press. (Dec. 19, 2006). “A federal grand jury in Minneapolis has indicted 20 people on immigration related charges — including 15 for alleged identity theft — stemming from last week’s raid at the Swift & Co. meatpacking plant in Worthington.” [read article]
Dunn, Sharon. “Union Says ICE Raid Against Both 4th and 5Th Amendments.” Greeley Tribune. (Dec 19, 2006). “The union that represents workers at the Swift & Co. meatpacking plant argued late Monday that an investigation of identity theft at the Greeley plant was nothing more than a Trojan Horse to "effectuate an immigration raid" and called it an outrageous abuse of power.” [read article]
Brewer, John. “Immigration Arrests Denounced at Rally.” Pioneer Press. (Dec. 19, 2006). “They came to tell the stories they say aren't being told. In the wake of last Tuesday's raids at Swift & Co. meatpacking plants in Worthington, Minn., and five other states, a group of about 200 people gathered Monday afternoon outside the St. Paul offices of U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman to condemn the federal action and demand immigration reform." [read article]
Garcia, Oskar. “Union: Fewer Hispanics Immigrants Hired Since Swift Raids.”Houston Chronicle. (Dec. 19, 2006). "Fewer Hispanic immigrants are being hired to replace meatpacking workers arrested at Swift & Co. plants in Grand Island, Neb., and Greeley, Colo., during last week's immigration raid, union officials said today.” [read article]
Browning, Dan. “19 Held in Raid Face Charges of ID Theft.” Star Tribune. (Dec. 18, 2006). “A federal grand jury in Minneapolis indicted 15 people on identity-theft charges and four more on other identity-related counts, all stemming from last week's raid on the Swift & Co. pork processing plant in Worthington, Minn.” [read article]
Associated Press. “Ex-Employees Sue Meatpacking Company Targeted in Illegal Immigration Raid for Wage Manipulation.”Fox News. (Dec. 18, 2006). “Former employees are suing Swift & Co. for $23 million, alleging the meatpacking company conspired to keep wages down by hiring illegal immigrants. [read article]
Jacoby, Tamar. “Immigration Laws Trap Those Who Comply, Those Who Don’t.” Salt Lake Tribune. (Dec 18, 2006). “At dawn on Tuesday more than a thousand Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents descended on six plants owned by Swift & Co., one of the country's largest meat processors. Some 1,300 workers were arrested, and operations at all six slaughterhouses were suspended.” [read article]
Pore, Robert. “A Community’s Pain.” The Grand Island Independent. (Dec 18, 2006). "There were strong feelings about how the government conducted the raid at the Swift plant with a show of force and conducting a mass arrest by people at the prayer vigil.” [read article]
Finley, Bruce. “Managers Who Hire Undocumented Are Seldom Punished As Workers Are.” The Denver Post. (Dec. 17, 2006). “Homeland Security chiefs hailed last week's raids on Swift & Co. meatpacking plants as examples of newly aggressive work site enforcement against companies that rely on illegal foreign labor.” [read article]
“Greeley Detainees Being Transported Back to Colorado.” Greeley Tribune. (Dec. 17, 2006). “The Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials are returning about 75 people taken in the Greeley Swift raid back to Colorado after they were shipped to a federal immigration jail in Texas.” [read article]
Preston, Julia. “Immigrants’ Families Figuring Out What to Do After Federal Raids.” New York Times. (Dec. 16, 2006). “Immigrant families scrambled yesterday to find detained relatives, arrange care for children of deported parents and recover from the loss of work as a result of raids this week by immigration authorities at meat-packing plants in six states.” [read article]
Tracer, Kelly. “Swift ICE Raid Suspects Appear in Court.” Greeley Tribune. (Dec. 16, 2006). “Appearing Friday in before Weld District Court Judge Francis Hartmann were: Carlos Guerra-Serrano, Luz CanalesCortez, Jose Alonso Gonzalez-Barrera, Cruz Tajpop-Torres and Amelia Andres-Pedro. Each of these former Swift employees could face three or four charges. Most pending charges in these cases involve forgery of government-issued documents, criminal impersonation and identification theft.” [read article]
Solia, Dianne. “ID Theft Charges Mount in Swift Immigration Raids.” Dallas News. (Dec. 15, 2006). “Fifty-three workers arrested in Texas during the raids at Swift & Co. earlier this week has been charged with criminal identity theft, shedding new light on victims in the state and as far away as Puerto Rico and Massachusetts.” [read article]
Bacon, David. “Justice Deported: Tuesday’s immigrations raids on meatpacking plants weren’t about curbing identity theft, they were about union busting.”American Prospect Online. (Dec. 14, 2006). [read article]
Talhelm, Jennifer. “Raids Draw Skepticism From Both Sides in Immigration Debate.”The Seattle Times. (Dec. 14, 2006). “A series of raids on meatpacking plants in six states added up to the largest-ever workplace crackdown on illegal immigration, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Wednesday.” [read article]
Swarns, Rachel L. “Illegal Immigrants at Center for New Identity Theft Crackdown.” New York Times. (Dec. 14, 2006). “Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff on Wednesday announced a broad new plan to crack down on illegal immigrants who steal the identities of American citizens to get jobs. The strategy, he warned, would likely have economic consequences for the industries that rely heavily on illegal workers.” [read article]
Wettschrek, Justine. “Union Decries Action.” Worthington Daily Globe. (Dec 14, 2006). “Representatives from the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) and local church leaders met Wednesday for a press conference to speak about the Department of Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) enforcement investigation that took place at the six Swift and Co. meatpacking plants, including the Worthington facility.” [read article]
“Ice Terrorizing Immigrant Workers Because of Failed U.S. Immigration Policy.”UFCW. (Dec. 13, 2006). “United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) members working in Swift and Company meatpacking plants are reporting that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents marched into plants Tuesday morning with military weapons, herding, segregating, and terrorizing workers. Plants and plant gates were locked down.” [read article]
House, Dawn; Moulton, Kristen; Sanchez, Jennifer. “Immigration Agents Looking for Stolen ID’s Detain Scores in Hyrum.” The Salt Lake Tribune (Dec. 13, 2006). “If only for a few minutes, Maria felt like an 'illegal alien' in her homeland - the United States of America. She thought she was going on break from her job at the Swift & Co. meat processing plant here on Tuesday, but instead she and others were forced to stand in a line by U.S. immigration agents. Non-Latinos and people with lighter skin were plucked out of line and given blue bracelets.” [read article]
Ryan, Missy. “U.S. Chases Identity Theft In Biggest Work Raid Ever.” Reuters. (Dec. 13, 2006). “A day after federal agents netted 1,300 meat plant workers in the largest immigration sweep in U.S. history, federal officials pledged on Wednesday to continue a crackdown on illegal workers and identity theft.” [read article]
Burr, Thomas and Sanchez, Jennifer. “145 Were Arrested in Hyrum Immigration Raid.” Salt Lake Tribune. (Dec. 13, 2006). “Federal agents who raided a Utah, meat plant yesterday arrested 145 people, officials said today.” [read article]
Preston, Julia. “U.S. Raids 6 Meat Plants in ID Case.” New York Times. (Dec. 13, 2006). “In simultaneous dawn raids, federal immigration agents swept into six Swift & Company meatpacking plants in six states yesterday, rounding up hundreds of immigrant workers in what the agents described as a vast criminal investigation of identity theft.” [read article]
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “U.S. Uncovers Large-Scale Identity Theft Scheme Used By Illegal Aliens to Gain Employment at Nationwide Meat Processor.” (Dec. 13, 2006). [read article]
Talhelm, Jennifer. “Feds Arrest 1,200 in Raids, Point to Identity Theft.” Associated Press. (Dec.13, 2006). “Federal officials said Wednesday that the raids on meatpacking plants in six states uncovered a ‘disturbing front’ in the battle against illegal immigration identity theft as a tool to obtain employment.” [read article]
Swift & Co. Press Release. “Swift & Company Domestic Production Facilities Resume Operations After Completion of Employee Interviews by U.S. Immigrations Officials.” (Dec. 13, 2006). [read article]
Swift & Co. Press Release. “U.S. Immigration Officials Commence Employee Interviews at Six Swift & Company Facilities.” (Dec 12, 2006). [read article]
UFCW Press Release. “Food and Commercial Workers Seek Federal Injunction to End Attacks Against Workers In Meatpacking Plants.” (Dec. 12, 2006). [read article]
The White House. “Fact Sheet: Basic Pilot: A Clear and Reliable Way to Verify Employment Eligibility.” (July 5, 2006). [read article]
Boyle, Katherine. “Labor Union Officials Discuss Immigration Rights.”Medill News Service. (May 26, 2006). “As the Senate passed a major immigration reform bill Thursday, officials from two large chapters of the Service Employees International Union spoke out on behalf of immigration rights.” [read article]
Robbins, Tom. “Labor War In Chelsea: For the First Time, Non-Union Immigrants Are Building Manhattan’s High Rise Towers.”Village Voice. (May 9, 2006). “There's a nasty little chapter in the national immigration debate playing out along the side streets in the West Twenties in Manhattan these days. There, construction union members, many of them first- and second-generation immigrants themselves, are squared off against a contractor using just-off-the-boat employees willing to work long hours at substandard wages with no benefits.” [read article]
Myers, Linda. “Migrant Labor Activist at ILR Union Days Calls For Rights For Immigrant Workers.”Cornell University Chronicle. (April 11, 2006). “Valdemar Velasquez was only 6 when he began working in the sugar beet fields of Ohio to help put food on his family's table. He knew that his Mexican-born parents wanted more for him, but as impoverished migrant farmworkers they weren't able to provide it. Harder than the poverty, however, Velasquez recalls, was the sting of witnessing his father being paid less than promised and his family treated like pariahs in the communities where they lived and worked.” [read article]