"Swift" Justice In Raids Against Immigrants Working In the Meat Packing Industry

U.S. Raids 6 Meat Plants in ID Case

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.

More than 1,000 agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement appeared at 6 a.m. at the Swift plants with warrants to search for illegal immigrants. Inside, agents separated American citizens from immigrants, interviewing all the foreign workers and taking hundreds away in buses to immigration detention centers.

In a new enforcement tactic, federal officials said they planned to bring criminal charges against some of the immigrants accused of using stolen identities. They said the raids were tied to complaints from United States citizens who discovered that their names were being used by Swift plant workers.

“There are several hundred Americans who were victimized,” said Marc Raimondi, a spokesman for the immigration agency, known as I.C.E.

Other immigrants who are found to be living illegally in the United States will be deported, Mr. Raimondi said.

Can anyone tell me what is missing from this equation? While several hundred ordinary citizens have been victims of identity theft so that immigrants working illegally can be hired and work in the meat packing industry, several hundred people were rounded up and prosecuted or deported, the taxpayers were left with the bill. Let us assume that each of the agents involved has a salary of at least $45,000 per year. Each agent would be paid an hourly wage of $22.50 per hour. Given that there is a certain amount of paper work, processing, testimony and investigation involved, let us assume that each agent put a total of 80 work hours into this raid. That being the case, this raid cost us taxpayers an approximate $1,800,000 dollars. That amount does not include the costs of housing these folks while awaiting prosecution or deportation, the cost of food and medical care, nor the costs of prosecuting and defending attorneys involved at the court level. So, somewhere along the way, we are going to incur an approximate cost of $3-3.5 million to facilitate the arrest and prosecution (or deportation) of several hundred people that were paying taxes, contributing to the economy, and not necessarily involved in any violent crimes. In fact, if they had been allowed to be here legally, they may have well been outstanding citizens. Certainly there may have been a number of them involved in crime, but we have that among our own citizenry.

It just seems to me that the approach being empluyed is not only wrong-headed, but unproductive and costly. While I support the notion that identity theft should be prosecuted, we could have avoided the circumstances that bred the identity theft in the first place by having a fair, equitable and sound immigration policy. I am not trying to absolve those that participated in identity theft, just pointing out the reality that our absurd, unjust and convoluted immigration policies have created. But more importantly, we are spending a huge amount of money to effect this wrong-headed policies.

The raids brought protests from Swift, the only business singled out, and from the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, which organizes employees at five of the six plants.

Sam Rovit, chief executive of Swift, said the company learned of the I.C.E. investigation in March, but had been “rebuffed repeatedly” when it offered to cooperate. Mr. Rovit said the company had participated since 1997 in a federal program known as Basic Pilot, which allows employers to use a federal database to verify documents presented by job-seekers.

“We have complied with every law that is out there on the books,” Mr. Rovit said in an interview.

I do not understand how a company with the major resources availble to it like those available to Swift can point a finger at everyone else and not accept any responsibility for not thoroughly vetting those it hires in terms of legal work status. I know I have had a tough time legitimately producing evidence of my eligibility to work in the US, and I am a native. The number of documents required to assure my past employers that I am legally able to work in the US is an incredible burden and expense. My passport, which expired this year, cost me almost $80. My birth certificate, which used to cost only $2, now costs $20, with an additional cost for mailing. My wife's birth certificate cost $38 to obtain. Just making those documents available is a process.

Then there are the phony documents. Anyone that has ever purchased a good false ID for the purposes of buying alcoholic beverages will tell you that the average bar tender or liquor store clerk can recognize most phony IDs a mile away. Even the more eloborate false IDs, the ones that might cost a hundred bucks or more, are not that
convincing. The professional false IDs, costing as much as a thousand bucks per document, are way out of the grasp of most seeking to work under an illegal status. So, how is it that the average human resource staffer can't identify a false ID the way a bar tender (who looks at it under dimmed lights) can? How is it that these HR folks cannot spot a falsified set of documents when a part-time liquor store clerk can? We'll get back to these questions...

The six plants employ more than 10,000 people, Swift executives said.

Hmmm... One might think that there is an inherent conflict of interest in having a company dependent upon keeping labor costs down performing the screening of applicants for jobs in terms of legal status. Would there not be at least some motivation and incentive to turn a blind eye to those imperfections associated with falsified documents in order to hire less demanding, and less costly, workers? How many other industries have the same motivation and incentives?

Mr. Rovit said the company had been careful to avoid inquiring too deeply into backgrounds of job applicants. He said the Justice Department sued Swift in 2001 charging that it discriminated against immigrant workers. The case was settled for $200,000, a company statement said.

Illegal immigrants frequently use false Social Security cards or residency documents known as green cards when they apply for jobs. I.C.E. officials said the operation focused on immigrants who had obtained documents with identity information corresponding to that of United States citizens, in some cases by buying them from underground organizations that traffic in false documents.

Typical CYA and double-speak corporate lingo and excuse-making. It demonstrates that like many corporations dependent (by their own greed) on the cheap labor of immigrants (legally present in the US or not), Swift is unwilling to take responsibility for its own actions. I think Swift ought to bear the burden of the costs for the raid... but that is most unlikely.

Officials at the union called the operation a “wholesale roundup” and said they would seek injunctions on behalf of the detained workers.

“Worksite raids are not an effective form of immigration reform,” said Jill Cashen, a spokeswoman for the union. “They terrorize workers and destroy families.”

While I agree with the assessment that these types of raids are not effective (especially cost effective), and that there is definitely disruption of families, I think the union ought to own a part of the burden as well. How is it that a person lacking legal work status can get a union membership? Why aren't the unions taking steps to protect workers and jobs from these raids by assuring that union shops do not hire those lacking legal status? Wouldn't assuring the legal status of its membership assure the union its place in the corporation?

Still, the place to start the effort to effect a right-headed approach to immigration and legal work status is making sure our immigration policy is fair and equitable, and our borders are safe and secure in a manner that reflects humane respect for all. Then again, if we were more effective in assuring that our foreign aid, and our foreign policies, did not go to support despots, elitists and autocrats, then perhaps we might not have the immigration problem to begin with. Makes me want to consider the Global Marshall Plan.