ShareThisWhat are your thoughts on this Immigration raids yield jobs for legal workers?
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.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/workplace/2009-09-13-plants_N.htm
Do illegal aliens really believe that this country needs them for their hard work?
WE NEVER ASKED FOR THEM!
Only corrupt agricultural and livestock giants like tyson and natural foods will use thier labor as a way to increase profits to the big men..CEOs etc.. In reality there are plenty of legal immigrants whom need work and even without the legal immigrants there are agricultural machines that could do most of the work if not all. They don’t utilize them becasue it is cheaper to hire an illegal if they can get away with it…as corrupt as that is.Poor Illegal aliens are not the backbone of America,,they don’t do the jobs that American’s won’t..they do the jobs that Americans CAN’T get hired to do because they are a citizen…there is a difference. illegal immigration is decaying the economy and social services of this nation…enough is enough..no more pity for illegals
AND don’t say Ameican people can’t do hard work in the hot sun
highway construction, steelwork, commercial fishing, electricity companies,,, still mostlky American workers
illegals get hired by criminals who use the system, they are for the most part inferior workers because of the language barrier and their low skills
nobody needs them angela but people will exploit them a lot of the time people just give them a helping hand with a job, not that they have any humility for it
