Swift hires American citizens, legal residents to replace illegal workers

Swift hires American citizens, legal residents to replace illegal workers

A grassroots border security organization is praising Swift & Company meat packing for its recent announcement that it has hired nearly 1,300 U.S. citizens and legal residents to fill jobs that used to be done by illegal aliens.

In December 2006, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents conducted raids on Swift plants in six states, arresting about 1,300 workers. The Greeley, Colorado-based company says the raids cost it an estimated $50 million; but Swift reports it has now returned to "standard staffing levels" at all the affected processing facilities with people who have a legal right to work in the United States.

Steve Elliot is president of Grassfire.org, an organizing center for conservative activists. He is calling the company's achievement the "Swift Miracle."

Swift is reporting in the company's own quarterly report "that they are 'up to normal production levels' and that their operational and cost position has improved," Elliot notes. "So we think Swift is actually going to be in a better place hiring American citizens to do these jobs," he says, "and, yes, it is simply a ruse that they have to hire illegal aliens at cheap wages to make a living."

Swift had no problem finding people to fill the positions formerly held by illegal aliens, the Grassfire.org spokesman contends. "Just a few months after they were busted by government officials, they had no problem filling those positions with Americans who are willing to do those jobs and earn a living in the meat-packing industry," he says.

Elliot insists the meat company's story completely debunks the argument by advocates for open borders that the U.S. government must give amnesty to millions of illegal aliens in the country. "[T]his just blows holes in one of the biggest arguments of the amnesty agenda: that illegals are coming here to do jobs Americans won't do," he adds. "It's simply not true," he says; "Americans will do these jobs if given the opportunity."

Thanks to the "Swift Miracle," Eliot says, those who support the open borders/amnesty agenda can no longer use the jobs excuse to justify the flood of illegal immigrants into the U.S.

The Swift plants involved in the December 2006 raids are located in Cactus, Texas; Grand Island, Nebraska; Greeley, Colorado; Hyrum, Utah; Marshalltown, Iowa; and Worthington, Minnesota. In a May 11 press release, the company notes that the government made no charges or accusations of wrongdoing against Swift in connection with the investigation into employees' immigration status. Swift claims to be one of "very few" U.S. employers that make use of a voluntary, online verification system that allows employers to confirm the eligibility of new hires by checking the personal information they provide against federal databases.