Number	14085
Subject	Immigration
Source	U.S. News & World Report
State	None
Year	1996
Publication Date	September 23, 1996
Summary	When the Immigration and Naturalization Service raided the Iowa Beef Processors plan in Storm Lake, Iowa, they escorted 78 illegal immigrants outside of the company's cafeteria and sent them home to Mexico. It was a raid townsfolk in Iowa -- who couldn't get used to the foreigners -- had been waiting for since the tiny town of 8,700 had been transformed by the steady influx of immigrants from Mexico. These workers -- who work long hours at low wages -- did much of the killing, cutting and packaging of up to 13,000 hogs a day. With the new residents, crime is up, the number of arrests more than doubling over the past decade. Storm Lake's public schools have had to provide an expensive English as a Second Language program for more than a fifth of its 1,800 students. But the influx of immigrants is no accident. It is a promoted policy in the meatpacking industry. According to federal investigators, company-paid agents and workers themselves, meatpacking industries search aggresively for employees in southern border states and hire recruiters who find workers in Mexico. Why? No one else wants the dangerous, low-paying jobs.
Category	General
Pages	None
Keywords	Immigrant labor; illegal immigrants; meatpacking; Iowa Beef Processors
Related Links	None
Related Video	None
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