Agricultural Personnel Management Program
University of California

12/20/01  News Report -- The Charlotte Observer

Some Wilkesboro residents say they can't believe Wilkes County's largest employer, Tyson Foods Inc., has been indicted on charges of smuggling illegal immigrant workers into its plants and giving them bogus work papers.

Tyson, the nation's largest meat producer, has been a good neighbor, employing 3,000 in the county and sponsoring blood drives, said Wilkesboro Mayor Norman Call.

"I wouldn't think they would do anything like that," he said.

But a federal grand jury in the U.S. District Court of Tennessee's Eastern District has indicted the Arkansas-based company and six of its current and former managers on 36 counts, ranging from causing the use of illegal documents to conspiracy to defraud and obstruct the Immigration and Naturalization Service. The indictment was unsealed Wednesday. Tyson denies corporate wrongdoing; the individuals could not be reached for comment Thursday.

Tyson has four N.C. divisions - three in Wilkesboro and one in Monroe. None of the six indicted employees is from an N.C. factory.

The 57-page indictment charges that two Wilkesboro plants - the fresh poultry and cooked poultry operations - used two temporary staffing agencies to hire illegal workers from July 1998 to February 2001. The Monroe plant used another two agencies for illegal workers, from August 1998 to January 2001, the document says.

In the fall of 1998, according to the indictment, an unidentified co-conspirator told the personnel manager of the Monroe Tyson plant, "You gotta do what you gotta do. If you need to hire more temps, then hire more temps."

The government contends "temps" was often code for illegal aliens among Tyson management.

Management at the N.C. plants referred questions to Tyson's headquarters.

Tyson officials could not be reached for comment Thursday, but in a statement, the company said it was innocent of conspiracy and of alleged poor working conditions for illegal immigrants, such as fewer breaks. The company also said the indictment came because it refused to agree to "the prosecutors' outrageous financial demands." Tyson did not elaborate on what those demands were.

The company said that, after an internal investigation, it dismissed four of the six managers accused in the indictment and placed the other two on administrative leave several months ago.

Those managers acted alone, without the company's consent, and broke company policy at five of the company's 57 plants, the company said.

The indictment, though, accuses Tyson of creating a corporate culture of hiring illegal aliens to boost production and cut costs.

The case is the largest against an American company for alleged smuggling, said INS commissioner James Ziglar.

"INS means business and companies, regardless of size, are on notice that INS is committed to enforcing compliance with immigration laws and protecting America's work force," he said.

After a two-and-a-half year investigation, the government accused Tyson of paying undercover agents for delivery of illegal aliens to Tyson plants across the country and providing them with fake Social Security and other identification cards.

The 15 processing plants from Texas to Virginia, including the N.C. sites, welcomed the illegal aliens, according to the indictment.

The government said Tyson preferred the illegal workers because they were paid less, would work with fewer breaks and would be less likely to file for workers' compensation, for fear of deportation.

The INS sent several undercover agents to act as smugglers, helping the aliens "through the river" across the Rio Grande. Tyson paid the agents with corporate checks, according to the indictment.

Many of Tyson's offers were for $100 per smuggled head or more for those who would be guaranteed to be "responsible," according to the indictment. Undercover agents also told Tyson management that bogus Social Security cards would cost $200 each.

The indictment charged that the indicted managers agreed to the payment but wanted to make sure to call them "recruiting" fees.

The Justice Department doesn't know how many total illegal aliens Tyson hired, said spokesman Bryan Sierra, beyond those involved in the investigation. Among the allegations, Tyson asked undercover agents to bring in more than 2,000 illegal immigrants from Mexico to Guatemala.

Most of the smuggling went through a former Tyson employee who called himself "Jefe de Jefes," the boss of the bosses, the government alleges.

The former employee, who was not indicted, worked at a shop in Shelbyville, Tenn., outside a Tyson plant and helped the aliens obtain fake Social Security and other identification cards, according to the indictment.