Illegal Aliens: Who Left the Door Open?

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This notion was supported by evidence introduced during an alien-smuggling trial in 2003 involving Tyson Foods Inc., which describes itself as "the world's largest processor and marketer of chicken, beef and pork." In this secretly recorded conversation, a federal undercover agent posed as an alien smuggler who was taking an order from the manager of a chicken-processing plant in Monroe, N.C.:

FEDERAL AGENT: [After explaining that he was a friend of a mutual friend] He said you wanted to talk to me?

CHICKEN-PLANT MANAGER: Yeah, about help ... Now I'm going to need quite a few ... Starting on the 29th, a Monday, we are going to start. How many can I get, and how often can you do it?

FEDERAL AGENT: Well, it's not a problem. I think [the mutual friend] told me that you wanted 10?

CHICKEN-PLANT MANAGER: Well, 10 at a time. But over the period of the next three or four months--January, February, March, April, probably May, stuff like that--I'm going to replace somewhere between 300 and 400 people, maybe 500. I'm going to need a lot.

FEDERAL AGENT: ... I can give you what you need.

CHICKEN-PLANT MANAGER: Now let me ask you this. Do these people have a photo ID and a Social Security card?

FEDERAL AGENT: No ... these people come from Mexico. I pick them up at Del Rio. That's in Texas, after they cross the river, and then we take them over there, and they get their cards. [The mutual friend] gets them their cards, I guess.

CHICKEN-PLANT MANAGER: I need to talk to him about that.

FEDERAL AGENT: About the cards?

CHICKEN-PLANT MANAGER: Yes, some of them that's got the INS card, and if they put it in a computer ... if it's not any good ... Something happens, and we have to lay them off. But if they just have got a regular photo ID from anywhere and a Social Security card, then we don't have to do that.

Securing phony paperwork was part of the scheme, and corporate plant managers often knew in detail how the illegals got their papers. This was apparent in the following exchange between the undercover federal agent arranging for illegals and the manager of a Tyson facility in Glen Allen, Va. The manager is talking about a go-between named Amador who had delivered workers in the past.

TYSON MANAGER: When I went to Tyson and I met Amador, we had very few Spanish-speaking people. With Amador's help, in a couple of years, we went from very few to 80%.

FEDERAL AGENT: My job ... is to get the people in Mexico to come to the border. When they cross the river, I pick them up, and then I take them to Amador. And he says he can get them, you know, their cards--their IDs and their Social Security cards, and they can go to work that way.

TYSON MANAGER: Excellent. That's what we're needing.

Two Tyson managers later pleaded guilty to conspiring to hire illegal aliens. Three other managers were acquitted of the charges, as was the Tyson Corp. itself. The company insisted that it did not know that illegals were being hired at some of its plants. A company spokesman said the charges were "absolutely false. In reality, the specific charges are limited to a few managers who were acting outside of company policy at five of our 57 poultry-processing plants."