Federal immigration raid at Omaha meat production plant sparks annoyance from corporate management

[rjs330]

...curious if the big beautiful bill contains any fundng for E-verify. The defficiencies with that system have been known for years...yet Congress seemingly does nothing to address them.

I'm sure Congressmen have no idea e-verify isnt reliable.

However that a small part of immigration law reform. And even if they knew you can color me skeptical that they arw going to do anything about it. Congress has been a feckless organization regarding immigration. And it doeant matter at all who is in power.

 

[rjs330]

Interesting that ICE somehow knows the precise businesses that are hiring undocumented workers while the very businesses themselves were unaware of who they hired.

Its about investigations and organizations. Neither you nor i know how ICE works or how they discover who's illegal and who's not or where they are. Your individual business owner just trusts e-verify (if they use it) to let them know. It sounds like ICE knows its not reliable. If ICE does so does others and rhey have known most likely for a long time and they dont care.

Whomever is in charge of e-verify needs their feet held to the fire to fix it now. Its been broken most likely for years. Its time to fix it. Will Trump.do it? I hope so.

 

[rambot]

If the company followed the laws available to them they shouldnt be held accountable.

If you ask me thus just shows how criminal the aliens are who are stealing other people's identities. Just another example of their criminal mindset.

LOL! You guys are hilarious.....whatever it takes to protect "red blooded rich americans".

Those poor, poor managers of corporate entities. If only they wouldn't be so easily hoodwinked by those destitute and desperate Guatamalans.


Do you know what a "power imbalance" even means?

 

[wing2000]

Deport illegal immigrants! (but not my illegal immigrant)

It seems some Hotel and Agriculture folks had a phone call with Trump today....

[...so are we to surmise the illegal immigrants who came in under Trump 1 are "very good, long time workers" and those under Biden are criminals?]

[Stephen Miller won't be happy]

 

[essentialsaltes]

It seems some Hotel and Agriculture folks had a phone call with Trump today....

View attachment 366229

Protect agriculture and meat companies.
Arrest their illegal employees they hired.

Changes are coming? A raise to the national minimum wage?!? (I'm guessing no)

 

[wing2000]

Protect agriculture and meat companies.
Arrest their illegal employees they hired.

Changes are coming? A raise to the national minimum wage?!? (I'm guessing no)

The Trump administration has abruptly shifted the focus of its mass deportation campaign, telling Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to largely pause raids and arrests in the agricultural industry, hotels and restaurants, according to an internal email and three U.S. officials with knowledge of the guidance.

The guidance was sent on Thursday in an email by a senior ICE official, Tatum King, to regional leaders of the ICE department that generally carries out criminal investigations, including work site operations, known as Homeland Security Investigations.

“Effective today, please hold on all work site enforcement investigations/operations on agriculture (including aquaculture and meat packing plants), restaurants and operating hotels,” he wrote in the message.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/13/us/politics/trump-ice-raids-farms-hotels.html

 

[essentialsaltes]

“Effective today, please hold on all work site enforcement investigations/operations on agriculture (including aquaculture and meat packing plants), restaurants and operating hotels,” he wrote in the message.

Amazing. Trump has single-handedly saved the food and hospitality industries from abusive ICE raids, not long after saving the nation's economy from punitive tariffs on China. Is there no situation he cannot create and then belatedly fix after the obvious consequences ensue?

 

[wing2000]

Where are the legal replacement workers?

More than 40 percent of the nation’s crop workers have no legal immigration status, the Agriculture Department has estimated.

On Tuesday, federal agents started fanning out across California’s vast agricultural area, from along the coast to the Central Valley. The raids spread chaos in Oxnard, which grows much of the nation’s strawberries, as well as in Kern and Tulare Counties, where vegetables, grapes and delicate fruit, like peaches, are starting to be harvested.

Growers reported that 30 to 60 percent of workers stopped reporting to the fields in the days after the raids.

Agricultural associations in California, Idaho and elsewhere, whose members are typically Republicans, have been bombarding their Senate and congressional offices to voice concerns.

...

Farmers say they routinely resort to hiring workers without work authorization because they cannot find Americans willing to do the physically onerous work. Often, the workers have been paying Social Security taxes and other federal taxes for decades.

Half of the farmworkers interviewed for the National Agricultural Workers Survey, released in 2022 by the Labor Department, had spent 11 to 30 years on farms, and nearly one in five had done so for more than three decades. They were earning an average of $20,000 a year.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/14/us/politics/trump-immigration-raids-workers.html

 

[BCP1928]

I'm sure Congressmen have no idea e-verify isnt reliable.

Nobody else did, either, until that raid. But is it true?

However that a small part of immigration law reform. And even if they knew you can color me skeptical that they arw going to do anything about it. Congress has been a feckless organization regarding immigration. And it doeant matter at all who is in power.

Congress has always been quite consistent. But Trump screwed up and let ICE make a circus out of workplace enforcement. The rank and file of the party, and especially the swing labor vote he got in 2024, are behind workplace enforcement. He's got to do something about it. On the other hand, the people he is mainly beholden to--the big money--want those workers left alone and expect him to make a big show expelling legal aliens, who can't be exploited and actual criminals. Now that he's called off workplace enforcement it will be interesting to see what ICE does next.

 

[rjs330]

LOL! You guys are hilarious.....whatever it takes to protect "red blooded rich americans".

Those poor, poor managers of corporate entities. If only they wouldn't be so easily hoodwinked by those destitute and desperate Guatamalans.


Do you know what a "power imbalance" even means?

Dont be ridiculous. I honestly dont expect you to remember everything I post so I will let your comment slide.

But to remind you I have been a staunch advocate of charging businesses for knowingly hiring illegals. Ive advocated for heavy fines and loss of business licenses. Ive been an advocate for requiring businesses to use e-verify for every hire.

However, if e-verify is not reliable, AND the employee has stolen someone's identity I dont know how in earth you expect a business just to "know" they are hiring an illegal.

How are they supposed to know?

 

[ralliann]

Chad Hartmann, president of the food packaging company, said the front office was stunned by the aggressive nature of federal officials’ raid and confused by why the company was targeted.

“My biggest issue is: why us?” Hartmann said. “We do everything by the book.”

The plant uses E-Verify, the federal database used to check the immigration status of employees. When he said as much to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers who carried out the raid, they told him the E-Verify system “is broken.”

“I mean, what am I supposed to do with that?” Hartmann said. “This is your system, run by the government. And you’re raiding me because your system is broken?”

CEO and owner Gary Rohwer told WOWT in Omaha he wasn’t made aware of the operation ahead of time. He said federal agents entered the plant with a list of 97 people they wanted to screen.

About 70 people were taken away in buses with the windows blacked out, Favila said.

Meatpacking plants rely heavily on immigrant workers who are willing to do the physically demanding work. The industry has not yet been the focus of President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement efforts, but the administration has been intensifying its efforts in recent weeks.

Good. Maybe American workers can return to this work at reasonable pay. Illegals brought down wages.

 

[rjs330]

Congress has always been quite consistent.

Yes completely consistent on failing to address immigration.

But Trump screwed up and let ICE make a circus out of workplace enforcement. The rank and file of the party, and especially the swing labor vote he got in 2024, are behind workplace enforcement.

Yup hes doing exactly what we wanted him to do. Good for him.

He's got to do something about it.

Yes he does. Thats why we voted for him. Its what the majority of Americans want and support.

Now that he's called off workplace enforcement it will be interesting to see what ICE does next.

Yes, I'm not happy about that.

 

[ralliann]

Yes completely consistent on failing to address immigration.

Yup hes doing exactly what we wanted him to do. Good for him.

Yes he does. Thats why we voted for him. Its what the majority of Americans want and support.

Yes, I'm not happy about that.

The woke elite want their underclass poor to provide for them. Like the south, "who will pick our crops????? Cook our meals, provide childcare????? clean our homes...." Oh and our landscapes we love to have trimmed and mowed?

 

[BCP1928]

The woke elite want their underclass poor to provide for them. Like the south, "who will pick our crops????? Cook our meals, provide childcare????? clean our homes...." Oh and our landscapes we love to have trimmed and mowed?

Yep. That's why they wanted a legal underclass of asylum seekers and refugees who were protected by US wage and labor laws. But we're sending those people home. The trouble is that big businesses and farms want to keep the illegal workers they have exploited and apparently we are going to let them.

 

[rambot]

Dont be ridiculous. I honestly dont expect you to remember everything I post so I will let your comment slide.

But to remind you I have been a staunch advocate of charging businesses for knowingly hiring illegals. Ive advocated for heavy fines and loss of business licenses. Ive been an advocate for requiring businesses to use e-verify for every hire.

However, if e-verify is not reliable, AND the employee has stolen someone's identity I dont know how in earth you expect a business just to "know" they are hiring an illegal.

How are they supposed to know?

I have heard you say such things, i totally admit. In fact I've heard several Republicans on here saying such things.


Just seems weird I never see you guys caring enough to start threads about it or address it very much.

 

[rjs330]

Yep. That's why they wanted a legal underclass of asylum seekers and refugees who were protected by US wage and labor laws. But we're sending those people home. The trouble is that big businesses and farms want to keep the illegal workers they have exploited and apparently we are going to let them.

Tjats not what many on
The left have said. They have constantly and consistently said illegals are needed for certain jobs, including agriculture and service jobs. You are not bring fully honest here.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Tjats not what many on
The left have said. They have constantly and consistently said illegals are needed for certain jobs

The US government recognizes that non-citizens are needed for certain jobs. Bipartisan bills have looked to increase the number of worker visas allowed for this.

 

[BCP1928]

Tjats not what many on
The left have said. They have constantly and consistently said illegals are needed for certain jobs, including agriculture and service jobs. You are not bring fully honest here.

Neither are you, so we're even. But you hsven't been paying attention. The idea of exploiting immigrant labor is bipartisan and has been for decades. The only issue is the circumstnces. Is immigrant labor to be legal, illegal or a mix?

 

[essentialsaltes]

How a city in Nebraska is recovering after the state's largest worksite immigration raid​

Every seat in the waiting area of Glenn Valley Foods was occupied with people filling out job applications early Thursday afternoon, two days after the meatpacking plant became the center of the largest worksite immigration raid in the state of Nebraska so far this year.

Dozens of prospective employees, many of them Spanish speakers, had been coming in and out of the plant all day. Some were hoping to land a new job; others were coming in for training.

The process of re-hiring new workers, Hartmann said, feels like asking someone to replace a family member. “You cannot, in my mind,” he said. “They were part of our family, and they were taken away.”

At least 63 others [of those arrested in OP] were taken to the Lincoln County Detention Center. The county’s sheriff, Jerome Kramer, said none of the detainees are “violent offenders” and he hopes to help them “complete the process to correct their work status and reunite them with families or employers.”

 

[ThatRobGuy]

How a city in Nebraska is recovering after the state's largest worksite immigration raid​

Every seat in the waiting area of Glenn Valley Foods was occupied with people filling out job applications early Thursday afternoon, two days after the meatpacking plant became the center of the largest worksite immigration raid in the state of Nebraska so far this year.

Dozens of prospective employees, many of them Spanish speakers, had been coming in and out of the plant all day. Some were hoping to land a new job; others were coming in for training.

The process of re-hiring new workers, Hartmann said, feels like asking someone to replace a family member. “You cannot, in my mind,” he said. “They were part of our family, and they were taken away.”

At least 63 others [of those arrested in OP] were taken to the Lincoln County Detention Center. The county’s sheriff, Jerome Kramer, said none of the detainees are “violent offenders” and he hopes to help them “complete the process to correct their work status and reunite them with families or employers.”

Does that somewhat put a wet towel on the argument that "undocumented people in the workforce are vital because they'll do the jobs citizens don't want to do"?

If their waiting room was filled to the brim with people applying for those jobs upon hearing of the vacancies, seems like at least some of the jobs were ones that Americans were perfectly happy to do.