Label: “This Chicken Was Processed By Illegal Aliens”

[peejay 327]

Label: “This Chicken Was Processed By Illegal Aliens”

Posted By Bernard On August 30, 2007 @ 9:14 am

President Bush, as a key element in his open borders’ mantra, has long argued that illegal aliens are here in our country doing the work that Americans are unwilling to do. And, accordingly, by his politically expedient, contorted logic, the “free flow” of peoples across our southern border thereby benefits American society and the economic engine that sustains it. That’s his argument and he’s sticking to it.

Most Americans know that President Bush’s contention is pure, unadulterated nonsense and a contrived smokescreen for attracting cheap, exploitable labor. Fact is, Americans are willing (and historically performed it themselves) to do the work that 20+ million illegal aliens are doing here in our country provided, of course, the wages paid for such work constitute a “living wage.” Moreover, and I firmly believe this, the majority of Americans would recoil from purchasing goods and services provided by exploited illegal alien labor if they knew unequivocally that that is what they were buying. If that were not the case, they wouldn’t overwhelmingly be in favor of strict border enforcement.

A case in point: the raid this week by federal immigration agents on a Koch Foods chicken processing plant in Fairfield, Ohio where 180 illegal alien workers were rounded up — workers being paid $8.00/hour with no health benefits.

Imagine this: you’re looking at a package of chicken breasts in the meat/poultry section of your local grocery store (or considering ordering the grilled chicken breast entree on the menu at a local restuarant) and you see a label reading:

This chicken was processed by illegal aliens being paid sub-standard wages and without health benefits in order to bring you, the consumer, the best possible value for your food dollar!

Would you put that package in your shopping cart or order that particular entree from the menu? I suspect not. Mull that question over for awhile and think about what the Bush Administration, and administrations before it, are perpetrating upon unsuspecting Americans and in the interest of wooing votes and campaign contributions from industries (and the companies in them) hellbent on reducing their direct wages and benefits costs in ways that federal law specifically proscribes.

And ask yourselves, as well, if you think for a minute that a chicken processing plant could unknowingly hire 180 illegal aliens without any suspicion whatsoever of the documentation being provided by these lawbreakers in order to obtain work in America’s heartland. After all, if George Bush is right, Koch Foods’ personnel department was undoubtedly unable to fill 180 production slots with bona-fide American workers, so it had no choice but to turn to “undocumented immigrants” (or those border-jumpers sporting forged documentation) in order to meet its production quotas and wages/benefits budgets, right?

Truth be known, and this needs saying, the Koch employees may have been earning sub-standard wages at that Ohio chicken processing plant, but they most certainly were nonetheless enjoying healthcare and many other benefits that millions of Americans do not share in. How is that, you ask?

You provide them!

For, in point of fact, illegal aliens regularly leverage a vast social safety net of taxpayer-subsidized services, from healthcare to education to food stamps to housing to Medicaid (and on and on it goes).

Still skeptical?

Well, then, read the following from American Chronicle:

Illegals can’t live on illegal pay reported without government subsidies.

… illegal immigrants drawn by greed and treasonous wartime profiteering only come here for:

Illegal government handouts (provided without determining legal status, identification, residency or need) for: local health department care, emergency health care, prenatal care, catastrophic disease care, tuition, education, food, subsidized housing, public transportation, Medicaid, WIC, food stamps and numerous other social stipends, provide financial incentive to come to this country.

And square that reality with the fact that poorly educated, unskilled, low-wage, illegal alien laborers performing marginal jobs in this country were nevertheless able to send $45 billion back to their countries of origin in 2006. From whose pockets do you think that kind of money came from, Folks? They damn sure didn’t get it from cutting up chicken parts for $8.00 an hour.

Follow-Up: From this story published at IndyStar.com and this story published by the Washington Post, it appears the Koch Foods plant refernced in this post was in Fairfield, Ohio, not Fairfield, Indiana, as was reported by Axcess News, my original linked source.

Follow-Up II (08/31/07): The Cincinnati Post has published a follow-up story on the upshot of a raid conducted on Tuesday of this week by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents on the Koch Foods poultry processing plant in Fairfield, Ohio. Here are excerpts:

Twenty illegal immigrants taken into custody during a federal raid at a poultry processing plant in Fairfield face state charges, including forgery, authorities said.

The raid at the Koch Foods plant by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Tuesday resulted in the arrests of 161 illegal immigrants.

The 12 men and eight woman are facing state charges of forgery and taking the identity of another, Butler County Sheriff Richard K. Jones said Wednesday. The illegal immigrants from Guatemala, Mexico and Peru are being held in the Butler County Jail.

In addition to the 20 illegal aliens charged criminally, all 161 were served with notices to appear before an immigration judge for removal proceedings, 80 remain in ICE custody. The remaining 61 were released on alternatives to detention for humanitarian purposes such as medical issues and sole care-giver situations.

In addition to Mexico, Guatemala and Peru, illegal immigrants detained came from the Dominican Republic, Ghana, Honduras, Lithuania and Senegal.

Note the “countries of origin” in that last paragraph I excerpted from reporter Lauren Pack’s account. Quite a comment on our porous borders and unsecured ports. You can enter this country nearly at will from any continent on the globe and wind up working in the middle of America’s heartland owing to the confluence of an indifferent federal government and no lack of employers willing to disregard the law in the interest of cheap, taxpayer-subsidized labor.

http://acertainslantoflight.net/?p=2182

Peejay sez: And this lunacy is going on in a state that has some of the highest unemployment rates in the USA. 6.1% in June and 5.8% in July 2007.

http://jfs.ohio.gov/releases/unemp/200708/...ressRelease.asp

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

It's only identity theft and tax fraud. These people just want a better life.

[GaryC 7]

Yeah, we shouldn't b!tch about giving them welfare, food stamps and Medicaid so they can send their money home. Maybe we should just tell them to stay home and each of us adopt a family and send the money directly. Cut out the middleman.

[Ban Hammer 14,269]

Yeah, we shouldn't b!tch about giving them welfare, food stamps and Medicaid so they can send their money home. Maybe we should just tell them to stay home and each of us adopt a family and send the money directly. Cut out the middleman.