NoNAIS.org

Under the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) the USDA has proposed that we tag and track every single livestock animal in the United States in order to control disease. The reality is NAIS is not about disease control but about helping big meat packing companies export to foreign markets. NAIS is filled with exceptions for big factory farms while burdening the small producer and homesteader as well as wasting hundreds of millions of dollars of our tax money. This is all for the benefit of consumers in other countries - not for American consumers.

The funny thing is the USDA actually believes it can tag and track four to ten billion animals when the immigration services can’t stop a few illegal immigrants. Time for a reality check - and it’s going to be a doozie when they get the bill for enforcement.

As a small example, Big Ag’s packing plants are at it again using illegal aliens to keep their costs down:

Smithfield Packing Co. is determining whether to schedule work Saturday at its Tar Heel, N.C., hog-processing plant following a raid by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents on Wednesday.

“We had to shift some people around and prioritize our work,” Smithfield spokesman Dennis Pittman told Meatingplace.com. “It slowed us down a little bit, but it’s nothing we won’t make up before the week’s out.”

[In other words, business as usual at Big Ag as they ignore the law. Remember that employers are required by INA law to verify the work eligibility and citizenship of their workers as well as pay pesky things like Social Security tax, Medicare, Medicaid, Workman’s Compensation, etc. If the workers are illegal then it is easier to save those costs. It also makes it easier for these criminal employers of illegal aliens to avoid paying that bothersome minimum wage… -WJ]

At about 4:30 a.m. Wednesday, ICE agents arrested eight workers at the Tar Heel plant on suspicion of identity theft, ICE spokesman Richard Rocha told Meatingplace.com. Another 20 people, the majority of whom were either current or former Smithfield workers, were arrested under similar suspicion at their homes.

Of the 28 detainees, 13 were women and 15 were men. Twenty-five of the detainees are Mexican, two are Guatemalan and one is Honduran. The women are being detained in a jail in Mecklenburg County, while the men are being held in a prison in Alamance County, according to Rocha. None has been charged.
:
Pittman said ICE notified the company “a few days” before the raid and informed it of the workers the agency planned to arrest. ICE agents were waiting for those workers when they arrived to work, and arrested them shortly thereafter.

[Even with notice they were going to be raided, Smithfield still got caught with their pants down. It is rather interesting to note how Big Ag gets special treatment and notification from the government boot jacks. Small fry don’t as demonstrated in the Henshaw Incident last fall. Equal rights for everyone, but some corporations are more equal than others… It’s an Animal Farm out there and it’s pigs like Smithfield who’ve ended up in charge. I hope they remember how the book ends… -WJ]

The latest raid brings the total number of ICE arrests at the Tar Heel plant this year to 29. The agency arrested 21 workers in January on immigration violations.
-MeatingPlace.com

Smithfield and other employers of illegals should be held responsible for their criminal actions. It is against the law to hire illegal aliens. In addition to stealing jobs from legal employees and lowering the wage standards their conduct also gives the illegal employers an unfair and illegal advantage in the market place because they can keep their labor costs lower than their competitors who obey the law.

Nepotism is also generally considered a no-no: Our dear Governor Jim Douglas here in Vermont and his family are prime examples of people who makes excuses for the hiring illegal aliens. His family readily admits long time hiring of illegal aliens on their huge (for Vermont) dairy farm as discussed in this article from the Burlington Freepress.

A Middlebury dairy farm owned by relatives of Gov. Jim Douglas is among the hundreds of Vermont farms employing illegal Mexican immigrants, one of the co-owners of the farm confirmed last week. “Yes, we do,” said Ted Foster, who oversees daily operations of the sprawling 1,537-acre Foster Brothers Farm on Lower Foote Street in Middlebury. “I’ve been very happy with the work they’ve done.”

Among the Foster family members who own the farm is Robert Foster, a member of the Agri-Mark board of directors and brother of Dorothy Douglas, the governor’s wife. Ted Foster, vice president of the Vermont Farm Bureau, is a cousin.

Ted Foster said the farm began employing Mexican workers four years ago after it was unable to find enough qualified local people willing to do milking and other chores at the 380-cow dairy farm. Four Mexicans are employed at Foster Brothers Farm, he said.

[Apparently it didn’t occur to Mr. Foster that instead of hiring illegal workers he should pay a good wage such that the job would actually be appealing to legal workers. This is a market economy. The idea is if he wants workers he must pay a wage that attracts them. His hiring illegal aliens is giving him an unfair advantage over his law abiding competitors. -WJ]

Migrant farm advocates estimate that at least 2,000 Mexicans, most in the country illegally, are employed on dairy farms across the state. State agriculture officials have said that without the Mexican help, many Vermont dairy farms would go out of business.

[Hmm… So, our Vermont Department of Agriculture is condoning hiring illegals… I’m glad to hear they don’t want to support or enforce the law and will keep that in mind when they try and force mandatory Premises Registration or other programs on us like they attempted to do last year before they were firmly swatted down. -WJ]

Foster said he and other family members have discussed with Douglas their decision to hire Mexican workers but recognize that addressing the illegal status of most Mexican farm workers in Vermont is a federal, not a state, matter.

“We’ve talked about the issue,” Foster said. “He can’t do a lot.”

Douglas, in an interview, acknowledged he has known for some time that Foster Brothers Farm employs Mexican workers. He said he has no financial interest in the farm but visits it occasionally.

“I’m certainly aware they have Mexican workers, but I’ve never run into any of them when I was there,” he said.

[So Governor Douglas is well aware of his family breaking the law yet he does nothing to stop them. -WJ]

Douglas said he was not in a position to judge whether it is right or wrong for farmers to hire workers who are illegal immigrants.

[Actually, he is in an excellent position to do something. He chooses not to. After all, they’re family and he has to go home and sleep every night with the woman of a brother who owns part of that farm which knowingly hires illegal aliens. I can imagine the vengeance she might take on him if he interfered with her brother’s little enterprise by enforcing the law. “Not tonight dear, I have a headache - for the next 20 years!” -WJ]
-Burlington Freepress

The response of some people that illegal workers are necessary to keep farming competitive is a lie and an excuse for their cheating the rest of us so they can have an unfair market advantage over farmers who don’t hire illegal aliens. The proper, legal, ethical, moral alternative would be to pay a living wage or do the work themselves. We live in a capitalist market economy. If nobody is willing to do the work at the low wages they are paying to illegals that means they are not offering a reasonable wage. If they were to offer good wages, people would snap up the jobs. The reality is they simply want to cheat and our governor is condoning this activity.

President George Bush is also a supporter of illegal workers in the USA as demonstrated by this whole recent hoopla over immigration reform. Follow the money trail and look for how the supporters are benefiting directly or indirectly. It is to be noted that both Governor ‘Doo-gas’ in Vermont and Presidenté ‘El Busho’ are also both supporters of NAIS - they want to micro-manage our small farms while letting their Big Ag chums use illegal labor to unfairly compete.

“Time to freeze out the cheats - down with subsidies and preferential treatment for big corporations.”
-ICEmen