This is interesting: "Former Workers Sue Swift on Immigrants"

"DALLAS (AP) - Former employees are suing Swift & Co. for $23 million, alleging the meatpacking company conspired to keep wages down by hiring illegal immigrants.

The 18 former employees are legal residents who worked at a plant in Cactus, Texas, north of Amarillo. The plant was one of six facilities raided in a multistate federal sweep that led to the arrests of nearly 1,300 employees and temporarily halted Swift's operations.

"These plaintiffs are ... victims in a long-standing scheme by Swift to depress and artificially lower the wages of its workers by knowingly hiring illegal workers," said their attorney, Angel Reyes. "By lessening its labor costs and increasing its profits, Swift has severely damaged the potential earnings and livelihood of these hardworking men and women."

Swift, which is based in Greeley, Colo., and the Dallas firm that owns it didn't immediately return calls Monday."

http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/providerarticle.aspx?Feed=AP&Date=20061218&ID=6285920

What I wondered when I read the original story is I wondered how they could have so many illegal workers using fraudulent IDs at so many different company plants if they didn't know what was going on? The law of averages would put only a couple of illegals with fraudulent IDs at their plants, while others would be working for other companies. But these were all at multiple Swift plants all over the country?

IMO, this company knew EXACTLY what was going on, and was doing it on purpose. Most likely for the very reason this lawsuit claims.

I know a lot of people here on DU have a lot of sympathy for illegal aliens. But personally, I draw the line at ID fraud that hurts innocent Americans. I'm also not so keen on companies who USE illegal aliens as a means to depress wages. They probably don't treat them well, either, since they can't complain about bad treatment. This employer STINKS to high heaven.

What do you all think about this?

this sort of underhanded scheming and backstabbing by their employers. We are knee-deep in a new era of companies screwing over the American worker.

didn't bother to make sure they were enforced.

There is a steep fine per head on every illegal worker a company hires. Enforcement went down under Clinton and evaporated under Stupid.

These are former workers. If I was a former worker, I'd be filing my own suit, whether merited or not. It's clear that U.S. industry is building plants in areas where there are few American citizens so that they can attract undocumented workers. The question that arises is, why was Swift singled out? Why was Chertoff all over TV that day demanding access to SS data and a national ID card?

This situation is being manipulated by DHS. The 1300 workers are not hardened criminals and the identity theft angle is so overblown it's laughable.

First, we're not talking about affluent people - they're "former workers" in the meat-packing industry, so we can safely assume they're not affluent enough to retain attorneys out of their own pockets. Thus, the attorneys are taking the case on a contingency basis, fronting the costs and looking to collect a fee only if they win. Thus, the "merits" of the case have been vetted by the attorneys, probably to a comparable degree that a civil jury would.

In our legal system, people without means must go through multiple "trials" in order to prevail - the first of which are with law forms assessing the probability of winning and the size of the award. Since there are far more such injustices than there are law firms willing to take the cases, such firms pick the "low-hanging fruit" first. Only the higher probability of winning the higher awards get a "day in court" - and the rest fall by the wayside.

And the government enables them.

Face it, we wink at their coming across the border, in order that they can take the jobs that are without any protections, and then we stick our collective noses in the air, because they are "illegal." We don't enforce those laws and don't intend to.

Penalties for the employers have been on the books for 20 years. They aren't enforced any more than the ones that makes the illegals deportable. They wouldn't even be necessary if the illegals were deported in the first place. Or not allowed to enter. One picture of an area of the border shows a 15 or so foot high fence with footholds on the side of it! It may as well have a sign in Spanish saying if you are able bodied enough to get over this fence you got the job.

We have a dishonest set of laws, basically. We need to define who is "illegal" is a reasonable way.

Besides, many legal residents originally from Mexico are legal due to the amnesty of 1986, and therefore can't be on too high a horse over illegals of today.