[csusbpeace] The federal government is investigating the possible human trafficking of children who cleaned slaughterhouses

From: "raccoon" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> ("bigraccoon1")
To: "CSUSBPEACE@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <CSUSBPEACE@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2023 15:54:47 -0800

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/feds-dhs-investigating-human-trafficking-children-slaughterhouses-rcna66081#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=16743441916979&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nbcnews.com%2Fnews%2Fus-news%2Ffeds-dhs-investigating-human-trafficking-children-slaughterhouses-rcna66081

The federal government is investigating the possible human trafficking of
children who cleaned slaughterhouses

There is no indication that the sanitation company is under investigation for
trafficking the children who worked there.

Jan. 19, 2023
Federal investigators are looking into whether 50 children
<https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/whd/whd20221206-3> — some as young as
13 — who were allegedly illegally employed cleaning Midwestern
slaughterhouses were victims of labor trafficking, three officials from the
Department of Homeland Security told NBC News.

Homeland Security Investigations agents have interviewed children who worked
cleaning a JBS Foods slaughterhouse in Grand Island, Nebraska, the officials
say.

There is no indication DHS is investigating the company that hired the
children, Packers Sanitation Services
<http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/food-sanitation-company-accused-employing-least-31-children-graveyard-rcna56758>
Inc., or PSSI, for human trafficking
<https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/private-contractors-are-accused-abusive-labor-practices-us-military-ba-rcna52110>.
Instead, said two DHS officials, DHS is investigating to rule out the
possibility that outside traffickers may have forced children to work for
PSSI and profited off their labor.

In a statement, a spokesperson for Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, a
division of DHS, said, “Due to an ongoing investigation, Homeland Security
Investigations cannot comment at this time,” and referred questions to the
U.S. Labor Department.

In December, as a result of an investigation by the Labor Department and a
civil suit filed against the company by the government, PSSI agreed to a
consent order <https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/whd/whd20221206-3> with
the department and agreed to abide by child labor laws. Labor investigators
had found a total of 50 children
<http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/company-accused-employing-dozens-minors-slaughterhouses-graveyard-shif-rcna60355>
working for PSSI in at least five locations, including the Grand Island
plant and a second JBS Foods plant in Worthington, Minnesota.

Federal officials argued the company violated the Fair Labor Standards Act,
which prohibits “oppressive child labor” and minors from working in any kind
of hazardous employment, according to the complaint from December. The Labor
Department’s Child Labor Regulations designate
<https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/WHD/legacy/files/whdfs2a.pdf>many
roles in slaughterhouse and meatpacking facilities as hazardous for minors.

In court filings, the company did not deny hiring children but attributed it
to “rogue individuals” who presented fake identification with Social Security
numbers that were verified by the federal government’s E-Verify system.

The Labor Department says its investigation, which began in August, is
ongoing as it scours company records from 50 locations.

The JBS USA beef processing facility in Grand Island, Neb., in 2020. Dan
Brouillette / Bloomberg via Getty Images

Gina Swenson, a spokesperson for PSSI, said investigators from Homeland
Security Investigations have not contacted the company. “We have not been
contacted by DHS and have no knowledge that any such investigation exists,”
she said.

“We have always taken rigorous steps to comply with the law, including use of
the government’s E-Verify system for new hires, extensive training for all
hiring managers, multiple audits, and use of biometrics,” Swenson said. “Our
compliance plans are also modeled after the U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) recommended best practices.”

Homeland Security Investigations’ inquiry into possible human trafficking was
triggered by the large numbers of migrant minors involved in the case and not
necessarily by specific allegations of trafficking, two DHS officials say.

A worker at the JBS Foods plant in Grand Island, Neb.Dept. of Labor

PSSI’s 17,000 employees clean the largest meat processing plants in America
for household brands at 700 sites across the country.

Local officials and advocates in Grand Island and Worthington say they have
noticed an increase in the number of Spanish-speaking unaccompanied minors in
their areas in recent years, an observation supported by Health and Human
Services data. The youngest person found to be cleaning slaughterhouses for
PSSI was 13.

The children who worked for PSSI attended school during the day and worked
overnight facing dangerous conditions, with some as young as 13 and 14 found
to have chemical burns on their hands from exposure to strong cleaning
chemicals, according to court documents the government filed in its lawsuit
against PSSI and a local police report previously obtained and reported
<https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/company-accused-employing-dozens-minors-slaughterhouses-graveyard-shif-rcna60355>
by NBC News.

According to four former PSSI employees, cleaning conditions inside the
meatpacking plants are treacherous. A former PSSI compliance officer who
still works in the industry and did not want to be identified said the “kill
floors” in meatpacking plants have a slippery combination of hot water,
animal fat and soap that she likened to an ice rink.

Swenson of PSSI said worker safety “has been the [company’s] highest
priority.”

Inspectors at an Alabama plant where a worker was decapitated in 2020.OSHA

“Because of our work,” she said, “all our team members must wear personal
protective equipment from head to toe (e.g., hard hat, face shield, goggles,
aprons, gloves, boots, etc.).”

In 2020 a PSSI worker at an Alabama Tyson chicken plant was rinsing equipment
with a high-pressure water hose when he leaned too far into the machine and
was caught by the machinery and decapitated. Occupational Safety and Health
Administration officials cited
<https://www.osha.gov/ords/imis/establishment.inspection_detail?id=1467797.015>
the company for the accident.

Swenson said that the death of the employee was “profoundly sad and tragic”
but that PSSI’s investigation of the accident “unfortunately revealed that
this employee started cleaning the energized equipment without a supervisor
present — meaning existing PSSI safety protocols were not followed.”

JBS Foods cancels contracts

Fallout from the Labor Department’s child labor investigation and the
company’s consent order with the federal government has been swift.

JBS Foods canceled its contracts with PSSI in Grand Island and Worthington,
which led to layoffs of hundreds of workers. Tyson Foods has not canceled its
contract. It said in a statement to NBC News: “We are actively engaging our
supplier community to conduct a detailed review of their processes to ensure
Tyson’s rigorous standards are being met.”

Swenson confirmed that JBS had canceled two contracts. “As we’ve made clear
from the start, PSSI has an absolute company-wide prohibition against the
employment of anyone under the age of 18 and zero tolerance for any violation
of that policy — period. PSSI strives to be the leader in food safety
solutions and is committed to ensuring our customers can depend on us as
experts at what we do.”

But Audrey Lutz, the executive director of a local Nebraska nonprofit group
called the Multicultural Coalition, which has been helping the children in
Grand Island with services, believes significant fines from the federal
government are needed. “This has been going on quite a while. I don’t
anticipate unless there are severe ramifications for this that it will
actually change policies.”

The Labor Department has issued no penalties or fines to date. The company is
required to report back to Labor in mid-January with the names of any
employees it terminated because they were under 18. A Labor Department
spokesperson said the numbers of child employees who were terminated will not
be disclosed while the case remains open.

A worker at the JBS Foods plant in Grand Island, Neb.Labor Department

Questions about child labor at PSSI in Grand Island and Worthington are not
new.

A Worthington police report from 2018 obtained by NBC News shows a PSSI
employee who was a local high school student was arrested for identity theft.
The worker told police he was 17 years old. He had a pay stub from his
employment at PSSI and was ultimately released because police could not
determine his real age.

Swenson of PSSI said, “We have made clear that the only way that someone
could circumvent our rigorous procedures is through deliberate identity theft
or fraud.”

As NBC News previously reported, a 2016 Nebraska police report documented how
a middle school official called local police because a 14-year-old student
had caustic burns on her hands. A police spokesperson said the injuries were
from her overnight PSSI job. Local police investigated it as potential child
abuse by the guardian for allowing the child to work at the plant; no one was
ultimately charged.

In 2015, federal investigators started looking into allegations that PSSI
employed child labor to clean a third JBS facility in the small town of
Liberal, Kansas, according to court records. But the investigation stopped in
2017 after PSSI did not cooperate with the Labor Department and “did not
provide all records as requested,” according to an affidavit from a federal
investigator filed in court.

Swenson said, “We categorically dispute this claim related to this Kansas
site and more broadly: PSSI has a long history of fully cooperating and
complying with DOL investigations, including three separate DOL
investigations that the company closed in the summer of 2022 with no
violations.”

Unaccompanied minors as workers

Advocates and lawyers for the children say some of the child workers for PSSI
were unaccompanied minors who recently came across the southern border.
Unaccompanied minors are processed by the Border Patrol and then turned over
to the Office of Refugee Resettlement within the Department of Health and
Human Services. The children are then matched with sponsors who usually have
some link to their families.

Rural counties where the Labor Department found children working in PSSI
facilities have become home to hundreds of unaccompanied minors living with
sponsors since 2015, according to data
<https://www.hhs.gov/programs/social-services/unaccompanied-children-released-to-sponsors-by-county-august-2022.html>
collected and released by HHS. Advocates and officials are concerned that
some of the minors may be working in the counties’ significant livestock
industry.

In Grand Island, where children were found to be working in the JBS plant,
the number of unaccompanied minors has ebbed and flowed over the years. In
2016, 63 were released to sponsors. Then there were none until 2019, when 71
arrived. In 2021, 90 children arrived and then 89 more in 2022.

A worker at the JBS Foods plant in Worthington, Minn.Labor Department

In Nobles County, Minnesota, where the Labor Department says children were
found working for PSSI at the Worthington JBS plant, federal data shows 613
children have been released to sponsors since 2015. The city of Worthington
has fewer than 14,000 residents, and Nobles County as a whole has just 22,000.

Drawing on HHS data, The Washington Post reported that from 2013 to 2019,
Nobles County received the second-highest total unaccompanied migrant minors
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/immigration/immigrant-kids-fill-this-towns-schools-their-bus-driver-resents-the-system-that-brought-them-here/2019/09/22/861c0fb4-d321-11e9-9610-fb56c5522e1c_story.html>
per capita of any U.S. county.

Worthington City Administrator Steve Robinson said city officials have been
wondering how the children found their way to their rural community.

“We want to make sure that no one is taking advantage of these kids. We are
worried about their well-being,” he said.

David Bosma works in the livestock industry in Worthington and has been
active in local school issues. He told NBC News that he was not surprised
when the Labor Department’s investigation came to light, because community
members already had questions about the influx of unaccompanied minors.
“Nobody understood where these kids were coming from,” he said.

Advocates and lawyers have expressed concern that children who are without
their parents and do not speak English could be at risk.

“There is a large number of unaccompanied minors in our state with very
little resources, and without public, private or philanthropic resources
these kids go off the radar and become very, very vulnerable to things like
trafficking,” Lutz said.

[csusbpeace] The federal government is investigating the possible human trafficking of children who cleaned slaughterhouses

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