Hypocrisy over illegal workers starts with President Trump

There was turmoil in rural Mississippi last week after Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents raided seven food processing plants.

Some parents couldn’t take children to their first day of school. A 10-year resident of Morton — population 3,500 — worried about a mass departure of illegal immigrants who had worked at the plants.

Maria Tello told the Mississippi Clarion-Ledger, “Maybe 20 years ago, there was hardly anything here. If they leave, it’s gonna affect the economy, businesses and stuff.”

Meanwhile, all was fine with Joseph Grundys, chairman and CEO of Koch Foods. Two of his plants were raided. But was he to blame? Of course not.

“We thank law enforcement,” Grundys said, “for giving these criminals the punishment they deserve. And to these people undermining the fabric of our country, I ask you, how dare you accept a position here?”

Forbes estimates Grundys’ net worth at $2.3 billion. He lives in the Chicago suburb of Park Ridge, where the median household income is nearly $100,000. That’s three times the number in Scott County, Mississippi, where workers process Koch chicken. The company has no relation to Republican megadonors Charles and David Koch.

It’s hard to keep track of all the hypocrisy in these raids, but start with this: The illegal immigrants face criminal charges and possible deportation. Grundys at most will face only a fine — if that.

President Trump called the raids “a very good deterrent.” Actually, the raids are mostly for show.

Over the last three decades, the American food industry has come to rely on cheap immigrant labor. Into the 1980s, for example, meatpacking jobs provided a middle-class living. Union representation ensured workers’ safety and benefits.

Then companies moved plants to rural areas in states with weak labor laws. Wages dropped by as much as two-thirds. Working conditions got much riskier. Americans wouldn’t take the jobs, and companies began recruiting labor from Mexico and Central America.

Most Americans liked this shift because they didn’t live near the plants and wanted cheap meat. Low wages ensured that supply. So did the failure of Congress to pass immigration reform that would give the workers legal status and make them less subject to exploitation.

So here we are, with Americans angry about the number of illegal immigrants in the country but unable to shake our dependency on those whom we demonize. And the biggest hypocrite is Trump.

“If people come into our country illegally,” the president said, “they’re going out. They’re not coming in illegally and staying.” Yet we just got the latest revelation of how Trump long has profited from illegal labor.

The Washington Post reported that a construction crew, which includes workers here illegally, has built rock walls, sidewalks and waterfalls at many Trump Organization properties. Other employees praised the crew’s work with heavy stone by calling them Los Picapiedras — the Flintstones. A 55-year-old undocumented Ecuadoran who worked in the crew until last April told the Post that Trump “doesn’t want undocumented people in the country. But at his properties, he still has them.”

The president’s hypocrisy goes beyond that roving construction crew. According to the Post, eight Trump properties employed illegal workers for two decades, paying them less than they would have to pay citizens.

A Koch Foods spokesman blamed the use of undocumented labor on a thirdparty company that is supposed to verify immigration status. Since the revelations, Trump and his sons have claimed that all properties will use the federal E-Verify system.

Some employers don’t like E-Verify because they consider it unreliable. Others don’t like it because they would rather use workers they can gouge and control.

Trump is very good at getting people mad about immigration, but he’s lousy at getting to a solution on immigration — if he wants to get there at all.

The nation needs to get there. Doing so will require acknowledging that we created this shadow economy through trade deals, consumer demand and political contributions. It will require acknowledging that we need immigrant labor, but in a way that doesn’t exploit the undocumented or Americans.

Hardest of all, it will require Americans to acknowledge that the people least to blame are the ones ICE agents led away last week in handcuffs. Randy Schultz can be reached at randy@bocamag.com

By Randy Schultz Columnist