A Nebraska city that banned non-U.S. citizens from renting property has seen an influx of immigrants moving in to take jobs in meat processing plants.
Fremont, a small city with a population of 27,000, is home to several meat processing plants, including the Costco chicken factory and the Wholestone Farms pork plant.
Locals have said that the city’s natives are leaving to look for work elsewhere and that immigrants have come to fill those vacant positions in the slaughterhouses, he reported. NBC News. This despite a decade-old law that prevents anyone who is not a citizen from living in the area.
The city, once almost exclusively white, now has a 16 percent Latino population in 2022, according to U.S. Census data.
‘We need these people. We need this work done. This is what feeds the nation and the world,” said City Council President Mark Jensen.
‘These are very physical jobs and a lot of them are hard work. And it’s not something that many people can do.”
Fremont, a small city with a population of 27,000, is home to several meat processing plants, including the Costco chicken factory (pictured) and the Wholestone Farms pork plant. The city had a ban for a decade preventing non-citizens from renting properties.
Despite the ban, the city has seen an influx of immigrants and a local Guatemalan church grew from three to 200 members in seven years.
Jensen told NBC News that he has worked in the meat processing industry for 40 years and that the jobs have become less attractive to native-born Americans.
The Guatemalan consulate in Omaha reportedly said there are at least 2,020 Guatemalans in Fremont and the true number could be 45 percent higher.
Community organizer Antonio López said that in the last four years, the school system has added 600 people who do not speak English as a first language. Of Guatemalan immigrants, more than 40 percent speak an indigenous language called K’iche’.
María and Vicente Hernández, pastors of a local Guatemalan church, told NBC News that their congregation grew from three people to 200 in seven years.
‘With Hispanic immigrants, although it is hard, although it is heavy, they endure,’ Vicente stated.
Jessica Kolterman, director of plant management for Costco, Lincoln Premium Poultry, told the Fremont Grandstand They offer English language classes for their employees. The plant, opened in 2019, has approximately 1,200 employees.
“If you come to this team and you want to work hard and grow, that opportunity is in front of you,” Kolterman said.
In May, Wholestone Farms announced that its pork processing plant in Fremont will add a second shift and double its capacity to 5.6 million hogs, adding between 800 and 1,000 jobs, the report reported. Omaha World Herald.
However, as the city seeks immigrants to fill meatpacking jobs, a law passed in 2010 prohibits noncitizens from renting property in Fremont.
The Guatemalan consulate in Omaha reportedly said there are at least 2,020 Guatemalans in Fremont and the real number could be 45 percent higher, despite the ban.
Freemont requires first-time renters and people moving to a new address to fill out a form stating they live in the country legally and obtain a $5 license to move. However, the law does not have any language requiring tenants to prove that they are citizens, they only have to fill out a form indicating whether they are
The city clerk’s office told NBC News it receives three to five statements a day from immigrants and other applicants.
The law, known as Ordinance 5165, requires first-time renters and people moving to a new address to fill out a form stating that they live in the country legally and obtain a $5 moving license, he reported. KETV.
The city clerk’s office told NBC News it receives three to five statements a day from immigrants and other applicants.
In 2014, a federal court ruled the ordinance was legal and the Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal. However, the law does not have any language requiring tenants to prove that they are citizens, they only have to fill out a form indicating if they are.
The city paid Kobach Law an annual retainer of $10,000 in case of lawsuits challenging the law. Kobach Law, the private practice of now Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, terminated his contract with Fremont in 2023.
“The citizens of the city asked the city council to do something because it was pretty obvious that we had become a haven for illegals,” said Councilman Paul Von Behren.
“The sheer pressure of bringing in large numbers of people has resulted in a considerable burden on taxpayers.”
Costco’s modern chicken processing plant (pictured) is one of three large plants in the city. Locals say plant jobs are less attractive to Americans, leaving immigrants to take the work.
Jessica Kolterman, director of plant management at Costco, Lincoln Premium Poultry, said they offer English language classes for their employees.
The problems facing Freemont, where meatpacking plants are essential to the local economy but often employ immigrant workers, are not new to the Midwest. Immigrant workers in the plants have become a hot-button issue in many conservative parts of the Midwest, as voters wanted tired immigration controls but also don’t want to lose the plants.
DailyMail.com revealed that Bill Flaig, CEO and co-founder of the $79 million American Conservative Values Fund, divested from Tyson over allegations that the company is laying off American workers and hiring asylum seekers.
Angry shoppers are boycotting Tyson Foods products as the $53 million meat company closes plants in Iowa and elsewhere while hiring thousands of asylum seekers at job fairs in New York.
Activists are urging consumers to stop buying Tyson products amid its wave of meat and poultry processing plant closures in Iowa, Virginia, Arkansas, Indiana and Missouri.
They point to Tyson’s efforts to hire thousands of asylum seekers in New York, offering them wages of $16.50 an hour and free immigration lawyers, accusing the firm of dumping American-born workers for more migrant labor. cheap.
The meat and poultry giant has denied accusations that they are laying off Americans over immigrants.
In a statement, the company said: “In recent days, there has been a lot of misinformation in the media about our company and we feel compelled to set the record straight.”
“Any suggestion that we would eliminate American jobs to hire immigrant workers is completely false.”