One of the country's biggest chicken suppliers has routinely hired undocumented immigrants and then used their status to pressure them into staying silent about life-altering injuries and workplace abuse, a ProPublica and New Yorker investigation found.
ADVERTISEMENT
One business in Ohio shows how companies take advantage of immigrants over and over again
Case Farms has routinely hired undocumented immigrants and then used their status to pressure them into staying silent about workplace abuse, ProPublica found.
Immigrants collect their belongings in Texas before being deported.
ADVERTISEMENT
Recommended articles
Case Farms, which produces nearly a billion annual pounds of chicken for both mega-chains such as Kentucky Fried Chicken and for federal lunch programs, hired Guatemalan asylum-seeker Osiel López Pérez when he was just 17 years old.
After Pérez lost his leg while sanitizing the giblet chiller, the company asked for his immigration papers — and then promptly fired him along with several other underage and undocumented employees, according to the investigation.
The head of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration once called Case Farms "an outrageously dangerous place to work." Federal safety inspectors have cited the company for hundreds of violations and fined them millions of dollars.
ADVERTISEMENT
But Case Farms continues to operate. They've recently begun recruiting workers from a local prison, Michael Grabell reported for ProPublica, and are looking to replace line workers with robots.
FOLLOW BUSINESS INSIDER AFRICA
ADVERTISEMENT
Recommended articles
10 African countries with the highest number of migrants
PHOTOS: Inside the hostel in Rwanda set to house migrants from the UK in July
10 African countries with the weakest governments
Zap unveils Africa's first non-custodial exchange
The future of healthcare on display: Day 1 of Medlab West Africa wraps up
Nigeria suspends a Chinese business over discrimination charges
10 African countries with the greatest soft power influence over the world in 2024
List of the smartest African Cities in 2024
