Angel Reyes : Texas Litigation Lawyer and Attorney : Dangerous Drugs : Wrongful Death : Business Litigation

Following the December 12, 2007 raid on the Swift & Company meatpacking plant, my firm, Heygood, Orr, Reyes, Pearson & Bartolomei, filed a class action lawsuit against Swift for its pattern of practice of replacing legal US Citizens and legal resident aliens with undocumented immigrant workers.   Now, yet another big company makes the news.  In May, 2008 in Postville, Iowa, federal immigration agents raided Agriprocessors Inc., the nation's largest kosher meatpacking plant, rounding up 389 illegal immigrants for deportation.

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Breaking news: the Hispanic population in America is surging. Yes, I'm being sarcastic. Funny enough, when I was younger, I just couldn't imagine a day when this type of headline would make the Wall Street Journal. Remember, I was the kid who actually thought about changing my name when I moved to the U.S. mainland from Puerto Rico. Demography is destiny, and that means America, and especially Texas, both face a very interesting future. I can't wait. Lastly, all the folks who are worried about Spanish being spoken, documents being written with one side in English and the other in Spanish, should stop sweating it. The history of immigration will be repeated. First generation immigrants may, or may not, learn English. Their kids, who go to mostly public schools across the United States, learn English. Some learn it well, others not so well. Those kids' kids can't speak to Grandma and Grandpa except in English. For you traders out there, if it's not too early, start shorting Spanish language TV and radio stocks. I figure they'll go the way of the old Polish and Italian radio stations which flourished back in the early 1900's. The full Wall Street Journal article is below.

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The class action lawsuit my firm, Heygood, Orr, Reyes, Pearson & Bartolomei filed against Swift Meatpacking accuses Swift of their pattern of practice of replacing legal US Citizens and legal resident aliens with undocumented immigrant workers.  This lawsuit made national headlines and was featured on numerous radio and television broadcasts for several months.

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Today, Swift meatpacking suffered another blow to its continued pattern and practice of denying allegations that its management didn't knowingly hire illegal immigrants. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) made 19 new arrests this week.

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While Heygood, Orr, Reyes & Bartolomei's Swift Meatpacking case continues to gain headlines, it seems you can't turn on the TV or open a newspaper without reading another article about the nation's immigration issues.  Recently in Texas, State Representative, Rafael Anchia, D-Dallas, withdrew his legislation to penalize businesses that hire illegal immigrants.  In an interesting political twist, Mr. Anchia and other members of the Mexican-American Legislative Caucus joined the Texas Association of Business and several civil rights groups to form a coalition they said is committed to moving all immigration-related legislation out of the statehouse and up to Washington – including Mr. Anchia's bill.

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What a wonderful country.  When the rest of the world is racing off towards globalization, America, at least in some areas, strangely enough, largely populated areas, wants to make English the only official language.  I think I missed the joke.  What purpose will these English-only laws serve?  How will they help Americans win the globalization race?  Are large geographic and populous regions in America really that dumb, weird, and scared?  I sure hope not.  I know one thing, the Mayor of Nashville, Bill Purcell,  isn't.  Hooray for common sense.  All this writing is making me hungry.  Hmm, maybe I'll have Mexican?  Chinese?  Italian?  No, no, no.  That would be scary, maybe I should stick to something more American.  Yikes, I can't think of any American food.

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These days you can't open a newspaper without reading an article about "illegal" immigration and its impact on America.  For my money, immigration is the biggest domestic policy issue America faces in the years to come.  The world is watching how we handle our immigration policy.  President Bush has even crossed party lines in hopes of finding a solution to America's undocumented workforce problem.

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As illegal immigration continues to be a huge issue in our country, this month has seen several scenarios that are relatively new to the national debate.  Spurring the discussions has been the December 12th raid on meatpacking giant, Swift & Co.  While the raid focused on undocumented immigrant labor, primarily facilitated by fraudulent Social Security numbers, it has also thrust our law firm into national focus due to the lawsuit we were putting together.  The lawsuit accuses Swift of having a pattern of practice of replacing legal US Citizens and legal resident aliens with undocumented immigrant workers from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala in effort to depress wages.  Wages have plummeted by 40-50% since this practice became common.  The question is, did/should management have known that almost one-third of its workforce was undocumented?

Immigration is the biggest domestic policy issue the United States faces in the coming years.  The world is watching how we handle our immigration policy.  We hope that by exposing the extreme profit-driven approach that some of our largest corporations are taking on the immigration issue, our lawsuit can help create movement towards a solution. In the meantime, we will continue to pursue our civil case against Swift.

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