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Parents of migrant girl exploited cleaning Nebraska slaughterhouses face jail time and fear deportation

2023-03-04T00:29:25.087Z


The stepfather of a girl who worked at the PSSI plant at the age of 13 was sent to jail for driving her in his car at night. Her mother may face the same fate for getting her false documents.


Parents and family members of migrant children who have been exploited for labor in meat-processing plants in Midwestern states can now face jail time and even deportation for facilitating child abuse.

The stepfather of a girl who worked cleaning at a Packers Sanitation Services (PSSI)

meatpacking plant

in Nebraska at the age of 13 was sent to jail for driving the girl to work at night, according to an investigation. from The Washington Post.

The girl's mother also faces jail time for getting false documents to get her hired.

The man and woman, who asked not to be identified out of fear, told the Post that they are terrified of being deported to Guatemala, the country from which they immigrated.

"I have no words," the mother declared to the aforementioned medium.

An investigation by Telemundo News

reported in November 2022 that the Department of Labor was investigating the labor exploitation of migrant children at meatpacking plants in

Nebraska

,

Minnesota

, and

Missouri

, and that some minors had been injured in the dangerous cleanup tasks.

Several minors told Noticias Telemundo that they performed dangerous jobs

such as cleaning “saws to cut bones”

.

One of them assured that he stopped attending school because he "worked and was tired."

“There were (children) like 13, 14, 15, 16 years old, they were very young.

I don't know if it's because of the parents or because of necessity, but they should be studying and not working.

Some were lying about their age,” said a worker at a meat plant located in Grand Island, Nebraska.

A photo taken by a Department of Labor investigator shows a boy who worked for Packers Sanitation Services Inc. cleaning a slaughterhouse in Grand Island, Nebraska. US Department of Labor.

PSSI was denounced in November by the Department of Labor for violating the Fair Labor Standards Act by employing minors to clean equipment such as sharp saws, cattle clippers and other high-risk equipment with dangerous chemicals, at 13 meatpacking plants. meat. 

The plants that have employed minors are operated by some of the most established meat-processing companies in the United States, including

JBS Foods, Tyson and Cargill

, which have not been charged or fined as part of the investigation, a Washington report said. Post. 

Specifically Packers, a JBS subcontractor, has thus far not faced criminal charges for the findings of the investigation.

The company paid a civil penalty of $1.5 million.

At least 102 minors between the ages of 13 and 17 worked for Packers in slaughterhouses in eight states, according to the Post.

Meanwhile, government data shows that hundreds of companies that employed nearly 4,000 children in 2022 have been found to be in violation of federal labor laws.

To buy clothes and an Iphone 13

The mother of the 13-year-old girl who worked cleaning at Packers and spoke to the Post said she emigrated from Joyabaj, a poor municipality in Guatemala, in 2016. When she came to the United States, she left the girl and her sister in the care of from their grandparents.

But in 2021, after working five years at a meatpacking plant for the Brazilian company JBS on Grand Island, she paid human traffickers to bring her two daughters.

The mother said she did not want her daughter to work, preferring her to focus on school.

However, the girl herself said that she filled out an online job application to work at Packers because she was bored in the summer and

she wanted to earn some money to buy clothes and an iPhone 13.

"I like money, I like to buy things," the girl told the Post during an interview at her relatives' house.

The minor said that she worked for about three months at the meat plant, between June 1 and August 22.

There she took out the trash and cleaned sinks, but she had to stop doing it after her school found out that she had

skin burns caused by contact with abrasive chemicals

, according to her testimony.

The company denied to the Post that it had recorded any such incident.

The school notified local authorities, which had already received reports of children working at the meat plant, including a 14-year-old who burned her hands, and another the same age who fell asleep at her school after working. a night shift.

First migrant caravan of the year leaves southern Mexico for the US with about 1,000 people

March 1, 202300:19

The Government of Joe Biden announced at the end of February the creation of a new working group to stop the rise in the labor exploitation of immigrant children in the country.

More unaccompanied minors entering the US

Reports of child exploitation have brought the Department of Health and Human Services and its secretary, Xavier Becerra, under scrutiny due to concerns that migrant children are being released from government shelters too early, potentially pushing them into victimization. of forced labor.

[Migrants report difficulty making appointments through CBP One]

Becerra was heard in 2022 in a video quoted by The New York Times as he urged federal agency staff to speed up the discharge process for refugee migrant children in government shelters.

“If Henry Ford had seen this in his plants, he would never have become famous and rich,” Becerra told staff during a meeting last summer.

"This is not how you do an assembly line."

The White House said in a statement after the controversial video was released that Becerra still had "the full support" of the president.

"Of course, the presidency does not believe that processing migrant children equates to an assembly line

, and neither does Secretary Becerra," the statement said.

Becerra, who is the son of Mexican immigrants, speaks frequently about his parents' experience coming to the United States and is often seen as an advocate for immigrants.

The illegal labor of migrant children "is an open secret" that has been going on for a long time in the US.

Feb 28, 202304:01

Meanwhile, the record number of migrant crossings across the southern border since Biden took office has also included

unaccompanied minors

.

In the last fiscal year, which ended in September, the authorities made more than 2.3 million arrests at the border (37% more than in 2021) and more than double that in 2019, when Donald Trump was president, according to data cited. by The Associated Press.

The Departments of Health and Human Services and of Labor issued new guidelines in early February to improve the supervision of migrant children who are placed in foster homes in the country.

[Judge refuses to freeze the humanitarian 'parole' program for Cuba, Venezuela, Haiti and Nicaragua]

As part of the new guidelines, the Department of Health and Human Services

will help enroll children in schools

and will require staff visits to the homes where they live to ensure a safe environment.

For its part, the Department of Labor said that it is considering prohibiting the marketing of products manufactured by children who suffered labor exploitation.

Source: telemundo

All news articles on 2023-03-04

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