By Didi Martinez, Julia Ainsley and Laura Strickler -
NBC News
FREMONT, Nebraska — While big-city mayors complain about the economic impact of influxes of immigrants, residents of a small town near Omaha still haven't decided how they feel about migrants.
Fremont, Nebraska, population 27,000, has three large meat processing plants.
As local youth leave in search of better jobs, Central American migrants have been taking their jobs in slaughterhouses, especially after Costco opened a massive rotisserie chicken facility in 2019.
"We need these people,"
said Mark Jensen, city council president.
"We need this work done. This is what feeds the nation and the world."
But instead of welcoming them, for more than a decade Fremont has had a controversial law that tries to prohibit undocumented immigrants from living within the city limits.
In 2010, residents voted 57% to 43% to require that everyone who rents property in Fremont must first sign a declaration that they meet the legal requirements to live in the US.
We need these people.
We need this work done.
This is what feeds the nation and the world."
Mark Jensen CITY COUNCIL PRESIDENT
"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 Paul Von Behren, a city council member.
Brenda Ray, who has lived in the Fremont area for 40 years, said she noticed the change in the city's population and voted in favor of the ordinance in 2010. She said she "has no problems" with Central Americans arriving. if they are legal and come to speak American English.
[Lawyers give advice to migrants in Texas to be prepared if the SB4 law is again in force]
She wishes the rule, known as Ordinance 5165, "accomplished more," but she still supports it.
"It's something we have in our toolbox," he said.
"If we have a big problem we can turn to her."
However, factories need workers, and immigrants continue to arrive.
By 2022, a once nearly all-white city had become 16% Latino, according to Census data, and the number has risen since then.
Many of the new arrivals come from Guatemala.
The Guatemalan consulate in Omaha says there are at least 2,020 Guatemalans in Fremont and
the real number could be 45% higher.
María Hernández and her husband, Vicente, pastors of
Dios es Amor #2,
one of the local Guatemalan churches, said their membership has gone from three parishioners to 200 in seven years.
They claim that many of their members work in slaughterhouses, so it is a frequent topic of prayer.
"I tell them that we have to give thanks because God has put the men who have these companies here," said María.
"If it weren't for these companies we wouldn't have a job."
Vicente also works at one of the local slaughterhouses, cleaning the slaughter plant on the night shift.
He believes that the city and the migrants complement each other.
[Some migrants will be exempt from the evictions carried out in Chicago shelters]
"With Hispanic migrants, although it is hard, although it is heavy, they endure," says Vicente.
Between church and the plant, he said,
he sleeps three hours a night.
Jensen worked in the meat industry for 40 years and says he has seen these jobs become less attractive to native-born Americans.
"They're very physical jobs," Jensen says.
"And a lot of it is hard work. And it's not something that many people can do."
Some complain, however, that undocumented workers use false identities to get jobs.
In 2021, a document forgery ring
was discovered in Fremont.
Federal investigators found "hundreds of counterfeit federal and state identification cards," according to court records.
Last month, four slaughterhouse workers were accused of using other people's Social Security numbers.
Glenn Elwell, who investigated the cases as head of the Nebraska Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) fraud unit, said he wasn't surprised they were in Fremont.
"A good majority of our cases tend to occur in and around cities and towns with meat plants," he said.
[This city welcomes immigrants as tensions rise across the country over sanctuary policies]
"A burden on taxpayers"
Driving through Fremont, the Guatemalan presence is tangible, from local shops offering Latin food to advertisements for remittance services.
Many of the arriving immigrants live in a mobile home neighborhood less than five minutes from the city's plants.
"The work is a blessing,"
says local store owner Gaspar Larios.
"Now there are Guatemalans who have a house, their own home in the United States."
Larios and his wife run a small store where they sell traditional, colorful Guatemalan costumes, a piece of their native country that people still wear to attend special events.
The arrival of immigrants has transformed the community and kept slaughterhouses operating, but many residents say they also place a burden on municipal services.
"The pressure of bringing in so many people has put a burden on taxpayers," says Von Behren of the city council.
In the last four years, the school system has added 600 children who do not speak English as their first language.
Of the most recently arrived Guatemalans, 40% or more speak an indigenous language called K'iche', said community organizer Antonio López.
But efforts have also been made to welcome newcomers.
A Fremont teacher has started learning K'iche' so he can communicate with students and their parents.
The local hospital has hired a translator for that language.
[A coyote reveals how he smuggled migrants into the US through border sewers in exchange for $6,000]
Jessica Kolterman, manager of Costco's local chicken plant, told the local newspaper last year that her team gives language classes to workers.
And she stated that her company rewards hard work: "If you join this team and want to work hard and grow, you have that opportunity here."
Costco did not respond to requests for comment.
Meanwhile, immigrants who need to rent housing continue to show up at City Hall to sign declarations that they are in the United States legally and have to pay $5 to obtain an occupancy license.
The city clerk's office said it receives three to five statements a day from immigrants and other applicants.
The secretary's office also said it was not aware of any cases that would require additional steps, such as proving that someone who signed a declaration is actually living in the U.S. illegally, but referred NBC News to the Police Department for His confirmation.
Police did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
One reason there may be no cases is that the law does not require applicants for occupational licenses to provide any proof of their legal presence in the United States.
Knowing the measure could be a lightning rod for legal challenges when it was first passed in 2010, the city imposed a short-term special tax to raise a legal fund that now has more than $1.3 million.
For many years, he also paid an annual retainer of $10,000 to attorney Kris Kobach, the same anti-immigration activist who helped draft the law and others like it in cities across the country.
(Kobach, now Kansas attorney general, is no longer under contract with Fremont.)
[A soccer program offers migrant children in New York "a chance to belong"]
As expected, the American Civil Liberties Union fought the law as soon as it was passed, but ultimately lost.
The absence of language requiring tenants to demonstrate their right to reside in the US is partly why the ordinance survived legal challenge.
It is also the reason why it is legally ineffective.
Von Behren, who supports the rule, admits that it is unenforceable.
Jensen, who opposes it, says trying to apply it to a specific immigrant could lead to more legal conflicts.
He compared it to 19th century laws that remain in effect long after they have lost their validity.
"Basically," he said, "it's like the laws on the books about where you can hit your horse."
Vicente Hernández, however, said it still has an impact beyond the filing rate.
"When it comes to something like this, it's not like the people [who voted yes] have left [Fremont]," he said.
"Those people still live here."
He and Maria said they still feel like they've found their new hometown.
"Now I'm living the American dream, as they call it," Maria said.