Here is a yet another article, this time from from Greeley, Co, about how great it is for a Swift meatpacking plant to have all these Somali refugee men handy, ready, and willing to work. Yesterday’s article is here. Today’s news account begins:
GREELEY, Colo. — The four Somalis moved into the apartment last August, six floors up in a downtown Greeley building. The living room is furnished with only a metal folding chair and small table covered in papers and a laptop computer. A Somali flag, a white star against light blue, is the only wall hanging, draped behind the table.
Is it just me, or does this strike anyone else as a bit strange? Four Muslim men living in an apartment with not much else but a laptop computer and a Somali flag on the wall. Hum.
Back to the article which is nothing more than the boilerplate meatpacker story we see all over the country.
Doug Schult, who heads employee and labor relations at Swift, said refugees are coming from several east African countries. They are working at Swift plants across the nation, from Greeley to Kentucky.
Ibraham Mohamed is a Greeley caseworker for Lutheran Family Services, which provides refugee resettlement services. He estimates that about 300 east Africans are in Greeley, and that “every day, 20 or 30 people are coming to get started at Swift, maybe 15 (a day). It depends on how they get the job.”
I just checked our archives and sure enough I wrote about the opening of this refugee office for Ft. Morgan and Greeley back in July, read especially this post on July 13th with a link to Greeley’s historical role in the origin of modern day Islamic terrorism (yes Greeley!). Those 4 guys with the laptop and the Somali flag probably have had a private little chuckle about the irony of that.
This meatpacker/Muslim refugee marriage doesn’t come together by happenstance. The US State Department was probably working with Swift all along and helped them get the refugee workers out to Greeley, but they needed an office there to make sure the Swift workers had all of their other needs met compliments of the US taxpayer.
New readers, use our search function and find the many many posts we have written about meatpacking plants and refugees. Check especially Shelbyville, TN and Emporia, KS.