Because it is all over the news these days, I figured this might be a good time to repost some stories that you might not have seen or have long since forgotten. Like this one from 2017 (sure is good we were able to recover RRWwhen it was removed from the web last summer!):
Foreign-owned Big Meat hires Lutherans to help them find and retain refugee labor
That is the crux of this story and not in my wildest dreams did I think that money was directly changing hands between the meat industry and a federal refugee contractor, in this case Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Serviceheadquartered in Baltimore, MD.
I always assumed it was an informal relationship where the largely federally-funded ‘religious’ charity (LIRS is 96% funded by you and not via the collection plate) just happened to be bringing immigrant workers to small town America.
Now we learn that there is a formal (secret!), contractual arrangement planned for pilot projects in four states with JBS USA a Brazilian-owned company.And, it makes me wonder if this isn’t new and whether similar arrangements are being made with others of the nine federal refugee contractors.***
For those of you in places like St. Cloud, MN frustrated that you can’t get local elected officials to listen to you, remember their seemingly illogical resistance to slowing the flow of refugees has nothing to do with humanitarianism and everything to do with changing America for the almighty dollar!
Global meatpacking giant goes all in for refugee labor
A Lutheran resettlement agency that places United Nations refugees into dozens of U.S. cities and towns is working with the world’s largest meatpacking conglomerate to train refugees for work in four American states while also softening up the local natives to be more “welcoming.”
JBS Headquarters in Greeley, CO Photo credit: me
The secretive pilot program between Baltimore-based Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service and the U.S. subsidiary of JBS Swift aims to pump more refugees into Georgia, Texas, Iowa and Michigan to work in the company’s meat plants. If successful, the pilot program could be renewed for a second year and replicated at JBS meat plants across the U.S., WND has learned.
JBS Swift, the Brazilian-based global meat-processing giant, has agreed to pay Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services, or LIRS, $155,000 to implement the pilot program over the next year in the four states, according to a draft of the partnership agreement obtained by WND from a person with inside knowledge of the deal.
“The shock here is to find out that a religious agency is being paid by a foreign global corporation to train refugees and ultimately transform the demographics of small towns in America’s heartland,” said Ann Corcoran, an expert on the international movement of refugees and the nine volunteer agencies that resettle them for the U.S.
The deal between the global meat producer JBS and the Lutheran agency has been dubbed “Rebuilding Dreams,” and is described in the draft document as a “grant and collaboration agreement” between JBS USA and LIRS in the four states.
“The primary goal of this agreement is to improve the capacity of JBS USA and local resettlement agencies to support and improve the hiring and retention of refugee employees at four pilot sites in Michigan, Texas, Iowa, and Georgia,” according to the document.
The following are the cities in those states where JBS has meatpacking plants:
Iowa – Council Bluffs, Marshalltown and Ottumwa, mostly pork production
Michigan – Plainwell, mostly beef
Georgia – Elberton, Douglas, Athens, Ellijay, Canton and Carrollton, mostly chicken
Texas – Waco, Lufkin, Nacogdoches, Pittsburg and Mount Pleasant, mostly chicken
“Rebuilding Dreams will achieve this goal by creating customized trainings and resources for key stakeholders, building stronger relationships through communications and technology platforms, enhancing the collection and evaluation of data, and improving the overall quality and culture of the workplace experience for refugee employees,” the agreement states.
The agreement also calls for improving the local “welcoming culture” in the cities where the refugees will be placed.
Part of United Nations agenda for sustainability
JBS is a transnational, global corporation that beats the United Nations “sustainability” drum on its website, and it also cashes in on the globalized “labor mobility” concept pushed by the U.N.’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Read more here.The story is a detailed must-read about how a global corporation and a supposedly religious charity are changing America by changing the people.
And as a side reading project, see this 2006 articlefrom the Greeley Tribune involving Swift (JBS bought Swift) explaining how the meat industry went from being a desirable place for Americans to work to their model today that is increasingly reliant on the global movement of labor—-middle America be damned!
Don’t miss Bloomberg: Big Meat worried about Trump’s reduced refugee flow,here.
For Republicans it’s about money!
We know the Dems are pushing refugee resettlement in order to boost the number of Democrat voters, and if you are wondering why the Republicans aren’t doing enough to get the program controlled—look to the Chamber of Commerce and GLOBAL Corporations that have convinced the Republican leadership that the free flow of cheap and captive (uncomplaining) labor across borders is the future.
The jig is up!
Big Meat gets cheap labor, the Dems get voters, and you, the taxpayer, get to subsidize it all (including welfare for workers paid insufficient wages!). If you complain you are a hater, a racist and an Islamophobe!
LIRS is headquartered here in Baltimore. This is their own description: The Lutheran Center (LIRS headquarters) is a six-story structure constructed in 1999 on property owned by Baltimore’s historic Christ Lutheran Church. The building is located near Baltimore’s Inner Harbor in the historic Federal Hill neighborhood, a charming area rich with history and an eclectic array of eateries and shopping venues.
Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Serviceis the lead federal contractor for the following list of subcontractors.
Making it clear!
LIRS, in Baltimore, is not a separate group from the others on the list!
LIRS is the lead contractor that deals directly with the US State Department and divvies up incoming refugees between the agencies below—LOL! it is the ‘mothership’ to the following:
(Update: Since this post is from 2017 some of the subcontractors listed may no longer exist. I didn’t bother checking. See if the one near you is still up and running and let me know!)
So what do you do? Go tothis postI wrote earlier this month and get to work where you live!
For more on meatpackers and cheap immigrant labor, go here.
*** For new readers, these are the nine major federal refugee contractors largely funded by you, the taxpayer. Refugee resettlement is not first and foremost about humanitarianism so don’t let them shut you up!
2 thoughts on “Memory Lane: Meatpackers Work Directly with ‘Religious’ Refugee Contractors”
I really wish “media” would cease and desist from associating all “Lutherans” with Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services (LIRS). It is only the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Synod which endorses this deceitful contractor. There are several other Lutheran Synods which have nothing to do with nor do they support the deplorable activities of LIRS.
Leo Hohmen is my hero!! What would we do without him? Not worthy.
And he quoted you! Congratulations!
Also, no matter how many lies, infamies, and defamations the SPLC heaps on you, they will never be able to even show, much less prove, that you are a group. No, you are an individual. Something these kinds of groups can’t understand, of course. Like the LIRS, they are exclusively partisan and political, rather than religious, and in fact they should lose their tax-exempt status.
I really wish “media” would cease and desist from associating all “Lutherans” with Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services (LIRS). It is only the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Synod which endorses this deceitful contractor. There are several other Lutheran Synods which have nothing to do with nor do they support the deplorable activities of LIRS.
Leo Hohmen is my hero!! What would we do without him? Not worthy.
And he quoted you! Congratulations!
Also, no matter how many lies, infamies, and defamations the SPLC heaps on you, they will never be able to even show, much less prove, that you are a group. No, you are an individual. Something these kinds of groups can’t understand, of course. Like the LIRS, they are exclusively partisan and political, rather than religious, and in fact they should lose their tax-exempt status.