Tyson Smuggled Help for Years, U.S. Alleges

The company, the world's largest maker of poultry products and the supplier of about a fourth of the chicken bought in the United States, is on trial in U.S. District Court here on criminal charges that it conspired to smuggle undocumented migrants from Mexico and Central America for jobs at up to 21 plants, including one in Shelbyville, Tenn.

Assistant U.S. Atty. John P. MacCoon said Tyson officials pursued a strategy during the 1990s of importing and hiring undocumented workers as a way of keeping up with rapid turnover at its poultry plants without raising pay.

"This trial is about corporate greed," MacCoon said during his opening statement. "It's about what happens when a corrupt corporate culture makes the bottom line the all-consuming priority."

Two Tyson managers and a third executive, now retired, are co-defendants. Two other managers included in a 36-count indictment pleaded guilty last month to conspiracy and are expected to testify for the prosecution. A sixth Tyson supervisor committed suicide after the indictments were announced in December 2001.

Tyson said it has never knowingly hired workers who lacked legal documents. The company, based in Springdale, Ark., has insisted that its senior executives were unaware of any violations by lower-level supervisors and said misconduct was limited to a few managers at a handful of plants.

"No senior executive forced any employee, directly or indirectly, to commit the crimes charged in this indictment," said Tom Green, a Washington attorney representing Tyson.

The case marks the first time that immigrant-smuggling charges have been brought against a company as large as Tyson. Most often, prosecutions target individual smugglers and occasionally employers. In recent years, the Immigration and Naturalization Service has been criticized for cutting back on work-site enforcement while building up its presence on the U.S.-Mexico border.

"This is a significant prosecution because enforcement of employer penalties for hiring undocumented workers has virtually collapsed," said Wayne Cornelius, director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at UC San Diego.