A Florida lawmaker has accused Tyson Foods of sacking American workers and hiring thousands of 'illegals' who are too scared to ask questions in a corrupt 'modern-day slavery' scheme
MAGA Republican Anna Paulina Luna has accused the embattled meat and poultry firm of scrapping US workers in favor of cheap 'indentured' laborers from overseas who are 'afraid of deportation.'
Tyson denies sacking Americans in favor of asylum seekers — but that hasn't stopped conservatives from branding them unpatriotic and leading a damaging boycott of the company's various supermarket brands.
The claims against Tyson play into fears that Democrats, globalists, and big corporations are encouraging migrants to flow into the US as part of a 'great replacement' of American workers and voters.
Anna Paulina Luna says Tyson wants to hire 'illegals' who are too scared of deportation to ask questions
Tyson is recruiting workers from the influx of migrants to New York City, which struggles to accommodate newcomers
'A massive farming operation just fired all of their American wage employees so that they could hire people that are migrant workers, a.k.a. illegals, that are cheap labor,' Luna said in her X/Twitter post on Thursday.
'They are absolutely firing Americans because they don't want to pay American wages.'
Luna, a member of the House Freedom Caucus, said the Tyson's migrant hires would effectively be 'indentured servitude' because they are 'afraid of deportation' and 'won't say anything' to offend the $54 billion company.
'That is modern-day slavery,' added Luna, in the first comments on the Tyson debacle from a federal elected official.
She also noted that 'Democrats are not saying anything' about the scandal and asked 'what the angle is' — which is understood to suggest that a liberal business elite encourages unchecked migration across the southern border.
Angry consumers are boycotting Tyson over claims that the company is shuttering plants and laying off workers while hiring tens of thousands of asylum seekers — and even hiring immigration lawyers to help its new recruits.
Tyson, which is based in Springdale, Arkansas, says it's not cutting American jobs to hire migrants, and that it only recruits newcomers with valid work permits.
Tyson seeks to double its number of immigrant employees to 84,000 this year, including roles at this plant in Springdale, Arkansas
'Any insinuation that we would cut American jobs to hire immigrant workers is completely false,' Tyson said in a statement.
The company declined DailyMail.com's requests for an interview.
Tyson earlier this month said it was shuttering its pork plant in Perry, Iowa, putting 1,276 people out of work in a town of just 8,000.
It was the latest in a string of closures across Virginia, Arkansas, Indiana and beyond in recent months.
The company is meanwhile trying to hire 42,000 asylum seekers and other immigrants, including through job fairs in New York, where many migrants end up, a Tyson official recently told Bloomberg.
The company has in recent weeks hired dozens of asylum seekers from Venezuela, Mexico, and Colombia at a job fair in New York City.
They travelled to work at its poultry plant in Humboldt, Tennessee.
Tyson seeks to double its number of immigrant employees to 84,000 this year, including roles at this plant in Springdale, Arkansas, its corporate responsibility boss Garrett Dolan said.
The meat-packer already employs about 42,000 immigrants among its 120,000-strong US workforce.
Tyson's pork plant in Perry, Iowa, is the latest to be mothballed, with 1,300 jobs lost
Tyson is America's biggest meat and poultry firm, by sales, which dropped by 0.8 percent to $52,881 million last year
Conservatives on social media called for a boycott of Tyson and its various food brands
It offers recruits $16.50 an hour work, paid-for immigration lawyers to help them get work permits, and other perks.
Meat-packing plants are undesirable places to work, and Tyson says it has lots of vacancies to fill amid a low unemployment rate of 3.9 percent.
It is cooperating with the Tent Partnership for Refugees, a nonprofit, to hire thousands of them.
Conservatives on social media say the company is unpatriotic.
They have called for a boycott of Tyson and its various foods brands, which include Jimmy Dean, Hillshire Farm, Ball Park, Wright, and Aidells.
Bill Flaig, CEO and co-founder of the $79 million American Conservative Values Fund, this week divested from Tyson and said he won't buy any more stock in the company.
America First Legal, a conservative action group launched by former Trump administration officials, warned Tyson that it could be breaking the law by favoring foreign-born workers over Americans.
'It is ILLEGAL under federal law to discriminate against American citizens based on their citizenship in favor of non-citizens of any kind when it comes to employment,' the legal action group posted online.
Tyson's $13 million-a-year CEO Donnie King has led the company since 2021
Tyson Foods brands include Tyson, Jimmy Dean, Hillshire Farm, Ball Park, Wright, and Aidells
Workers, including many Latinos, have protested Tyson's plant closures, like this one in Van Buren, Arkansas, in April 2023
The boycott raises tough questions for Tyson's $13 million-a-year CEO Donnie King, who has led the firm since 2021, during which time it has funded the campaign chests of President Joe Biden, Nikki Haley and others, according to Open Secrets.
It spotlights fears about migration across the US-Mexico border, and that asylum seekers are replacing Americans, especially in meat-packing and other undesirable jobs amid record low unemployment.
Data from US Bureau of Labor Statistics show that between July and August 2023, there was a staggering decrease of 1.2 million native-born people in the workforce.
In stark contrast, some 688,000 jobs were secured by foreign-born workers, underlining the difference in President Joe Biden's pro-migration policies versus Donald Trump's tough border stance.
Asylum seekers cannot work upon entering the US, and typically don't get permits until 180 days after they apply for legal status.
Many wait for years before their first immigration court hearing to judge their asylum claim, during which time they can work.
The Labor Department investigated Tyson in 2022 as part of a bigger probe into child laborers working illegally at meat-packing plants in overnight shifts, during which one teenage migrant suffered chemical burns.
