Meat + Poultry - December 2007 - 164

IMMIGRATION

Alan Leveritt, who publishes the Arkansas Times as well as the Spanish-language El Latino newspapers and whom
Sklar credits as the inspiration behind the
coalition, believes "there are two strong
arguments in favor of immigrants in Arkansas: economic and moral. So it wasn't
really very difficult to bring together the
meatpackers and the do-gooders." He
pointed out that the unofficial estimate
puts the number of Latinos in Arkansas
at about 200,000, or about seven percent
of the state's total population. Leveritt
added that demographers estimate that
by the year 2015, the Latino population
will match or exceed Arkansas' AfricanAmerican population. "We're already
halfway there," he says.
The Coalition is headed by the Rev.
Steven Copley, a minister in the United
Methodist Church who earlier had enlisted the help of Tyson and Wal-Mart
in a successful effort to raise the state's
minimum wage. The group's inaugural
press release, issued Oct. 29, claims that
immigrants added $3 billion to the Arkansas economy in 2004 (the most recent year for which accurate numbers are
available). While the state's immigrant
population used $237 million in statefunded services, the same population
contributed $257 million in taxes to
the state budget. Furthermore, spending by immigrants in the state has led
to the creation of more than 23,000
jobs in Arkansas, which are primarily
held by Arkansas-born citizens. If all
the state's immigrants were to leave,
manufacturing output would drop by
$1.4 billion "and factories would close
across Arkansas due to an acute labor
shortage."
What Leveritt calls "this slow-motion
demographic tidal wave" has been productive and healthy for Arkansas, he
commented. "The Latinos in this state
are very religious, they're very family
oriented, and they work very, very hard.
What's not to like?"
Yet the 2007 state legislative session
saw several anti-immigrant proposals.
40

MEAT&POULTRY

When the Arkansas legislature convenes again, in early 2009, the ACLU's
Sklar said she expects more of the same.
"We're talking about very harsh proposals," she said. Moreover, the mayor of
Rogers, Ark., where Tyson operates a
plant and which is the hometown of
the fi rst Wal-Mart store, has proposed
a new city law that would penalize any
Rogers business that employs an illegal
immigrant. The Rogers police force has
also been part of a new federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement program, 287-G, which trains and deputizes local law officials for immigrant
round-ups. The police department in
Springdale, Tyson's headquarters city,
also participates in 287-G.
Oklahoma and Georgia have already
passed state laws penalizing employers
that hire illegal immigrants. "They're draconian laws -- the industries there don't
even know what's hit them," Leveritt
says. "We don't want that to happen in
Arkansas." The Oklahoma law is presently under challenge in court.
As listed on the Arkansas Friendship
Coalition's Web site (www.arfriendshipcoalition.org), the organization's "core
beliefs" are:
* All Arkansas residents deserve dignity and protection of their rights.
* Immigration is a federal issue. State
and local money should not be wasted
trying to fi x a problem that ultimately
only the federal government can solve.
* State and local governments should
not take punitive actions targeting our
state's immigrant population.
In the Oct. 29 press statement, Archie
Schaffer, Tyson's senior vice president for
external affairs, said: "It is critically important to American business that comprehensive immigration reform be passed
by Congress, but this is a problem that
can only be fixed at that level. State and
local governments should not be involving themselves in issues that only Congress can really address."
Schaffer told MEAT&POULTRY: "We're
pretty much a status quo group. We want

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to encourage Congress to pass reforms.
The Coalition wants to educate members of the state legislature on these
issues so we aren't at odds with what
Congress needs to do." He added that
Tyson wants the federal government to
give employers more and better tools
for establishing an employee's legal status rather than simply conduct more
ICE raids at plants and construction
sites. According to the Tyson executive, more than one-third of the company's 104,000 employees, including
poultry, beef and pork operations,
are Hispanic.
Leveritt said most of the political opposition to immigrants in Arkansas comes from state legislators
in the northwest part of the state,
which is where Tyson and Wal-Mart
are based. Traditionally, he said, the
region votes Republican, and the legislators are all Republican. "They've
been thumping their Bibles so loud
they can't hear what the Bible's saying," he comments, citing Leviticus
19: 33-34 from the Old Testament as
the moral authority underpinning the
Coalition's efforts.
"When I first got interested in this,
I went to Steve Copley and asked him
if the Bible might have anything to
say about immigrants," Leveritt recalled. "'Boy, did you come to the
right place,' he told me."
Meanwhile, when asked if she
ever imagined, even in her wildest
dreams, the ACLU teaming up with
Tyson, Rita Sklar laughs. "No" she
says, before re-emphasizing the ACLU's and Tyson's mutual interest in
protecting the rights of immigrants,
no matter the strange bedfellows the
issue might make. Tyson's Schaffer
smiled at the same question. "I've
know Rita a long time. I don't always
agree with the ACLU, but when I do I
don't mind saying so," he says.
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