If you believe the hype from the open-borders crowd about how illegal immigrants "are doing jobs other won't do," you would have to wonder how this ever happened (the following is from a May 11 company press release):

Swift & Company Announces Return of Standard Staffing Levels at All Four Domestic Beef Processing Facilities

Pork Processing Facilities Resumed Normal Production in March

Swift & Company today reported its return to standard staffing levels at all four domestic beef processing facilities after the detention and removal, on December 12, 2006, of approximately 950 Swift Beef employees by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement ("ICE") division.

The December 2006 ICE event also involved two Swift Pork processing facilities. As the Company announced on April 10, 2007, Swift's domestic pork operations returned to normal levels in March 2007. ICE detained and removed a total of nearly 1,300 Swift Beef and Swift Pork employees during the December 2006 event.

A terse Associated Press story on the announcement that gained very little circulation made sure to remind us that "Operations at Swift plants in Colorado, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Texas and Hyrum, Utah, were suspended for several hours on Dec. 12 while immigration agents arrested 1,217 workers. No company managers have been charged."

Somehow, AP "forgot" to tell us that, as reported by the Greeley, Colorado Tribune the previous week (requires free registration), that at just one of the facilities involved:

..... 261 warrants (were issued) for workers in Greeley who were using other people's Social Security numbers or names to gain employment at Swift. It was unclear how the workers obtained those identities.

ICE discovered the identity thefts after victims from different parts of the country reported suspicious changes in their credit. Some people received Social Security statements that showed a history of employment at Swift, but the victims had never worked there.

Back to the main topic -- How did Swift manage to find all those (presumably legal) workers? A One News Now story has what will be a "surprising" answer for the economic wing of the open-borders lobby:

Steve Elliot is president of Grassfire.org, an organizing center for conservative activists. He is calling the company's achievement the "Swift Miracle."

..... Swift had no problem finding people to fill the positions formerly held by illegal aliens, the Grassfire.org spokesman contends. "Just a few months after they were busted by government officials, they had no problem filling those positions with Americans who are willing to do those jobs and earn a living in the meat-packing industry," he says.

Elliot insists the meat company's story completely debunks the argument by advocates for open borders that the U.S. government must give amnesty to millions of illegal aliens in the country. "[T]his just blows holes in one of the biggest arguments of the amnesty agenda: that illegals are coming here to do jobs Americans won't do," he adds. "It's simply not true," he says; "Americans will do these jobs if given the opportunity."

Thanks to the "Swift Miracle," Eliot says, those who support the open borders/amnesty agenda can no longer use the jobs excuse to justify the flood of illegal immigrants into the U.S.

The filling of the Swift jobs is yet another against-the-grain immigration-related story that Old Media has downplayed. Yet it "somehow" has found the time and attention for:
- "Swift raids leave immigrant families separated"
- "Impact of Swift raid still being felt"
- "Greeley mayor urges changes in ICE raids"
- "Somali Workers Quit Over Prayer Dispute" (at a Swift plant)
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Note: An unexcerpted paragraph in the One News Now story contains claims by Elliot that "Swift is reporting in the company's own quarterly report "that they are 'up to normal production levels' and that their operational and cost position has improved."

Those claims are incorrect. The company's related April 10 press release (PDF converted to HTML) says that "US Pork Operations (are) Back at Normal Levels .... (and) US Beef Operations (are) On Track to Return by Summer," and only notes that "multiple operational and cost position improvements are under way, and we are beginning to realize the benefits of those programs." No favorable or unfavorable comparison to the company's previous cost position is made. Nothing in the 10-Q Quarterly report contradicts that statement in the press release.
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Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.

—Tom Blumer is president of a training and development company in Mason, Ohio, and is a contributing editor to NewsBusters