Thousands Boycott Tyson Foods Amid Plan To Hire 42,000 Asylum Seekers In New York

Angry campaigners are urging shoppers to boycott Tyson Foods and its products amid its new move to hire thousands of asylum seekers. The food company has shut down more of its poultry and meat plants across the U.S., including facilities in Iowa, Virginia, and Arkansas, which employed over 2,000 people.

Tyson Foods has recently hired dozens of immigrants, with the offer including immigration lawyers. The boycott is motivated by the fear that immigrants are replacing Americans for low-grade jobs. Statistics have also shown that there's a significant decrease in the number of native-born Americans in the blue-collar workforce.

America First Legal and many campaigners are pushing for a boycott of Tyson Foods and its products. The boycott is due to the company's recent closures of multiple poultry and meat processing plants in Iowa, Indiana, Virginia, Arkansas, and Missouri. The closures are because Tyson plans to hire thousands of asylum seekers in New York, a move that is extremely controversial among Americans.

The campaigners are accusing Tyson of using the closures to ditch American workers for cheaper migrant labor. America First Legal is a conservative action group launched by former Trump administration officials, and they've warned the company that favoring immigrants is illegal.

The group posted a statement online that reads, "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."

So far, Tyson Foods has yet to respond to the statement or speak on its decision to employ more migrants.

Earlier this week, Tyson announced the closure of its Pork Plant in Perry, Iowa. The shutdown has cost 1276 people their jobs in a town that houses just 8,000 people. According to local news sources, the majority of the workers at the Iowa plant were Latinos.

In May last year, Tyson Foods closed down two plants in Arkansas and Virginia, putting over 1600 people out of jobs. The month before, the company announced that it was working on cutting 10 percent of its corporate jobs and 15 percent of its executive roles.

After the company's 2022-2023 sales numbers hit a 0.8 percent slump, Tyson announced plans to shutter several more plants, including its locations in Arkansas, Indiana, and Missouri. The closure is scheduled for the first half of 2024.

The boycott is motivated by Tyson's decision to hire thousands of asylum seekers primarily located in New York and other cities. They need to fill up the roles in more undesirable categories due to the sinking unemployment rate of 3.9 percent.

Tyson currently employs over 42,000 immigrants in its 120,000-plus-strong workforce in its US businesses. They're boosting this number significantly by collaborating with the Tent Partnership for Refugees, which is a non-profit focused on helping immigrants in the US.

Garret Dolan, the head of Tyson's social efforts division, recently told Bloomberg that the company "would like to employ another 42,000 if we could find them."

Over the past few weeks, the company has hired more asylum seekers from Mexico, Colombia, and Venezuela, all from a job fair in New York.

According to Dolan's statements to Bloomberg, companies like Tyson need more asylum seekers to fill the employment gaps at their plants. Their job offers for immigrants start at $16.50 per hour, with benefits like fully paid-for immigration lawyers.

Campaigners are kicking back against Tyson's decision to employ more immigrants because of fears that they're replacing Americans in the labor industry.

This is especially critical in meat-packing and other plant-related jobs, which are generally considered undesirable for Americans themselves.

Data released by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics show that between July and August 2023, the workforce suffered a significant decline in native-born workers, at about 1.2 million people. In contrast, foreign-born workers witnessed a boom in employment, gaining about 668,000 jobs.

On social media, several people have expressed their displeasure at Tyson Foods for deciding to hire more migrant workers.

One person wrote on TikTok, "I haven't eaten Tyson in years. Won't start now. Their food is c--- anyway and treat the farm animals like [they're] in a holocaust. No thanks."

Another said, "It's one thing hiring them, but laying off U.S. citizens to hire them is another."

A third person asked, "Are they hiring them [because] citizens don't want to do that job anymore though? I would like [the] whole story [because] that's a lot of positions to fill if there isn't an underlying issue."

One more person said, "Disgusting. Hope they go out of business very soon."

Tyson Foods has finally spoken out against reports about the company allegedly hiring migrants and ditching American workers.

In a statement, the company said, "In recent days, there has been a lot of misinformation in the media about our company, and we feel compelled to set the record straight. Any insinuation that we would cut American jobs to hire immigrant workers is completely false."

It continued, "Tyson Foods is strongly opposed to illegal immigration, and we led the way in participating in the two major government programs to help employers combat unlawful employment, E-Verify and the Mutual Agreement between Government and Employers (IMAGE) program."

Tyson Foods further emphasized that they have "created jobs and employed millions of people in states all across America, the majority of whom are American citizens."

Concluding their statement, the company noted: "Today, Tyson Foods employs 120,000 team members in the United States, all of whom are required to be legally authorized to work in this country. We have a history of strong hiring practices, and anybody who is legally able is welcome to apply to open job listings."