Fremont, Nebraska, has three massive meat-processing plants that need workers. It also requires anyone renting a home to sign a declaration that they’re in the U.S. legally.

Fremont, Nebraska, has three massive meat-processing plants that need workers. It also requires anyone renting a home to sign a declaration that they’re in the U.S. legally.

Big-city mayors may be complaining about the economic impact of an influx of migrants, but the residents of a small city near Omaha can’t decide how they feel.

Fremont, Nebraska, population 27,000, has three massive meat-processing plants. As young locals leave in search of better jobs, Central American migrants have been taking their places in the slaughterhouses, especially after Costco opened a huge rotisserie chicken facility in 2019.

“We need these people,” said Mark Jensen, president of the city council. “We need this work done. This is what feeds the nation and the world.”

But instead of a welcome mat, for more than a decade Fremont has had a controversial law on the books that tries to bar undocumented migrants from living within city limits. In 2010, residents voted 57% to 43% to require that all people renting property in Fremont must first sign a declaration that they are legally present in the U.S.

  • jaschen@lemm.ee
    0·
    8 months ago

    My family used to export cherries from WA state cherries into China. We have met farmers who literally hate Mexicans but hire them each season. One of his many stupid reasons was because they are taking jobs away from the locals. When I asked him point blank why doesn’t he just hire non-mexicans he said no locals want to work picking cherries regardless how much he pays.

    I said to him if there is no demand for these jobs, who are the people that are taking the jobs from? His answer was… “Um… I guess I never looked at it that way.”

    I also added that these migrant works are quite literally keeping food on your table. Without them he would have to drop the cherries each year(drop means they claim insurance and just let the fruit rot). He didn’t say anything after this. I think I struct a nerve.

    • krashmo@lemmy.world
      0·
      8 months ago

      I don’t think I believe your story simply because I have yet to encounter a conservative who would respond to direct questioning like that. I think if this really happened he would have called you a commie and walked away. I would love to be wrong about that though.

      • phdepressed@sh.itjust.works
        0·
        8 months ago

        Modern farmers tend to be fairly well educated. How much exposure they have to a non GOP narrative on the other hand…

        They’d have to actively search out dem and left views. Their church is probably GOP, their neighbors are probably GOP, their radio is definitely GOP, their local news networks are GOP.

        The GOP has a stranglehold on rural areas for a reason and it isn’t by making things better for their constituents. It is by near perfect control over the information they get most conveniently. People don’t tend to search out the opposing view and if they do they’re already biased towards the one they heard first.

      • bradorsomething@ttrpg.network
        0·
        8 months ago

        A lot of them fail to take the next step in logic. Like “I don’t trust the mainstream media.” Ask them who they get their news from. Then ask them, if that was the main news source for everyone, wouldn’t that make them the mainstream media?

      • jaschen@lemm.ee
        0·
        8 months ago

        I’m not here to convince you.

        I will add that these farmers have been working with us for years and we are not strangers. So there are years of relationship prior to me talking about politics with him.

  • Buelldozer@lemmy.today
    0·
    8 months ago

    I’m so disappointed in my hometown. This isn’t who they raised me to be and I’m glad I left in the 90s.

  • Red_October@lemmy.world
    0·
    8 months ago

    Not sure how legally binding the declaration is, but that’s neither here nor there. The answer is simple, let the town die. If they want to get their panties in a knot about migrants, then let’em work the shitty job themselves, and when they don’t, any businesses worth having around can relocate somewhere that won’t self-sabotage just to make a statement.

    Mark Jensen, president of the shitty council, needs to wake the fuck up. If they need those jobs then one way or another they need to retain people who will do those jobs, instead of antagonizing them.

  • originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com
    0·
    8 months ago

    funny how one of the easiest methods of finding illegal immigrants is to investigate business owners… but how often do they ever go to jail for hiring illegal workers?

    this story right here… they admit to requiring, and hiring an illegal work force but no job creator is going to jail for that illegal act…

    no, its the workers they need that should be punished?!

    • snooggums@midwest.socialEnglish
      0·
      8 months ago

      Similar to punishing the prostitutes instead of the people who pay for their services. Easier to pick on the less fortunate.

  • MrJameGumb@lemmy.world
    0·
    8 months ago

    They want migrants to come work the hardest, shittiest jobs but they want them to all live in the crappy housing outside the city limits because the townsfolk don’t actually consider immigrants to be human beings. That was the gist of the article as I read it anyway…

  • LEDZeppelin@lemmy.world
    0·
    8 months ago

    This is the same Nebraska that depended on pork and soy exports to Gyna that “Stable Genius” destroyed to play his easy-to-win trade wars. Not sure what he got in return but Nebraska farmers lost bigly. Still they voted for repubes.

    Absolutely no sympathy when these asshats inevitably go out of business.

    • OpenStars@startrek.websiteEnglish
      0·
      8 months ago

      Though when they fail, the price of groceries will go up, primarily affecting those who can least afford it. It is all a tangled, interconnected web:-(.

      I want these people to be free to live however they wish. But I do NOT agree that their votes should be worth several magnitudes more than mine:-(.