SALISBURY, Md. – Hundreds of white-collar, middle-class Koreans, desperate to immigrate to the United States, are paying as much as $30,000 each to work in chicken plants on the Eastern Shore.
Immigration brokers advertise the poultry jobs in Korean newspapers as a shortcut to the United States. Koreans who respond pay $10,000 to $30,000 in fees and promise to work for a year in processing plants, according to interviews with about 50 current and former poultry workers.
When they are hired, they receive legal permanent U.S. residency for themselves and their families under a federal program designed to fill unskilled jobs. For some, the process shortens a possible 15-year wait to immigrate. For others, it is the only legal means of coming to America.
Under the program, U.S. companies can import foreign workers once they prove to the Labor Department that they have advertised and recruited extensively yet still have openings. About 10,000 people a year become permanent U.S. residents under the program, which is used by such industries as hotels, maid services and chicken processing companies.
The companies file for the work visas, but it is often middleman agencies and brokers who recruit the specific individuals who will fill the positions.
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10 comments:
This is NOTHING new. It's been going on for many years. At least they are coming to the U.S. Legally. I see nothing wrong with this...
We hear the cries to extend unemployment insurance and yet we are bringing in foreign labor since these jobs have been advertised and unfilled?
While I am not a fan of "Big Chicken" and am often critical something's up with this article.
It states the woman works at the Showell Perdue plant. That plant hasn't been operational nor even open for at least 10 yrs that I know of.
Perdue is not willing to pay a better wage to attract the locals here on the shore - or this wouldn't be an issue.
There are plenty of folks drawing welfare, food stamps, heating benefits, Owebama phones, and other gov't teat outputs that they don't have to work to survive.
If these programs were to be cut and/or means tested (just go to the grocery store and watch food stamp redeemers show up in nice bling'd out vehicles with cigarettes and iPhones in their possession), the new group of teat-releasees would actually have to do something for their subsistence...they would be more willing to take these jobs that Perdue is bringing in foreigners at a lower rate to work.
If jobs can be advertised and unfilled, why are so many electing unemployment????
Why are they allowed to get it???
7:18 I don't know about this program, but I know of companies forced to pay $12+ for H1-A (or whatever it is). The government sets the wages, not the company. Let's say it's $8, or $9 per hour... that's better than unemployment. We just have some lazy SOB's in this job market.
7:33 - I'll accept that...with a follow-up....
If the gov't sets the H1-A at $12/hr and the going rate (without being forced) is $10, would you expect the laziness rate to be different? This is the government promoting immigration at the expense of the business - and the local workforce.
..and from experience, the Korean worker has a work ethic second to none. Once they complete their contracted "servitude" they invariably move on to jobs with better working conditions and better pay. Another component of their work ethic is "delayed gratification", something our culture discarded with the advent of the credit card.
2 million people looking for a job and only 12,000 jobs were created last month.
8:27-Great point,but I question the "move on to jobs with better working conditions and better pay" part.Some will,but the poultry industry is banking that many won't.
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