Did you know that a 10 lb bag of chicken quarters cost $4.99 in Austin, TX the day ICE arrested 680 at poultry processing farms – farms where people were responsible for hand cutting each quarter? Our demand for cheap goods is a contributing factor to the exploitation in the poultry processing industry.

Did you know that Peco and Koch foods, two companies whose properties were raided by ICE last week, have a history of labor exploitation? Of hiring third party recruiting agencies to hire cheap labor for them, knowing that the workers are often undocumented, defrauded of wages, and coerced into working and living in deplorable conditions? That their managers, and the third party managers, regularly coerced them based on their immigration status? That they have been sued for unfair wages? Sexual harassment and racism?

Our CEO Rochelle Keyhan wrote about the potential human trafficking for Women’s Media Center, and how these arrests will make it difficult to bring charges against the true perpetrators – corporations exploiting people to keep costs low and profits high.