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After ICE Raid, A Shortage Of Welders In Tigertown, Texas
NPR ^ | October 19, 2018 | John Burnett

Posted on 10/19/2018 7:14:14 AM PDT by gattaca

With new enforcement priorities under the Trump administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are taking aim at employers that knowingly hire unauthorized immigrants. The most recent — and largest — bust happened at a trailer manufacturing plant in northeast Texas.

Business had been booming at Load Trail LLC, about two hours northeast of Dallas, as customers bought the black trailers to haul hay bales, topsoil, construction refuse and oilfield equipment. Then came the ICE raid in late August.

Inside Load Trail's huge production building, welders turn raw steel into trailers, amid cacophonous clanging and showers of sparks. It's brutish labor — cut the heavy black metal, lug it into place, arc-weld it, repeat — but the production floor is nearly half empty because of an acute shortage of welders.

Load Trail CEO Kevin Hiebert remembers the morning of Aug. 28, when a helicopter thumped overhead and 300 ICE agents swarmed into his yard. "It looked like something you would typically see in the movies," he said, "not something you ever planned on living out in real life."

ICE rounded up more than 150 employees — nearly a quarter of Hiebert's workforce — loaded them into buses and booked them for working in the country unlawfully. A criminal investigation of the company continues.

So far this year, ICE agents have stormed 7-Eleven stores, a meatpacking plant, dairy and vegetable farms and a feedlot.

Jake Thiessen's family founded Load Trail in Tigertown, Texas, which is home to a half-dozen major trailer manufacturers. Shortly after the Load Trail raid, ICE began auditing employee records of every trailer manufacturer in the community to find out which workers have fraudulent identity documents. John Burnett/NPR "Businesses that knowingly hire illegal aliens create an unfair advantage over their competing businesses. In addition, they take jobs away from U.S. citizens and legal residents," said Katrina Berger, special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in the Dallas ICE office.

But you won't hear those complaints in Tigertown, Texas. This flyspeck community situated between cotton fields near the Oklahoma border is home to a half-dozen major trailer manufacturers — all competitors. And they all employ undocumented workers.

"I think the manufacturing industry in Texas, any kind of steel fabrication construction, depends on illegal immigrant labor," Hiebert says.

ICE Targets 7-Eleven Stores In Nationwide Immigration Raids THE TWO-WAY ICE Targets 7-Eleven Stores In Nationwide Immigration Raids The head of a competing trailer-maker down the road agrees, saying they all use workers who are in the country illegally. He asked not to be named in hopes of staying off ICE's radar.

It's too late for that, though: ICE is auditing the employee records of every trailer manufacturer in Tigertown to find out which workers have fake identity documents. Some unauthorized employees are so rattled they're not showing up for work.

What the industry needs are legal guest workers, says Load Trail CEO Hiebert, "Especially now that they're cranking up on the enforcement. Everybody hopes that there'll be some kind of real immigration reform before what happened at Load Trail happens to them."

Load Trail has been in trouble before

In 2014, the company was fined $445,000 for employing more than 170 unauthorized immigrants at its plant. Hiebert says they hire whoever walks in the door, and they pay decent wages — $20 to $25 an hour. Still, they've always had a hard time finding welders.

"The trailer industry is growing well," Hiebert says, "but manufacturers are unable to keep up with demand. It has to do with the inability to produce the product."

So the work is done by men like Ignacio Barrios, a sturdy, 36-year-old welder who came here illegally from Oaxaca, Mexico. He worked at Load Trail for 17 years before getting swept up in the ICE operation.

Texas has always been knowingly duplicitous when it comes to illegal immigration.

Cal Jillson, political scientist

He wears an American flag T-shirt, and sits in the church that's helping to support his family of five now that he's out of work. Barrios paid a $5,000 bond to get out of detention, and is waiting for his day in immigration court.

"You have to work hard," he says in Spanish. "Lots of times you get injured, burned, you break your fingers. It gets over 100 degrees in the there. I've seen that Americans don't want to do the kind of work that we do."

Cal Jillson, a political scientist at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, says "Texas has always been knowingly duplicitous when it comes to illegal immigration."

On the one hand, Texas is a staunch law-and-order state where conservatives support Trump's immigration agenda; on the other hand, Jillson says, if ICE is too successful, "employers are wondering where they're going to find people to man their businesses if American high school graduates aren't going to do it."

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations agents arrested more than 150 workers at a trailer-manufacturing business in North Texas. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Lamar County, where the trailer manufacturers are headquartered, is crimson Trump country. Yet, to hear the trailer bosses tell it, the administration's immigrant roundups threaten a lifeblood of the county. Locals who voted for Trump are nonetheless sympathetic to the hard-working, undocumented welders.

Every morning, a group of retirees meets at the Dairy Queen in the county seat of Paris to drink coffee and mull over the state of the nation.

ECONOMY Worker Shortage Could Dampen Economy "This country will not survive if we don't straighten the way [immigrants] can come over here and work. Because I guarantee you Americans are not gonna do it," says Alan Helberg, a former hospital administrator. His buddy, retired dentist Jerry Akers, chimes in, "Congress needs to get off their duff and pass some meaningful legislation to where people can come here and work legally and not have to be afraid of getting uprooted."

Comprehensive immigration reform is, so far, dead in the water in the gridlocked Congress. And back at Tigertown, some trailer manufacturers say that if they can't find enough welders, they would consider moving their entire operations to Mexico.


TOPICS: News/Current Events; US: Texas
KEYWORDS: aliens; ice; illegals; immigration; winning; workforce
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To: gattaca
"...home to a half-dozen major trailer manufacturers — all competitors. And they all employ undocumented workers."

If you let on competitor break the law, they all have to follow or they are out of business.

Laws need to be enforced.

101 posted on 10/19/2018 9:14:00 AM PDT by DannyTN
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To: redshawk

That’s the way real countries operate.
Bush League Republicans and Democrats have made it almost impossible for US to be a real country.


102 posted on 10/19/2018 9:14:09 AM PDT by Lurkinanloomin (Natural Born Citizen Means Born Here of Citizen Parents__Know Islam, No Peace - No Islam, Know Peace)
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To: VRWCarea51

True and true.


103 posted on 10/19/2018 9:23:24 AM PDT by Jmouse007 (Lord God Almighty, deliver us from this evil in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, amen.)
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To: gattaca

“Comprehensive immigration reform is, so far, dead in the water in the gridlocked Congress. And back at Tigertown, some trailer manufacturers say that if they can’t find enough welders, they would consider moving their entire operations to Mexico.”

Good, let them move to Mexico and then pay a huge duty to get their products back into this country. If the truth were known, these red neck a$$holes who own and run these trailer manufacturing businesses have developed a collective business model that has at it’s roots using illegal immigrant labor, because it’s cheap. They have $hit working conditions and pay less than they would have to pay for American labor. They consider illegal alien labor “expendible.” Who cares if the work environment equates to slave labor, and who gives a $hit if someone gets injured? But hey, you can buy a trailer cheap, so it’s o.k., right?


104 posted on 10/19/2018 9:39:02 AM PDT by vette6387
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To: Boogieman

“Yeah, the real problem is that to raise the wages, they have to raise prices, and that will kill their business unless all the competitors raise their prices too. So the only solution is really universal enforcement so no business gets to undercut everyone else because they are breaking the law.”

Yes, this idea that “we all have to do it to survive” ls a lie! They may be competitors, but they collude on the business model that says that all the labor is to be illegal. They will never get out of their business model voluntarily. The Justice Department needs to “help them migrate to a new one!”


105 posted on 10/19/2018 9:48:38 AM PDT by vette6387
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To: gattaca
I was talking to a guy that I go to church with that hires and fires on a job that makes oil tanks. He says the average employee he gets today can't read a tape measure. Some of the welders have to tell their helpers to cut a piece 16 inches and 7 marks instead of 16 7/16. Some HS grads can't read cursive writing. None of them have a clue about history.

Hiring an illegal that is willing to work long hours at low pay is just too tempting. People keep thinking that illegals are mowing grass and cleaning bathrooms, but many of them are carpenters, brick layers, electricians, roofers, ect. Jobs that would support a family when I graduated High school 50 years ago are now low paying and no benefits. Florida is about to find out that the illegals in Texas, La, Miss, Ala, are all headed their way to take jobs from the locals. After Hurricane Rita, we couldn't find ANY carpenters and roofers in Texas because the illegals were still working Katrina.

When I graduated HS, I could go to an oil refinery and get a good job doing almost anything. Today, a college grad can hardly add and subtract. Ask a 23 yo to make change for a $20 sometime and you will shake your head when they reach for their cell phone.

OTOH, they know all about Global Warming, 14 genders, anal sex, and communism. When you pay $50k a year for a degree in Gender Studies, you can sit in abasement at moms house, but you can't read a ruler. This is why we are paying $15 hr. for someone with a degree to put pickles on a burger. That's about all they can handle.

Hiring an illegal from Honduras with a 3rd grade education to build a house is a no brainer once you've been in the real world awhile. Schools are turning out Dem voters rather than training a workforce and making good citizens. Nobody is buying the product anymore.

106 posted on 10/19/2018 9:57:16 AM PDT by chuckles
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where I live, I think every welder who is independent in this area has at one time or another trained and worked at Newport News Shipbuilding. They are very well trained, tested, and put to work building within very high standards required for ships of the line, some submarines, and other large vessels that live a very vigorous life while in service.

These are welders, these are not hacks with a blowtorch or an arc welder who tack a few pieces of metal together and call it quality. The welders which are talked about in the article probably have really never been trained properly and are just a cheap form of Labor that can sort of weld...

To call them welders is an insult to every real welder out there who actually knows what they’re doing and have worked in areas of Defense and building structures, with a variety of metals and types of welds , that must be done professionally and proficiently, and must be tested, inspected, dyed, x-rayed, and stress tested to meet the high standard that will not endanger crew or equipment.


107 posted on 10/19/2018 10:06:03 AM PDT by Clutch Martin (The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.)
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To: gattaca
"...if ICE is too successful, "employers are wondering where they're going to find people to man their businesses if American high school graduates aren't going to do it."

For the umpteenth time... Americans would be more than happy to do those dirty jobs, if employers paid American wages.

They hire illegals because illegals can and will work for less pay than what Americans can and will work for!

This artificially distorts the market and creates unfair competition for those businesses that play by the rules.

My own family business has suffered a 50% reduction in income, due to the massive influx of illegals into our industry over the last fifteen years or so.

108 posted on 10/19/2018 10:50:48 AM PDT by Windflier (Pitchforks and torches ripen on the vine. Left too long, they become black rifles.)
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To: PapaBear3625
Sounds like work opportunities have expanded for American welders.

American welders cost more than illegal Mexican welders.

If the trailer companies go back to hiring Americans, they'll have to raise the prices of their finished goods. Who's going to step forward and be the first?

This is the problem in every industry that has been taken over by illegals, including mine.

109 posted on 10/19/2018 10:56:36 AM PDT by Windflier (Pitchforks and torches ripen on the vine. Left too long, they become black rifles.)
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To: central_va
If your business model includes the need to hire illegal aliens, then you are running a criminal operation and need to go out of business

Thank you!!

110 posted on 10/19/2018 10:59:22 AM PDT by Windflier (Pitchforks and torches ripen on the vine. Left too long, they become black rifles.)
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Another article from a few months back about another raid in
the same general area and a large number arrested.

http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/3684545/posts
Load Trail hiring after ICE raids, detains 160 employees (Texas, illegals making $40 an hour)


111 posted on 10/19/2018 11:12:15 AM PDT by deport
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To: redangus
I can tell you that finding American workers who will do hot, dirty, dangerous jobs even for good pay is not easy.

I'm calling USDA Grade A BULLSHIT on that.

I've been in construction for forty years and have owned my own business for over half that time. In the days before illegals inundated my industry, I could get Americans to do the toughest, dirtiest work, because I could pay them well, as we could still get a fair price for our finished goods and labor.

Perhaps the Americans who quit on you were boys, and not men with families to feed.

Today, our AMERICAN employees have to hustle twice as hard to make the same weekly pay they did fifteen years ago. Same thing has happened to my profits. Illegals have unfairly stolen millions of dollars off my family's table in the last two decades.

112 posted on 10/19/2018 11:17:02 AM PDT by Windflier (Pitchforks and torches ripen on the vine. Left too long, they become black rifles.)
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To: redangus

I’ve always thought those jobs should pay way more than easier/cleaner jobs.

I was a welder/fabricator for 25 years. I also serviced electric signs in FL during those years and have spent time inside signs when it was 98 degrees outside and 120+ inside.

I also spray painted at a company for close to a year and hated that job. Bunch of unorganized rude people running the place and all they cared about was profit.(and not becoming union)

There were trailer manufacturers nearby and from what I heard, they were all sweat shops and hard to work at. No proper ventilation and they push, push, push you. Sounds like that’s what this company in TX is like. How much money would you need to have someone cussing you out and calling you an idiot all day? All while you breath fumes that will kill you in 20 years.

A lot of Southern companies have a deep fear of the employees “organizing” and so they play lots of head games and make everyone miserable. They do that to make sure they have dumb, desperate people working their.

btw, why didn’t you have fresh air supplied suits? They keep you nice and cool. Did the suits cost too much?


113 posted on 10/19/2018 12:51:00 PM PDT by Pollard (If you don't understand what I typed, you haven't read the classics.)
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To: Pollard

Wait I thought we are supposed to corporations. Particularly the multinationals who enforce ridiculous hiring quotas and scream for evermore H-1Bs. With this Texas company we just failed to use our privilege to start our own sweatshop.


114 posted on 10/19/2018 12:59:08 PM PDT by techworker
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To: gattaca
Hiebert says they hire whoever walks in the door, and they pay decent wages ...

I suddenly have the urge to inspect the welds on the trailer I just bought on Monday.

115 posted on 10/19/2018 3:35:55 PM PDT by NativeSon ( Grease the floor with Crisco when I dance the Disco)
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To: OttawaFreeper

The guys from Full Monty were very critical of her welding.


116 posted on 10/19/2018 3:54:26 PM PDT by wally_bert (I will competently make sure the thing is done incompetently.)
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To: central_va

Couldn’t have written it any better.


117 posted on 10/19/2018 3:55:05 PM PDT by wally_bert (I will competently make sure the thing is done incompetently.)
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To: NEMDF

The welding schools around me stay jammed.

I would like to go. Back in high school, auto mechanics touched on it. I was so near sighted with thick glasses though. A welding helmet wasn’t that practical.

Life after lasik changed a lot for the better.


118 posted on 10/19/2018 3:59:53 PM PDT by wally_bert (I will competently make sure the thing is done incompetently.)
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To: gattaca

Boo Hoo


119 posted on 10/19/2018 4:02:47 PM PDT by Fledermaus (Republicans - GROW A PAIR)
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To: redangus
We desperately need a guest worker program in this country...

Guess what!!!...there is already some in place...but you'll probably find it unpopular whilst straining at gnats.

Guestworker Programs U.S. Department of Labor

120 posted on 10/19/2018 10:20:29 PM PDT by philman_36 (Pride breakfasted with plenty, dined with poverty and supped with infamy. Benjamin Franklin)
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