06-19-25 - 7am - Omaha meatpacking plant E-Verify STORY

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Talkback that was left in the last hour about Walmart.
I've been furiously trying to find any information I can
about it. I can't find any definity of evidence from
at least available sources I've got here that workers have
been laid off or fired from Walmart stores in Colorado,

(00:20):
specifically because they were illegal aliens. But there are some
reports that indicate that Walmart has been affected by Supreme
Court ruling that allows Trump to revoke the temporary protected
status for certain illegal aliens, such as you know, the
the the temporary I forget the had to do with Venezuela, Haiti,

(00:47):
Nicaragua and another country where they were getting temporary status
that allowed them to work. That the elimination of that
at US was upheld by the court, and that could
have led to some layoffs of illegal aliens working in

(01:07):
you know states, you know, all around. That could be
traill around the country. But the layoffs that I can find,
at least doing a quick Lexus nexus search, most of
them seem to be tied to compliance with Federal A
nine verification requirements, which is supposed to ensure that employees

(01:28):
had legal work authorization. Now, I did find a post
on x the claim that Walmart in Colorado has announced
internally that quote illegals would no longer be working there,
and that half the staff at a at a specific
store were gone. But I can't verify that. It lacks

(01:49):
corroboration from credible sources, So without any additional evidence, I
can't I can't treat that claim as conclusive. Now, I
do know just from general reading of Wall Street Journal
and other places, that Walmart's been restructuring nationwide. They've had
layoffs that have affected corporate roles, fifteen hundred jobs, mostly

(02:11):
in tech and advertising, some store workers because of immigration
status issues that have That's occurred in other skate states,
but I can't find any specific reports have mentioned Colorad
of store workers that are being fired for being illegal aliens. Now,
if you've got details about a specific Walmart and location,
then you know, text that to me and I can

(02:33):
try to dig that up and find out what I
can about that. But it nonetheless is a great segue
into these illegal labor crackdowns because I think they're actually
a that's good news for American workers. Blue collar wages

(02:56):
were up one point six percent from a baseline, but
the baseline from the previous report, they've been down like
one place six percent. So that range is the largest
growth in blue collar wages in like sixty years, a

(03:19):
number that tends to get ignored by the cabal. But no, surprise, surprise, surprise, surprise, surprise.
When you go to NBC News, they've got a story
about the immigration raid on Glenn Valley Foods in Omaha, Nebraska.

(03:39):
In fact, one of you goobers is where I first
heard about Omaha, And it was kind of a it
was kind of funny because it was a cryptic text message.
It was it was a cryptic text message that are
you watching what's going on in Omaha? Well, quite frankly, no,
I really don't as much of a rat as about
what's going on an Omaha other than the oracle of Omaha,

(04:01):
Warren Buffer. What's he up to today, what's he bought
or sold? But other than that, I you know, you
know don't. I don't have any family living in Omaha anymore.
But let's go back to what happened at Glen Valley Foods.
NBC wants you to think it's a tragedy. Seventy six

(04:22):
illegal aliens arrested, Families were disrupted, and of course we
keep hearing about this fear in the air. When you
strip away all the rhetoric and you kind of just
look at the facts and facts that are not distorted
by your ideology, the picture that emerges that comes out

(04:47):
of Omaha is not a tragedy, but it's actually long
overdue justice and an economic realignment. And that economic realignment
favors law, fairness, opportun for US citizens and for workers
who are here legally. I just let me add a

(05:08):
footnote here about something. Every time I hear about fear
on the streets, that there are fear in neighborhoods, that
there are fear among you know, whether it's Chinatown or
it's Little Italy, or it's you know, Little Mexico or

(05:29):
Little Mexico City, or it's you know, Federal Boulevard, or
you know, in Colorado, in Denver, whatever it may be,
you don't have anything to fear.

Speaker 2 (05:41):
Unless you are here illegally. And I know, look, I.

Speaker 1 (05:47):
Get the perspective if you put yourselves in the shoes
of someone who let me see, if I can't come
up with the most sympathetic story that I can imagine,
you weren't even born yet. But your mommy and daddy
decided they were going to sneak into this country, come

(06:08):
across the Rio Grande, which, by the way, the numbers
right now are zero zero. I'll say it again for
the twentieth time this week. We didn't need comprehensive, comprehensive
immigration reform. We didn't need a Republican majority. We just
needed a new president that would enforced the existing laws.

(06:29):
As those numbers have just dropped like a rock. But
your your current parents came here when you were just
you know, a sparkle in their eye, and they came
across the border illegally.

Speaker 2 (06:44):
I don't care. Just pick a country. I don't. I
don't give a right to ask what country it is.

Speaker 1 (06:48):
But they came here, and then nine months later you're born,
and you become American, an American citizen, but your parents
are not. I've used the story before about the woman
in Florida. I don't I've forgotten the details since then.
But she's lived here for thirty plus years, and in

(07:11):
thirty plus years, she doesn't speak a lick of English.
She only knows her native tongue. She which I don't
think is a Cuban. I think it happened to be.
It's either Venezuela or Mexican. She has worked odd jobs,
you know, housekeeping, cleaning houses, working with somebody else, not

(07:34):
with Neil, not like with a company where she would
need an I nine verification. But you know some you
know entrepreneur, some sol proprietor that might have a house
cleaning business, and she's been working for them. And she's
she's getting deported. And some of her grandchildren who are

(07:58):
birthright have birthright and ship whatever you believe or disciblie
believe or don't believe about it, whether you think it's
right or wrong. Nonetheless, her grandchildren are US citizens.

Speaker 2 (08:11):
That's just a fact.

Speaker 1 (08:13):
Well she's facing deportation. And the sad story is she's
going to be separated from her grandchildren. Do I feel
sorry for them?

Speaker 2 (08:24):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (08:26):
But do I want to say, well never mind, it's
a horrible situation.

Speaker 2 (08:32):
Still stay here.

Speaker 1 (08:32):
And I don't want to say that either people get
separate separated from their children all the time. Uh, you know,
their parents get murdered or they get killed in a
car wreck, or they commit they that the parents themselves
commit a crime and they end up in you know,
they end up in supermacs, or they end up in
a prison somewhere with a couple of life sentences. Child

(08:54):
child family separations happen all the time. They're sad stories.
But a sad story is not the basis upon which
you make public policy.

Speaker 2 (09:07):
So for the for the.

Speaker 1 (09:09):
Fear factor that NBC wants to push about Glen Valley
foods in Omaha, Nebraska, I just refuse to get sucked
into the end of the sad story. Let's serve with
a simple premise the and it's a premise that we've
advocated for years on this program. When you don't enforce
your immigration laws, you cease to and when you have

(09:31):
open borders, you really cease to be a sovereign nation
in any meaningful sense. You're just a collection of people
from all around the world, the dregs of society, from
from the crab whole countries, from all around the world.
You just become a communis of some sort. When in reality,

(09:52):
borders are not just some metaphysical suggestion. Borders are legal
demarcation that define the limits of sovereignty in which a
culture develops and in which a country like ours, the
rule of law develops, takes hold and within our borders.

(10:15):
We become an economic powerhouse because we have the right
of private property, we have the rule of law, we
have the civil rights that are guaranteed by the Constitution.
When a company like Glen Valley Foods operates for years

(10:37):
by hiring illegal labor, they're doing more than bending the rules.
They're subverting the rule of law. They are and nobody
ever puts it in this language. But you ever thought
about how they're exploiting vulnerable people. They're really taking people
that are desperate themselves. They know they've broken the law.

(11:01):
Barack Obama always used to say, they're hiding in the shadows.
Those are vulnerable people, and a place like Glenn Valley
Foods is exploiting them. But nobody ever puts it, nobody
ever frames it that way. The other thing they're doing,
they're undercutting American workers who obey the law, pay their taxes,
seek employment in good faith, and are American citizens.

Speaker 2 (11:26):
The CEO of.

Speaker 1 (11:27):
Glenn Valley Foods, a guy by the name of Chad Hartman,
admitted to NBC that he knowingly relied on illegal labor
for fifteen years. You may have seen him, you know,
leaning out his car window. You know bemoaning the fact
he actually confessed to a crime, not a you know,
not allowsy business model. He admitted to committing a crime

(11:50):
under Title eight the Criminal Code. You know, I've used
Title eight before on this program. Title eight, Section thirteen
twenty four A, paragraph A. It is illegal to knowingly higher, recruit,
or refer for a fee any individual not authorized to
work in the United States, and Nebraska law, at least

(12:10):
in as far as I can tell, mirrors that federal
provision too. So he violate both federal and state law,
and by his own admission, he's been in serial violation
of that law. Yet while dozens of workers were arrested
and detained, he remains untouched, comfortable to freely, you know,

(12:31):
as he pulls out of the parking lot, roll his
window down and talk to the national estate reporters who
have all descended upon the Glenn Valley Foods to find
out what's going on there, because he's become the focal point.
So while dozens of workers get arrested and detained, he

(12:53):
still walks free. That's not justice, That selective enforcement that
privileges the wealth, the business owners, and the connected, and
takes the people he was exploiting and doesn't treat them
on the same level that he's getting treated, or vice versa.
And I know that there's a lot that's said in

(13:16):
the cabal about the suffering that's inflicted by all of
those raids, But have you ever really thought about the
real human cost of illegal labor practices, Because when a
guy like him floods their shops their businesses with undocumented workers,
that suppresses wages, that circumvents workplace protections, and it disenfranchises

(13:41):
the very citizens that they are I think morally obligated
to prioritize. But let's go back to the idea that
they circumvent workplace protections. During the break, as I'm thinking
about this story, I walk through, you know, I do
my walk around, and I'm I happen to just step
into our kitchen area. And I've made jokes before about

(14:03):
how in our little kitchen area back behind where you
you would have to like, if anybody else is trying
to get in the refrigerator, you'd never be able to
get in the refrigerator until they get done. So in
that little tight space on the wall behind the refrigerator,
and I think mave on the other end Two are
all the placards about all the labor laws, workers' compensation, everify,

(14:29):
everything's up there, nobody reads and nobody pays any attention
to it. Well, my point is that when he uses
all these undocumented workers, he circumvents the workplace protections because
one even though, and I'd have to go back and
double check, I think they're both in English and Spanish

(14:50):
in our building. But do you think that if I
heart were to hire an illegal alien to work in
this workplace and then something happens to them, that they're
going to go to the Department of Labor and complain about,
you know, an overtime issue or you know, a low
wage issue, or they didn't get a paycheck. Of course,
they're not going to do that because they know they're

(15:11):
working illegally, and I Heeart would be exploiting them, just
like when Valley Foods is doing. According to the Bureau
of Labor Statistics, as of this past May, more than
one hundred million American citizens of working age are not

(15:32):
participating in the labor force now. Some are probably willingly retired,
some are in school, but probably a significant portion, if
not the majority, are discouraged workers. They've simply given up
work because they perceive there's no opportunity for them. Legal
residents willing to work have been sidelined by this system

(15:58):
that rewards evasion and punishes compliance. And here we are
Glen Valley raid produces a telling counter narrative. So contra
contrary to the to the media's predictions of economic paralysis,
the aftermath was marked not by collapse but by competition.

(16:18):
According to the owner of Glenn Valley Foods himself, every
single seat in his company's waiting area was filled with
job applicants just two days after that raid. Dozens and
dozens of American citizens hopeful for a job, many of

(16:38):
them speaking Spanish but legally authorized to work, were applying, interviewing,
starting their training. So don't give me the bull crap
that Americans and legal immigrants don't want to do these jobs.
They just hadn't been given a fair chance. They've now
been unblocked by a mess. Well, actually they were blocked

(17:01):
by a mass of illegal competition. The exploitation of illegal labor,
I think, is both morally and legally wrong, but it's
also an economic distortion because now you have two parallel
economies in which rules do not apply, wages are depressed,

(17:22):
the most vulnerable are traffic mistreated, held them precarious, shadowy conditions.
And then the open border hallelujah. Course in the media
would have you believe that if we actually got an
enforced immigration laws that somehow that's cruel because some people
might get deported. That is an attitude and a belief

(17:45):
that has been curated by the cabal over time, because
there was a time in back in the dark ages
when I was a youth, that if somebody my community
was an illegal alien and they had been caught and deported.

Speaker 2 (18:05):
There wasn't sadness.

Speaker 1 (18:07):
There was like, oh, you were breaking the law, and
the law was enforced, and that job ultimately got filled
by an American citizen. You see how narratives become part
of our way of thinking. Always be aware of the narratives.
While of the analogy is a good analogy in the

(18:31):
political context, again, living in the real world, I'd like
to see these companies suffer legal consequences because they are
committing a crime under Title eight of the United States Code.
They are committing a crime. They are knowingly violating the law.
Now I know that the guy in the Glen Valley Foods.

(18:52):
Case argues that he used Everify and that Everify and look,
I can remember from my days in d C that
you know, when they were trying to push through and
e verify and was that going to be part of
homeland security? And who's gonna be in charge of it?
I mean, it was full of holes then, And unlike

(19:15):
getting a Let's see if I can think of an example. Unlike,
for example, I had to renew my Global Entry Card,
which allows me to essentially bypass customs coming back in
from a foreign country. When I originally got that card,
I had to you know, you've got to, which which

(19:36):
I know many people don't want to do. But considering that,
you know, the CIA and the NSSA and the White House,
you know, they they've all got all of my biometrics anyway.
So I mean, even as a lawyer, you know, the
Colorado of Supreme Court and the U. S. Supreme Court
and they'll clomba Supreme Court. They've all got my fingerprints.
So it's it's like, what what do I care anymore?

(19:58):
I've lost all of my privacy rights. So I because
of what I've chosen to do in my life. When
I got my Global entry card. I had to fill out,
you know, almost similar to what you have to clear
you have to fill out to get your I forget
the phone number that you have to do to get

(20:19):
your your clearances. You know all the places you live,
the places you've traveled. I mean it's not don't get
me wrong, It's not nearly in depth is what you
have to do for a clearance. But it's similar in
the sense that you know, where have you lived for
the past fifteen years, you know what what what jobs
have you had for the past ten years, what names
do you go by? What countries have you visited in

(20:42):
the past twenty years, for example? And then on your
original application, you then have to go out to a
CBP office at a airport where there is one. So
I had to go out to Denver International Airport. And
the funny thing was, so I go out there. I've
got an appointment schedule. Let's say, let's say it's at

(21:03):
eight o'clock tomorrow morning. So eight o'clock tomorrow morning, I
show up at the at the airport and lo and behold,
there's a line.

Speaker 2 (21:15):
There's a huge line.

Speaker 1 (21:19):
Of that line are people from foreign countries who are
there to either renew their green card, or they're there
trying to get a work visa, or they're trying to
whatever they're trying to do with CBP. Well, fortunately there
was a separate line, so I didn't I didn't have
to wait long. But here's the funny thing about it.

(21:40):
And then I'll get to the point about the everify.
So my number comes up, I go to the little,
you know, cubby hole where I'm going to be interviewed
by a Customs and Border Patrol officer about you know,
my background. And you know, of course, I'm laughing the
whole time because I'm thinking to myself, Okay, Michael Brown,
form under Secretary of Homeland Security, and here I am

(22:00):
going to be interviewed.

Speaker 2 (22:01):
By a.

Speaker 1 (22:04):
Kid that probably doesn't have any clearances at all, and
I've got every TSSCI Special Access Program clearance that you
can imagine, and he's gonna interview me to see if
I'm a threat to the country or not. Well, the
funniest part is I sit down and giving my name

(22:25):
and handing the information that they want. And as I'm
giving my name and everything, he slowly looks up and goes,
are you that Michael Brown? Not that Michael Brown, the
Undersecretary of Homeland Security, the Michael Brown on Kowa and.

Speaker 2 (22:41):
K how uh yeah, I am why because.

Speaker 1 (22:45):
I'm obviously thinking, oh, I'm in trouble now because the
things I say.

Speaker 2 (22:49):
On there, I'm really I'm in deep doodoo.

Speaker 1 (22:51):
And he and he does that you know, you know
when you kind of look around to see anybody's listening,
you look to your left, look to your right, like
to your left again. Well he did and then kind
of leaned forward and said, I listened to you all
the time.

Speaker 2 (23:05):
So I laughed out loud.

Speaker 1 (23:06):
I'm like, oh, well that's good. So what do you
want to know? He goes, nothing, how you been nice
to meet you? Gosh, you know, I listened to you
all the time, and blah blah blah blah. And so
I said, well, you know you can trust me. You want,
get me your home address and I'll autograph one of
my books and mail it to you. Not trying to
bribe him or anything, because I mean, interview's done. So

(23:31):
I'm laughing because when everif I was set up, we
never really had a way to validate that documents were legitimate.
So you've got a social Security number, Well, if the databases,
if the database from the Social Security Administration isn't talking

(23:55):
to the database at Homeland Security, then how do we
know whether that's legitimate number not or a stolen number
or a number that belongs to a dead person. And
I'm telling you twenty years later that kind of well,
twenty plus years later, that kind of bull crap, inability
to communicate and make those kinds of comparisons still exists.

(24:20):
And just as just as in the private sector, fraudulent
credit cards and fraudulent debit cards, and you know, all
of these scams that go on, the government is not
immune to those either. So insofar as someone claiming what
I try to use Everify, I give them a little

(24:42):
bit of space because if you now you may use Everify,
and you may know in your gut that the social
Security number or the driver's license or the state ID
or whatever they're giving you, you know in your gut
it's fake, But it's not your responsibility to prove that

(25:09):
it's fake. You are you have to take that card
at face value and run it through the Everify system.
Now you can, if you really want to be a
really goodie two shoes, everything by the book, you can
say I'm not going to accept this card. Now you

(25:31):
run the risk that what if it really is real
and your gut's wrong, And now you've got a discrimination lawsuit,
You've got all sorts of lawsuits against you because you.

Speaker 2 (25:44):
Challenge somebody's ID.

Speaker 1 (25:47):
We make it impossible when I say we, the government,
which is us, makes it impossible sometimes to really comply.
So I give people who use everify a little benefit
of the doubt. Yes, lots of times it works. You
may recall that when when Dragon came to work for

(26:08):
me for you know, on the program, but back for
iHeart again, he had to go through the whole everify
system again.

Speaker 2 (26:18):
Well.

Speaker 1 (26:18):
iHeart is one of those companies that probably would because
they've got the resources and the ability that they're going
to make doubly sure because and also because it's a public,
publicly traded company, so they got an even you know,
bigger magnifying glass on them. They're going to do everything
they can to make sure it's right. But Glenn Valley Farms,

(26:38):
he may not. He just needs people in that meat
packing plant to work, so he may have a question
or a doubt.

Speaker 2 (26:46):
He may even knowingly know.

Speaker 1 (26:49):
That that's a fake I d I'm not trying to
justify it or rationalize it. I'm just saying that in
the real world, that's how these things happen. But he
know that's the real world. I still want you to
consider the implications of tolerating that kind of lawlessness, because
when the illegal labor is tacitly permitted, that becomes a

(27:11):
subsidy for those kinds of unscrupulous employers, a black market
wage control that harms the lawful poor. The CBO, the
Congressional Budget Office, says that the presence of unauthorized workers
reduces the wages of low skilled US born workers, particularly

(27:33):
among black and Hispanic Americans. There's a study, it's from
the Center for Immigration Studies that found that illegal immigration
reduces the wages of native born workers that don't have
a high school diploma by as much as ten percent.
That's pretty damn significant. And that's not an abstract. Those
are lost opportunities, those are for closed dreams, those are

(27:54):
vacant paychecks. And I would add one more thing, those
are people that end up on our social welfare system.
So we pay for it. We pay for this entire
completely convoluted, screwed up system. So then the cabal, they

(28:16):
weep for the arrested, but they are totally silent about
the basic injustice that these illegal workers were also victims
not just to the system, but they are also victims
of their employers. Some of them had criminal records, they
had outstanding warrants, some were living under false identities. Those

(28:37):
are not conditions of freedom. That is you, because of
things you've done. I'm not trying to justify, but because
of things that you have done, you're now living a
life that is not a freedom, but of coercion, of risk,
of dependency. It's a completely broken system. Trump's started the

(29:02):
long slog of correcting this system. How many times did
I use the analogy of the bathtub. You first have
to turn the freaking water off. He's turned the water off.
Bill Milusian has reported that zero getaways. The number of

(29:24):
crossings was down to like a deminimus, you know, twenty
five or something. The water's been turned off. So now
the flow has stopped, and now we're trying to mop
things up. Well, you can absolutely take this to the bank.

(29:45):
The cabal is going to try to convince you that
deporting not just the horrible criminals, not just the child traffickers,
the sex traffickers, the human traffickers, the drug dealers, the cartails,
not just them, But at some point we start deporting

(30:05):
just people who are here illegally, and that's going to
create all sorts of sad stories. Don't let your emotions
drive what is right and wrong.

Speaker 2 (30:19):
Michael my Son has tried for over a year, gone
to interviews at many entry level jobs, and they're not hiring.

Speaker 1 (30:28):
A circumstances that any number of things could be at play.
I mean, if you're arguing or contending that it has
to do with illegal immigration, I mean that very well
may be true. But that's what we're trying to correct
and what has built up over decades and was a
flood over the previous four years. The mopping up is

(30:53):
going to take time. And what I'm trying to really
instill in your brain is that the mop up. You
know what it's like when you have a flood in
your basement. Sometimes you can't clean it up yourself. You've
got to call professionals. Well, we've got professionals trying to
clean it up, and cleaning it up sometimes actually causes

(31:15):
a little more damage, and that damage is family separation
or some people might get swept up in a raid
that shouldn't get swept up. Well, sometimes species happens, and
you just have to recognize, hey, we made a booboo
and we're fixing it and we're moving on. But the

(31:38):
cabal will focus on those sad, sad stories and try
to get you to believe that what we're doing is
morally wrong, when what I think we're doing is actually
morally correct. We're doing the right thing. We're trying to
we're trying to restart the engine. We're trying to reset

(32:01):
the entire system. This is what Trump got elected by.
I think the economy number two, but I think this
was the number one issue that got him elected. And
what has occurred over decades is not going to be
fixed in the first year in his term.

Speaker 2 (32:23):
This is going to be a long, slow slog to fix.

Speaker 1 (32:28):
If there are twenty million illegal aliens in the country,
we're in our lifetimes. We're not going to get them
all out. So we have to come to the realization
that we get all out that we can. We start
with the worst of the worst, and then we start
with those who are taking jobs should go to Americans,
and then we start you know, the woman who maybe

(32:49):
just is just you know, she's her grandmother and just
living here. We got to figure out what to do
with her too. And I know many people say I'll
just ship them all out. Then you tell me how
you would go about doing it.