June 12, 2025 • 31 mins
After my show-opening rant (a 10-minute stretch where I don't know that I paused to breathe), Chad Hartmann joined me to address the before, during, and after the ICE operations at the business where he serves as president.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Scott vorgiez Omaha continues to sift through what happened this
week and the aftermath in the wake of immigration Customs
enforcement operations at one business in Omaha. I can't be
more clear about two things. Number One, that's what happened.
(00:25):
It was a targeted ice operation at one business. And
within that one business, they had a list of ninety
seven names of individuals that they needed to have a
conversation with. I am sorry if that was a friend,
a coworker, your aunt, if your name was on the list,
(00:48):
they wanted to have a chitty chat with you. Okay,
So I shows up to one business with a list
of ninety seven names. That is a target operation. That's
what it was. Here's what it wasn't. It wasn't a raid.
(01:09):
I know some people use the term because you hear
about ice raids all the time. It's become pretty common parlance,
and whether it's reported in the media that could be
with or without bias. Don't immediately start going why they
just it's sometimes things like this get reported without really
(01:30):
without anyone really giving any thought. If you hear that
terminology on the radio, and I've even used it myself
these past couple of days. It Sometimes it just comes
out when you hear it from elected officials and alleged
community leaders. Here's what they want you to think. That
(01:52):
ice is just coming into Omaha, saying, all right, where
them meskins? Where they at. We'll look under every rock,
We'll search behind every pallet. We will find them. We
will go door to door if we have to, We're
just gonna pull them out. We're gonna put them on
a plane. We're not gonna tell anyone where they are.
(02:13):
You'll never see these people again. Do you guys have
small kids at home. Good, They're gonna go hungry as
they throw you on a plane and send you to
El Salvador or somewhere. And they're just going like door
to door homes, businesses, schools. They're just going around just
looking for meskins. That's when they say ice raids in
(02:37):
our community. They want people to live in fear. They
the community leaders, some of these elected officials. They want
people in Omaha's immigrant community to live in fear. That
immigrant community includes a lot of people who are legal,
(02:58):
who have status, who are hard workers, who are great people.
I hope you know some of them. This community also
has some people in it, who are in this country illegally.
And guess what that first group I mentioned, the legal immigrants,
they're not too thrilled with all the illegal immigrants because
they're competing for the same stuff. A spot from my
(03:21):
kid in school, a spot for me to have a job,
benefits that I'm entitled to because I'm paying for them,
and you're getting them, and you're not paying for them.
Businesses that hire you illegally because they can in some
instances pay you under the table and pay you a
lot less than I pay this legal immigrant with status
(03:41):
who I gotta pay a minimum wage to, and I
gotta pay for disability, and I gotta pay for this,
and I gotta pay for that, and I gotta pay taxes,
and I don't want to do that stuff. I'll just
pay you under the cover, under the tables here. And
that means that a lot of legal immigrants can't get jobs.
A lot of these illegal immigrants who are on the
ice list of this targeted operation have stolen the identities
(04:05):
of the first group, the legal immigrants. If you come
to this country illegally and you're from Central America, you're
not going to steal the identity of irma Bombeck because
you're a twenty three year old Hispanic male. I don't
know that anyone's gonna look and go I'm a bomback.
(04:28):
Isn't that like an advice columnist or something like that.
And this is my friend Heloise. You know, I don't
think anyone is stealing the identity of old women. You're
stealing the identity of people who have an Hispanic name
so that you can pass off and go, yes, this
is me Mexican Hernandez, that's my name, and this is uh,
(04:53):
this is Guatemala Rodrigo, he's my friend. And you steal
those names from people well within the community who then like, Okay,
this is my social Security number has been taken. My
identity has been taken. I can't get alone, I can't
get a credit card, I can't get cable, I can't
(05:14):
I can't get a phone because my identity has been stolen.
Their identities have been stolen from people in the country illegally,
which is why ICE did a targeted operation at one business.
Anyone who purposefully wants people in the community to say,
oh yeah, ICE is coming here and they're rating there.
(05:38):
We need to support the Latino community after this raid
this week. That's what this national organization, the League of
United Latin American Citizens lou LAC, came flying into Omaha.
Oh boy, we're here. We're here to support the Latino community.
Did you just suggest that the Latino community in Omaha
(06:02):
is all here illegally? Because ICE is interested in the
people who are here illegally, who are working with fraudulent documentation.
So when you show up and go, we need to
figure out how we can support the community. The community
of who. They know exactly who, and they know what
(06:25):
they're doing. They know they want to make it look
like the Trump administration is just going after brown people.
I get an email every day from some group that
usually takes three news stories from three different sources, and
they send them out to radio people and go, here's
(06:47):
some stories, some fodder for your radio programs. Please subscribe
to our newsletters. The first story here is from The Independent,
the second one comes from the Sgociated Press, and the
third one is from Newsweek, so they pull from different sources.
Here's the first headline, Trump administration threatens military deployment nationwide
(07:11):
as rallies flare up across the US. As from the Independent,
that is not an independent headline. That is a biased headline.
Why would the Trump administration threaten military deployment because there
are peaceful protests going on? Do you want people to
think that President Trump sees people out there waving signs
(07:38):
and he's like, I don't like those signs. Send the Marines.
The President is not threatening military deployment because of peaceful rallies.
The reason why the National Guard or the Marines would
come out is because what may be started as a
(07:58):
peaceful rally was taken over by agitators and they've turned
into dangerous and violent riots. And so before businesses and
people burned down, we're going to send the military to
stop that from happening. Due to domestic terrorists in our country.
It's not a threat of military deployment because of a rally.
(08:23):
So that's the first headline. The second one is, according
to a survey, there's little agreement between Republicans and Democrats
on media sources they trust and why would that be?
And then the third one, also political, says that gen
Z the people who are in their twenties and teens
(08:44):
right now, I guess they want to know your politics
before they date you, because it all comes down to
politics for everybody anymore. It's got to be politics because
there are people out there that want politics to see
into every single thing that happens about anything. You know,
(09:05):
we don't have ice operations to take out criminals or
to question or detain criminals who are in the country
illegally in stealing identities from people who want some justice
for that. We don't have that. We have ice raids well,
and we're and then and the wake of these things,
we've got people who won't come to work because after
(09:30):
the raid, they're afraid that ice is Now they're in
Omaha and they're just going to be going from business
to business going, Yeah, you look like an illegal. Get
in the van, put on these zip ties, which, by
the way, isn't happening.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Scott byes news radio eleven ten k FAD.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
The president of Glen Valley food subject of an ICE
operation in our community is Chad Hartman, and Chad, president
of Glenn Valley Foods, joins us here on news radio
eleven ten KFAB. Chad, thank you very much for taking
the time. Can you talk us through first the everify
system that you guys have been saying here The owner
(10:17):
Gary rower you, the President have been saying we did
everything right leading up to what happened a couple of
days ago. Can you describe that process for us?
Speaker 3 (10:27):
Please sure that I can do that. We have a
process that not everyone follows, by the way, and it's
a government program. It's e verify you Verify is part
of the I nine form, the US Department of Homeland
Security and the Social Security Administration all coming together to
(10:51):
use this website so that we can supply data to
the website to ensure employers are hiring authorized workers. And
we have been one hundred percent compliant with that process.
The reason I called in is I know there are
many people out there that are thinking something incorrectly, and
(11:12):
I just want to clarify there is no other system.
It's not like you can come here, apply for a
job and put it into the system and if it's
incorrect or excuse me, if it is correct, that you
have another alternative to check it. So it puts us
in a really tough position. This is a government's answer
(11:34):
to assure you're hiring employees that are authorized.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
What do you think would happen to you? What do
you think would happen to you if someone applied for
a job there and you looked at him and said, yeah,
I don't know, you look to me like an illegal immigrant.
We're not going to hire you. What kind of hell
fire would rain down on you, guys if you took
that tact.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
I got to tell you, that's one of the smartest
questions I've heard, because you know, would happen somebody's gonnasue you.
Now you're somehow discriminating, which, of course we never would
want to do that.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
No, and you're exactly right. So you've got people working there,
And was there ever any indication leading up to what
happened a couple of days ago that perhaps the workforce
there at Glenn Valley Foods might not be all on
the up and up in terms of their documentation to
(12:31):
be in this country. Has this ever been an issue
with an individual a handful? Has the government ever asked
you any questions about anyone before two days ago?
Speaker 2 (12:42):
No.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
If the government ever has an issue with any processing
facility or any business, restaurants, everybody, hotels, what they'll do
is they will send you a letter and say you
have ten days to respond. If they're suspicious of somebody,
they'll let you know because the everifights system is completely flawed.
(13:03):
We go through that process if there is an issue
that we can't see, and ICE does uncover it with
whatever investigations they're doing, they do have that ability to
come to any business and correct it. The reason they
did a raid, though, is because they saw a concentration
of this. They never told us about it. We had
(13:24):
no warning. We didn't get any information that told us
that they were coming. It was a federal warrant. And
if you watch the video, they put down a battering
ram right before they knocked down that front door. It
wasn't an if they will come in. It is absolutely
they will come in.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Yes, and well, you can't blame them for not giving
you a heads up if they think you guys are well.
For example, there was an operation about seven years ago
here in Nebraska up and O'Neil, and they found out
that the owner of that particular place was doing a
lot of really really illegal things. They're not going to
give that guy a heads up before they come in
because he's probably the most guilty one there. They don't
(14:06):
know what they're dealing with here, so they just come in.
You were, according to media reports, you were told though
as you guys said, hey, we use we use the
verify and they said, yeah, he Verify is broken.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
They did say that, but they also said that our
company's not being charged with any crimes because we did
nothing wrong. We just used the system. But there were
fake IDs and things that were submitted that we have
no way of knowing about, and so that turned into
a you know, the situation where they have somebody that
is not legal, they figured it out, and then they
(14:41):
come to us to address it. These are stolen IDs,
that and things like that that caused the issue, not
our process. I don't like the process. And we have
a meeting with Homeland Security on Tuesday and we're going
to get to the bottom of what can be done next.
Everybody's talking about negativity. We got to come up with
(15:02):
a positive with all this. How do we make sure
this never happens again?
Speaker 1 (15:07):
That is and should be the biggest issue going forward.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Here.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
We're talking with the president of Glenn Valley Foods, Chad Hartman.
I can appreciate that you don't like the process because
not only and before we talk about the humanitarian aspect here,
and I do want to certainly talk on that, but
let's first, talk about the fact that you guys got
to get Gary's quick steak from you know, from farm
(15:34):
to table essentially here and your workforce production, your staff
capacity is way down and you've got a job to do.
How are you doing that?
Speaker 3 (15:45):
Well, that's again a great question. We are just doing
our best. And what that means is, you know, we
have applicants, We've been fully staffed for some time. We
have applicants registered historically, and then we also have people
that have been coming in and I think earlier in
your show you had mentioned that we had a large influx,
(16:05):
which we did the last couple of days. I don't
want anybody to misunderstand what that means. I don't know
what it means. All I know is it means people
are coming to here and they're interested in working, and
that's wonderful. We have a spot for them. Potentially, we
will continue to e verify because that is our only
option other than to don't do it at all, which
that would be completely wrong. So our plan that we're
(16:28):
executing on now is to bring people in, make sure
that you know that's a good fit for everybody, interview
them and go through that process, get them hired. To
get them trained, and then I'll take multiple You know,
if you can only take so many people at a time,
you're dealing with equipment and things like that, you have
to do it safely. But after that process is followed
over the next few weeks, we will get back get
(16:51):
things back into order.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Here's what I said about that earlier, and I do
want to give you a chance to respond. The comment
in k eTV's port said that you saw a tremendous
number of applications yesterday at the same time that you
were operating at about thirty percent staff capacity yesterday. What
it seemed to me was there were people in the
community who heard the reports that you guys were doing
(17:17):
everything right and that you want to be good community partners,
and people want to work for a business like that,
and they saw the opportunity now with potentially job openings,
and they wanted to go in there and help you out.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
Scott, You just nad my day, because that's what I
was really hoping that would mean, and it means a
lot to us, because again, we try to do things
the right way the best that we can. We treat
every employee with much respect, we pay really well, We're
really trying to do it's right and grow the company
and appreciate you saying what you said. That means a
(17:52):
lot to me.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Well, let us know how we can help you with that, Chad.
The last thing I want to address here is certainly
the humanitarian aspect. I don't know. I mean, there are
a lot of presidents of businesses who you know, know
a lot of their employees, some that are you know,
more you know, hands off on their approach. I'm not
sure how much you're down there knowing some of the
(18:16):
people who work at Glen Valley Foods. I can only
look at media reports, and depending on where you look
and who's doing the reporting, you either see a young
guy flipping off the camera and then some people outside
jumping on law enforcement vehicles and breaking the back windshield
wiper off and yelling at these guys, and it gives
(18:39):
it puts a bad taste in people's mouth. Other reports
show women who are afraid they're hiding behind palettes, and
then here comes the ice officers who end up putting
zip ties on some of these. In some cases it
looks to be older women, not old, but you know,
not in their teens and twenties. Mom aged women who
(19:03):
are now zip tied and put in the back of
a van, and your heart goes out to whatever these
people were probably told about. Look, do this, do that,
go here, It's gonna be fine. Don't worry. This is
exactly what you should be doing. They were lied to,
they were misled, and they were taken advantage of. And
(19:25):
right now we're trying to sort all that out. How
much do you know the people working there at Glen
Valley Foods both who were taken away from you this
week and left to try and pick up the pieces
of what happened to their friends and co workers.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
Yeah, the humanitarian side is it's just heart wrenching. You know,
I've worked here nearly nine years in developed a relationship
with you know, I hope most of our associates here,
and these are good people that have a hard work mentality,
like most Nebraskans. They show up every day to earn
(20:02):
good money for their families. And to watch that I
never experienced anything like that and never want to again.
To see faces that are just saddened by the reality
of what happened. Going through a raid is shocking. And
(20:23):
you know, especially if you knew that let's just say
pick an associate that they you know, they would have
had to known that they had a false identification that
they submitted, and now they know they're going to get caught.
That's a fear that I cannot even imagine. But not
just those folks, what about the folks that did absolutely
(20:45):
nothing wrong. They're one hundred percent legal and able to
work here in America. They had to go through the
same process. And it's shocking, it's it's it's scary. I mean,
these are people with the batter and Graham looked like
raid gear and all of them armed with bulletproof vests on,
(21:07):
and it's scary. So my heart goes out to the
experience that they had to go through. Then they got
to go home and take care of their families somehow.
And we did have associates come back that went through
all that, and God bless those people they are here
that we talked to them this morning. We've done our
best to just be transparent. I showed our associates to
(21:30):
show up this morning the actual warrant because there were
rumors that it was the type of warrant that we
could have refused and said no, go away, don't knock
on the door buy We couldn't do that. It was
a federal United States District Court warrant, and there's nothing
we could have done to prevent it, to prevent them
from coming in. So some of our associates thought we
(21:51):
were out to get them in a way, and that's
just not true. And so it's heart wrenching from every angle,
whether you're you know, working in an office or working
on the dock, or you know your slicing product. It
hurts no matter who you are to go through this.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
There's a lot of misinformation in the wake of what
happened a couple of days ago in our community. The
Omaha Police were incredibly frustrated by a social media post
that claimed to be from some segment of the Omaha
Police Department warning people in the community that was all
completely bogus, And obviously you're having to deal with some
of the misinformation the aspersions as well. If there's anything
(22:31):
that we can do here on eleven ten KFA beachad
to help you pass along the right information. Please don't
hesitate to reach out. I want to ask you one
more question here before we let you go, because there's
been a lot of talk about people saying, well, we
need people. Maybe they're in the country illegally, but we
need them in there doing these jobs because these are
(22:52):
jobs that Americans won't do. You preside over what some
people say, are these jobs? What do you think when
you hear a comment like that.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
I think that's the wrong attitude. You know, In my career,
I started off as a busboy in a restaurant, and
I worked as a a did light mechanical work at
writer and Warmer enterprises, sweat floors, clean toilets. I'm not Latino,
I'm not from another country, but willing to do all
(23:26):
that work. I did it the other night to make
sure we could close shop safely. We all did. These
are good jobs, They're not. They're not the type of
job that just one type of person could do. People
can find joy in almost any job, and so but
I know what you're what you're going with that, and
there's a bigger picture there. I just think there's an
(23:51):
opportunity to move forward, to offer jobs to anybody, but
they have to be legal now, if somebody's not legal.
I've been thinking about this for two days now, and
I have an idea, and I'm not saying it's the
right idea, is God, but it's an idea if somebody's
been here and they're working their butt off, like these
folks have, what about an amnesty program where they can
(24:13):
just safely with the I'm making this up one hundred
and twenty days timeframe, come to the right authorities, say hey,
I'm here, but here's the proof that I've been working
and I want to be here and I got I've
got a family to raise without fear, without being prosecuted,
I have no criminal record. I'm out to help this
(24:35):
country and myself and my family. They come and then
we start a program and I'm making this up and
I'll probably get ridiculed for it. But what if then
there's some sort of extra tax or something that they
got to pay to help cover you know, some of
those expenses that are associated with it, or maybe we
all do a little bit to cover it. But we
(24:55):
can fix the problem. There's got to be a solution.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
It's something we've been talking about the last couple of days,
as well as the last couple of decades I've been
here on this radio station, and I hope that those
in charge in Washington, d C. Are looking as much
at solutions like you have laid out here as much
as they are operations that lead to the discussions we've
had the last couple of days, because that would be
(25:21):
one of the biggest and most important things that we
can do in this country is to figure that out.
The American spirit is incredibly strong, as strong as the
spirits of those who are doing some of these jobs
and trying to take care of their family. I tell
you this, Jad, I've said this a number of times.
If I'm if my options are either wait fifteen years
(25:42):
to come legally into America or trust this guy who's
telling me I'll take care of you. We'll get you
in there. It's okay, You're gonna be fine. And you
come into the country illegally, you keep your head down,
you work real hard, and you support your family. Any
one of us would crawl over a miles of broken
glass to take advantage of the opportunity to support our families.
(26:04):
And if we can't separate those from those who wish
us and our nation harm, then that's not the America
that I know. I know we can do this, and Chad,
I'll be anxious to hear about your conversations with Homeland
security and others. If you want to continue to check
in with us here on the radio program to keep
(26:25):
us surprised of these conversations, we would love to talk
to you some more in the meantime. If someone wants
to work at Glenn Valley Foods and apply for a job,
what do they need to do today?
Speaker 3 (26:36):
Just come to the office, meet us and we'll take
it from there. And we really appreciate you taking the time.
Here's God means a lot to me. I do want
to add a couple of little things. Can I do
that please? I want to say this, it was not
a great experience to go through, okay, but I will
say that the end of the day, as respectful as
(26:59):
they could be, law enforcement was. I felt respectful and
they have for the most part communicated very well. Agree
to this meeting that we're having on Tuesday night. I
just want them to know and we do appreciate that too.
I never want to go through that again. I didn't
like it, but the job that they were doing they
(27:20):
did and it's very unfortunate we had to go through.
But I don't want them to also now be the
bad guy, and that's not fair. So I just want
to be fair and equitable to all parties.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
Here well, said Chad, thank you very much for all
the time you gave us. I told you we'd talked
to you for about ten minutes, and without looking at
your clock, that's how long we've kept you. I'm a
man of my word. I know it looks like I
know it looks like twenty minutes, but it trust me,
it's too Chad, we'll talk again. Okay, thank you very much,
you as well, and good luck. That is Chad Hartman.
(27:54):
He is the president of Glenn Valley Foods. He said,
do you want to work there? Coming to the office,
you'll find them just northeast of seventy second and l
specifically at sixty eighth and.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
J Scott Vories News Radio eleven ten kfab.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Stacy says, imagine if Ice had busted Edwin Mehea before
he killed Sarah Rout, the roots would have been spared
the anguish of going through years without her. It is
a slap in the face to the victims. To express
sympathy toward people who break our laws, as from Stacy,
Yet there's a difference in those who break immigration laws.
(28:36):
Like I said, there are a number of people who
were given really bad information and we're just airing on
the side. I need to take care of my family,
and so they broke our nation's immigration laws, partly because
our immigration laws and the process of getting into the
country legally is completely broken. I don't think it's reparably so.
(29:01):
And I say all the time, if I need to
take care of my family, I'll do whatever I need
to to do. So we're not talking about those people.
The people who are taking advantage of the system, who
are driving drunk and speeding through our streets and going
through intersections against the red light, hitting and killing people
and then fleeing the country rather than answer for their crimes.
(29:24):
That's who you're talking about. Now. When ICE comes in
there to do an operation, they don't know one from
the other. They've got to sort it out. ICE is
not the judge in this one. ICE is the cleanup crew.
It's up to someone else to sort it out, and
it's up to the people in Washington to figure it out.
(29:47):
I don't blame ICE for their operations. And I didn't
hear the president of Glenn Valley Foods. I mean he
said I didn't like the operation. No, I imagine he didn't
I based on his job, I imagine he didn't like this,
But he also expressed an interest in how how can
(30:10):
we move forward as a country in everyone's best interest
to keep things like this from continuing to happen. That
is an excellent thought. Arnie says, this isn't about who's
nice and who isn't. It's about the left getting their
permanent voting majority in this country, which will end this country.
(30:32):
I wouldn't be so sure as to make that assumption.
You talk to a lot of people who finally come
to this country legally, or many of them who come
to this country illegally. I'm not talking about the ones
protesting and setting fire to our streets and waving Mexican flags.
I'm talking about the people or keeping their heads way
down right now because they want to come into this
(30:54):
country by any means necessary and close the door behind
them because of the people they're fleeing, drug lords, traffickers,
human traffickers, criminals, murderers, horrible people. They want to get
here and they don't want the rest of that crew
to get in after them. I wouldn't be so sure
that there are a lot of people, including those who
(31:15):
are in the country illegally that really don't like a
porous border. They're fine that they It's like the people
who say, I don't think anyone should text while driving
it's dangerous. Now I can do it because I'm not
an idiot. It's the same thing that you think when
you're texting while driving. Well, I can handle this, but
other people can't. People come into the country illegally, Well,
(31:38):
it's a good thing I got here. But I'm okay.
I'm a good person now the rest of them, these
people are terrible.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
Scott Boyes Mornings nine to eleven on news Radio eleven
ten KFAB
Scott vorgiez Omaha continues to sift through what happened this
week and the aftermath in the wake of immigration Customs
enforcement operations at one business in Omaha. I can't be
more clear about two things. Number One, that's what happened.
(00:25):
It was a targeted ice operation at one business. And
within that one business, they had a list of ninety
seven names of individuals that they needed to have a
conversation with. I am sorry if that was a friend,
a coworker, your aunt, if your name was on the list,
(00:48):
they wanted to have a chitty chat with you. Okay,
So I shows up to one business with a list
of ninety seven names. That is a target operation. That's
what it was. Here's what it wasn't. It wasn't a raid.
(01:09):
I know some people use the term because you hear
about ice raids all the time. It's become pretty common parlance,
and whether it's reported in the media that could be
with or without bias. Don't immediately start going why they
just it's sometimes things like this get reported without really
(01:30):
without anyone really giving any thought. If you hear that
terminology on the radio, and I've even used it myself
these past couple of days. It Sometimes it just comes
out when you hear it from elected officials and alleged
community leaders. Here's what they want you to think. That
(01:52):
ice is just coming into Omaha, saying, all right, where
them meskins? Where they at. We'll look under every rock,
We'll search behind every pallet. We will find them. We
will go door to door if we have to, We're
just gonna pull them out. We're gonna put them on
a plane. We're not gonna tell anyone where they are.
(02:13):
You'll never see these people again. Do you guys have
small kids at home. Good, They're gonna go hungry as
they throw you on a plane and send you to
El Salvador or somewhere. And they're just going like door
to door homes, businesses, schools. They're just going around just
looking for meskins. That's when they say ice raids in
(02:37):
our community. They want people to live in fear. They
the community leaders, some of these elected officials. They want
people in Omaha's immigrant community to live in fear. That
immigrant community includes a lot of people who are legal,
(02:58):
who have status, who are hard workers, who are great people.
I hope you know some of them. This community also
has some people in it, who are in this country illegally.
And guess what that first group I mentioned, the legal immigrants,
they're not too thrilled with all the illegal immigrants because
they're competing for the same stuff. A spot from my
(03:21):
kid in school, a spot for me to have a job,
benefits that I'm entitled to because I'm paying for them,
and you're getting them, and you're not paying for them.
Businesses that hire you illegally because they can in some
instances pay you under the table and pay you a
lot less than I pay this legal immigrant with status
(03:41):
who I gotta pay a minimum wage to, and I
gotta pay for disability, and I gotta pay for this,
and I gotta pay for that, and I gotta pay taxes,
and I don't want to do that stuff. I'll just
pay you under the cover, under the tables here. And
that means that a lot of legal immigrants can't get jobs.
A lot of these illegal immigrants who are on the
ice list of this targeted operation have stolen the identities
(04:05):
of the first group, the legal immigrants. If you come
to this country illegally and you're from Central America, you're
not going to steal the identity of irma Bombeck because
you're a twenty three year old Hispanic male. I don't
know that anyone's gonna look and go I'm a bomback.
(04:28):
Isn't that like an advice columnist or something like that.
And this is my friend Heloise. You know, I don't
think anyone is stealing the identity of old women. You're
stealing the identity of people who have an Hispanic name
so that you can pass off and go, yes, this
is me Mexican Hernandez, that's my name, and this is uh,
(04:53):
this is Guatemala Rodrigo, he's my friend. And you steal
those names from people well within the community who then like, Okay,
this is my social Security number has been taken. My
identity has been taken. I can't get alone, I can't
get a credit card, I can't get cable, I can't
(05:14):
I can't get a phone because my identity has been stolen.
Their identities have been stolen from people in the country illegally,
which is why ICE did a targeted operation at one business.
Anyone who purposefully wants people in the community to say,
oh yeah, ICE is coming here and they're rating there.
(05:38):
We need to support the Latino community after this raid
this week. That's what this national organization, the League of
United Latin American Citizens lou LAC, came flying into Omaha.
Oh boy, we're here. We're here to support the Latino community.
Did you just suggest that the Latino community in Omaha
(06:02):
is all here illegally? Because ICE is interested in the
people who are here illegally, who are working with fraudulent documentation.
So when you show up and go, we need to
figure out how we can support the community. The community
of who. They know exactly who, and they know what
(06:25):
they're doing. They know they want to make it look
like the Trump administration is just going after brown people.
I get an email every day from some group that
usually takes three news stories from three different sources, and
they send them out to radio people and go, here's
(06:47):
some stories, some fodder for your radio programs. Please subscribe
to our newsletters. The first story here is from The Independent,
the second one comes from the Sgociated Press, and the
third one is from Newsweek, so they pull from different sources.
Here's the first headline, Trump administration threatens military deployment nationwide
(07:11):
as rallies flare up across the US. As from the Independent,
that is not an independent headline. That is a biased headline.
Why would the Trump administration threaten military deployment because there
are peaceful protests going on? Do you want people to
think that President Trump sees people out there waving signs
(07:38):
and he's like, I don't like those signs. Send the Marines.
The President is not threatening military deployment because of peaceful rallies.
The reason why the National Guard or the Marines would
come out is because what may be started as a
(07:58):
peaceful rally was taken over by agitators and they've turned
into dangerous and violent riots. And so before businesses and
people burned down, we're going to send the military to
stop that from happening. Due to domestic terrorists in our country.
It's not a threat of military deployment because of a rally.
(08:23):
So that's the first headline. The second one is, according
to a survey, there's little agreement between Republicans and Democrats
on media sources they trust and why would that be?
And then the third one, also political, says that gen
Z the people who are in their twenties and teens
(08:44):
right now, I guess they want to know your politics
before they date you, because it all comes down to
politics for everybody anymore. It's got to be politics because
there are people out there that want politics to see
into every single thing that happens about anything. You know,
(09:05):
we don't have ice operations to take out criminals or
to question or detain criminals who are in the country
illegally in stealing identities from people who want some justice
for that. We don't have that. We have ice raids well,
and we're and then and the wake of these things,
we've got people who won't come to work because after
(09:30):
the raid, they're afraid that ice is Now they're in
Omaha and they're just going to be going from business
to business going, Yeah, you look like an illegal. Get
in the van, put on these zip ties, which, by
the way, isn't happening.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Scott byes news radio eleven ten k FAD.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
The president of Glen Valley food subject of an ICE
operation in our community is Chad Hartman, and Chad, president
of Glenn Valley Foods, joins us here on news radio
eleven ten KFAB. Chad, thank you very much for taking
the time. Can you talk us through first the everify
system that you guys have been saying here The owner
(10:17):
Gary rower you, the President have been saying we did
everything right leading up to what happened a couple of
days ago. Can you describe that process for us?
Speaker 3 (10:27):
Please sure that I can do that. We have a
process that not everyone follows, by the way, and it's
a government program. It's e verify you Verify is part
of the I nine form, the US Department of Homeland
Security and the Social Security Administration all coming together to
(10:51):
use this website so that we can supply data to
the website to ensure employers are hiring authorized workers. And
we have been one hundred percent compliant with that process.
The reason I called in is I know there are
many people out there that are thinking something incorrectly, and
(11:12):
I just want to clarify there is no other system.
It's not like you can come here, apply for a
job and put it into the system and if it's
incorrect or excuse me, if it is correct, that you
have another alternative to check it. So it puts us
in a really tough position. This is a government's answer
(11:34):
to assure you're hiring employees that are authorized.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
What do you think would happen to you? What do
you think would happen to you if someone applied for
a job there and you looked at him and said, yeah,
I don't know, you look to me like an illegal immigrant.
We're not going to hire you. What kind of hell
fire would rain down on you, guys if you took
that tact.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
I got to tell you, that's one of the smartest
questions I've heard, because you know, would happen somebody's gonnasue you.
Now you're somehow discriminating, which, of course we never would
want to do that.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
No, and you're exactly right. So you've got people working there,
And was there ever any indication leading up to what
happened a couple of days ago that perhaps the workforce
there at Glenn Valley Foods might not be all on
the up and up in terms of their documentation to
(12:31):
be in this country. Has this ever been an issue
with an individual a handful? Has the government ever asked
you any questions about anyone before two days ago?
Speaker 2 (12:42):
No.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
If the government ever has an issue with any processing
facility or any business, restaurants, everybody, hotels, what they'll do
is they will send you a letter and say you
have ten days to respond. If they're suspicious of somebody,
they'll let you know because the everifights system is completely flawed.
(13:03):
We go through that process if there is an issue
that we can't see, and ICE does uncover it with
whatever investigations they're doing, they do have that ability to
come to any business and correct it. The reason they
did a raid, though, is because they saw a concentration
of this. They never told us about it. We had
(13:24):
no warning. We didn't get any information that told us
that they were coming. It was a federal warrant. And
if you watch the video, they put down a battering
ram right before they knocked down that front door. It
wasn't an if they will come in. It is absolutely
they will come in.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Yes, and well, you can't blame them for not giving
you a heads up if they think you guys are well.
For example, there was an operation about seven years ago
here in Nebraska up and O'Neil, and they found out
that the owner of that particular place was doing a
lot of really really illegal things. They're not going to
give that guy a heads up before they come in
because he's probably the most guilty one there. They don't
(14:06):
know what they're dealing with here, so they just come in.
You were, according to media reports, you were told though
as you guys said, hey, we use we use the
verify and they said, yeah, he Verify is broken.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
They did say that, but they also said that our
company's not being charged with any crimes because we did
nothing wrong. We just used the system. But there were
fake IDs and things that were submitted that we have
no way of knowing about, and so that turned into
a you know, the situation where they have somebody that
is not legal, they figured it out, and then they
(14:41):
come to us to address it. These are stolen IDs,
that and things like that that caused the issue, not
our process. I don't like the process. And we have
a meeting with Homeland Security on Tuesday and we're going
to get to the bottom of what can be done next.
Everybody's talking about negativity. We got to come up with
(15:02):
a positive with all this. How do we make sure
this never happens again?
Speaker 1 (15:07):
That is and should be the biggest issue going forward.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Here.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
We're talking with the president of Glenn Valley Foods, Chad Hartman.
I can appreciate that you don't like the process because
not only and before we talk about the humanitarian aspect here,
and I do want to certainly talk on that, but
let's first, talk about the fact that you guys got
to get Gary's quick steak from you know, from farm
(15:34):
to table essentially here and your workforce production, your staff
capacity is way down and you've got a job to do.
How are you doing that?
Speaker 3 (15:45):
Well, that's again a great question. We are just doing
our best. And what that means is, you know, we
have applicants, We've been fully staffed for some time. We
have applicants registered historically, and then we also have people
that have been coming in and I think earlier in
your show you had mentioned that we had a large influx,
(16:05):
which we did the last couple of days. I don't
want anybody to misunderstand what that means. I don't know
what it means. All I know is it means people
are coming to here and they're interested in working, and
that's wonderful. We have a spot for them. Potentially, we
will continue to e verify because that is our only
option other than to don't do it at all, which
that would be completely wrong. So our plan that we're
(16:28):
executing on now is to bring people in, make sure
that you know that's a good fit for everybody, interview
them and go through that process, get them hired. To
get them trained, and then I'll take multiple You know,
if you can only take so many people at a time,
you're dealing with equipment and things like that, you have
to do it safely. But after that process is followed
over the next few weeks, we will get back get
(16:51):
things back into order.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Here's what I said about that earlier, and I do
want to give you a chance to respond. The comment
in k eTV's port said that you saw a tremendous
number of applications yesterday at the same time that you
were operating at about thirty percent staff capacity yesterday. What
it seemed to me was there were people in the
community who heard the reports that you guys were doing
(17:17):
everything right and that you want to be good community partners,
and people want to work for a business like that,
and they saw the opportunity now with potentially job openings,
and they wanted to go in there and help you out.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
Scott, You just nad my day, because that's what I
was really hoping that would mean, and it means a
lot to us, because again, we try to do things
the right way the best that we can. We treat
every employee with much respect, we pay really well, We're
really trying to do it's right and grow the company
and appreciate you saying what you said. That means a
(17:52):
lot to me.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Well, let us know how we can help you with that, Chad.
The last thing I want to address here is certainly
the humanitarian aspect. I don't know. I mean, there are
a lot of presidents of businesses who you know, know
a lot of their employees, some that are you know,
more you know, hands off on their approach. I'm not
sure how much you're down there knowing some of the
(18:16):
people who work at Glen Valley Foods. I can only
look at media reports, and depending on where you look
and who's doing the reporting, you either see a young
guy flipping off the camera and then some people outside
jumping on law enforcement vehicles and breaking the back windshield
wiper off and yelling at these guys, and it gives
(18:39):
it puts a bad taste in people's mouth. Other reports
show women who are afraid they're hiding behind palettes, and
then here comes the ice officers who end up putting
zip ties on some of these. In some cases it
looks to be older women, not old, but you know,
not in their teens and twenties. Mom aged women who
(19:03):
are now zip tied and put in the back of
a van, and your heart goes out to whatever these
people were probably told about. Look, do this, do that,
go here, It's gonna be fine. Don't worry. This is
exactly what you should be doing. They were lied to,
they were misled, and they were taken advantage of. And
(19:25):
right now we're trying to sort all that out. How
much do you know the people working there at Glen
Valley Foods both who were taken away from you this
week and left to try and pick up the pieces
of what happened to their friends and co workers.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
Yeah, the humanitarian side is it's just heart wrenching. You know,
I've worked here nearly nine years in developed a relationship
with you know, I hope most of our associates here,
and these are good people that have a hard work mentality,
like most Nebraskans. They show up every day to earn
(20:02):
good money for their families. And to watch that I
never experienced anything like that and never want to again.
To see faces that are just saddened by the reality
of what happened. Going through a raid is shocking. And
(20:23):
you know, especially if you knew that let's just say
pick an associate that they you know, they would have
had to known that they had a false identification that
they submitted, and now they know they're going to get caught.
That's a fear that I cannot even imagine. But not
just those folks, what about the folks that did absolutely
(20:45):
nothing wrong. They're one hundred percent legal and able to
work here in America. They had to go through the
same process. And it's shocking, it's it's it's scary. I mean,
these are people with the batter and Graham looked like
raid gear and all of them armed with bulletproof vests on,
(21:07):
and it's scary. So my heart goes out to the
experience that they had to go through. Then they got
to go home and take care of their families somehow.
And we did have associates come back that went through
all that, and God bless those people they are here
that we talked to them this morning. We've done our
best to just be transparent. I showed our associates to
(21:30):
show up this morning the actual warrant because there were
rumors that it was the type of warrant that we
could have refused and said no, go away, don't knock
on the door buy We couldn't do that. It was
a federal United States District Court warrant, and there's nothing
we could have done to prevent it, to prevent them
from coming in. So some of our associates thought we
(21:51):
were out to get them in a way, and that's
just not true. And so it's heart wrenching from every angle,
whether you're you know, working in an office or working
on the dock, or you know your slicing product. It
hurts no matter who you are to go through this.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
There's a lot of misinformation in the wake of what
happened a couple of days ago in our community. The
Omaha Police were incredibly frustrated by a social media post
that claimed to be from some segment of the Omaha
Police Department warning people in the community that was all
completely bogus, And obviously you're having to deal with some
of the misinformation the aspersions as well. If there's anything
(22:31):
that we can do here on eleven ten KFA beachad
to help you pass along the right information. Please don't
hesitate to reach out. I want to ask you one
more question here before we let you go, because there's
been a lot of talk about people saying, well, we
need people. Maybe they're in the country illegally, but we
need them in there doing these jobs because these are
(22:52):
jobs that Americans won't do. You preside over what some
people say, are these jobs? What do you think when
you hear a comment like that.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
I think that's the wrong attitude. You know, In my career,
I started off as a busboy in a restaurant, and
I worked as a a did light mechanical work at
writer and Warmer enterprises, sweat floors, clean toilets. I'm not Latino,
I'm not from another country, but willing to do all
(23:26):
that work. I did it the other night to make
sure we could close shop safely. We all did. These
are good jobs, They're not. They're not the type of
job that just one type of person could do. People
can find joy in almost any job, and so but
I know what you're what you're going with that, and
there's a bigger picture there. I just think there's an
(23:51):
opportunity to move forward, to offer jobs to anybody, but
they have to be legal now, if somebody's not legal.
I've been thinking about this for two days now, and
I have an idea, and I'm not saying it's the
right idea, is God, but it's an idea if somebody's
been here and they're working their butt off, like these
folks have, what about an amnesty program where they can
(24:13):
just safely with the I'm making this up one hundred
and twenty days timeframe, come to the right authorities, say hey,
I'm here, but here's the proof that I've been working
and I want to be here and I got I've
got a family to raise without fear, without being prosecuted,
I have no criminal record. I'm out to help this
(24:35):
country and myself and my family. They come and then
we start a program and I'm making this up and
I'll probably get ridiculed for it. But what if then
there's some sort of extra tax or something that they
got to pay to help cover you know, some of
those expenses that are associated with it, or maybe we
all do a little bit to cover it. But we
(24:55):
can fix the problem. There's got to be a solution.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
It's something we've been talking about the last couple of days,
as well as the last couple of decades I've been
here on this radio station, and I hope that those
in charge in Washington, d C. Are looking as much
at solutions like you have laid out here as much
as they are operations that lead to the discussions we've
had the last couple of days, because that would be
(25:21):
one of the biggest and most important things that we
can do in this country is to figure that out.
The American spirit is incredibly strong, as strong as the
spirits of those who are doing some of these jobs
and trying to take care of their family. I tell
you this, Jad, I've said this a number of times.
If I'm if my options are either wait fifteen years
(25:42):
to come legally into America or trust this guy who's
telling me I'll take care of you. We'll get you
in there. It's okay, You're gonna be fine. And you
come into the country illegally, you keep your head down,
you work real hard, and you support your family. Any
one of us would crawl over a miles of broken
glass to take advantage of the opportunity to support our families.
(26:04):
And if we can't separate those from those who wish
us and our nation harm, then that's not the America
that I know. I know we can do this, and Chad,
I'll be anxious to hear about your conversations with Homeland
security and others. If you want to continue to check
in with us here on the radio program to keep
(26:25):
us surprised of these conversations, we would love to talk
to you some more in the meantime. If someone wants
to work at Glenn Valley Foods and apply for a job,
what do they need to do today?
Speaker 3 (26:36):
Just come to the office, meet us and we'll take
it from there. And we really appreciate you taking the time.
Here's God means a lot to me. I do want
to add a couple of little things. Can I do
that please? I want to say this, it was not
a great experience to go through, okay, but I will
say that the end of the day, as respectful as
(26:59):
they could be, law enforcement was. I felt respectful and
they have for the most part communicated very well. Agree
to this meeting that we're having on Tuesday night. I
just want them to know and we do appreciate that too.
I never want to go through that again. I didn't
like it, but the job that they were doing they
(27:20):
did and it's very unfortunate we had to go through.
But I don't want them to also now be the
bad guy, and that's not fair. So I just want
to be fair and equitable to all parties.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
Here well, said Chad, thank you very much for all
the time you gave us. I told you we'd talked
to you for about ten minutes, and without looking at
your clock, that's how long we've kept you. I'm a
man of my word. I know it looks like I
know it looks like twenty minutes, but it trust me,
it's too Chad, we'll talk again. Okay, thank you very much,
you as well, and good luck. That is Chad Hartman.
(27:54):
He is the president of Glenn Valley Foods. He said,
do you want to work there? Coming to the office,
you'll find them just northeast of seventy second and l
specifically at sixty eighth and.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
J Scott Vories News Radio eleven ten kfab.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Stacy says, imagine if Ice had busted Edwin Mehea before
he killed Sarah Rout, the roots would have been spared
the anguish of going through years without her. It is
a slap in the face to the victims. To express
sympathy toward people who break our laws, as from Stacy,
Yet there's a difference in those who break immigration laws.
(28:36):
Like I said, there are a number of people who
were given really bad information and we're just airing on
the side. I need to take care of my family,
and so they broke our nation's immigration laws, partly because
our immigration laws and the process of getting into the
country legally is completely broken. I don't think it's reparably so.
(29:01):
And I say all the time, if I need to
take care of my family, I'll do whatever I need
to to do. So we're not talking about those people.
The people who are taking advantage of the system, who
are driving drunk and speeding through our streets and going
through intersections against the red light, hitting and killing people
and then fleeing the country rather than answer for their crimes.
(29:24):
That's who you're talking about. Now. When ICE comes in
there to do an operation, they don't know one from
the other. They've got to sort it out. ICE is
not the judge in this one. ICE is the cleanup crew.
It's up to someone else to sort it out, and
it's up to the people in Washington to figure it out.
(29:47):
I don't blame ICE for their operations. And I didn't
hear the president of Glenn Valley Foods. I mean he
said I didn't like the operation. No, I imagine he didn't
I based on his job, I imagine he didn't like this,
But he also expressed an interest in how how can
(30:10):
we move forward as a country in everyone's best interest
to keep things like this from continuing to happen. That
is an excellent thought. Arnie says, this isn't about who's
nice and who isn't. It's about the left getting their
permanent voting majority in this country, which will end this country.
(30:32):
I wouldn't be so sure as to make that assumption.
You talk to a lot of people who finally come
to this country legally, or many of them who come
to this country illegally. I'm not talking about the ones
protesting and setting fire to our streets and waving Mexican flags.
I'm talking about the people or keeping their heads way
down right now because they want to come into this
(30:54):
country by any means necessary and close the door behind
them because of the people they're fleeing, drug lords, traffickers,
human traffickers, criminals, murderers, horrible people. They want to get
here and they don't want the rest of that crew
to get in after them. I wouldn't be so sure
that there are a lot of people, including those who
(31:15):
are in the country illegally that really don't like a
porous border. They're fine that they It's like the people
who say, I don't think anyone should text while driving
it's dangerous. Now I can do it because I'm not
an idiot. It's the same thing that you think when
you're texting while driving. Well, I can handle this, but
other people can't. People come into the country illegally, Well,
(31:38):
it's a good thing I got here. But I'm okay.
I'm a good person now the rest of them, these
people are terrible.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
Scott Boyes Mornings nine to eleven on news Radio eleven
ten KFAB
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.