AP DALLAS — Former employees are suing Swift & Co. for $23 million, alleging the meatpacking company conspired to keep wages down by hiring illegal immigrants.
The 18 former employees are legal residents who worked at a plant in Cactus, Texas, north of Amarillo. The plant was one of six facilities raided in a multistate federal sweep that led to the arrests of nearly 1,300 employees and temporarily halted Swift's operations.
"These plaintiffs are ... victims in a long-standing scheme by Swift to depress and artificially lower the wages of its workers by knowingly hiring illegal workers," said their attorney, Angel Reyes. "By lessening its labor costs and increasing its profits, Swift has severely damaged the potential earnings and livelihood of these hardworking men and women."

What Reyes should have added is that is “severely damaged the potential earnings and livelihood of these hardworking AMERICAN CITIZEN men and women." This kind of blows a hole in the “they only take the jobs that American citizens don’t want” theory. Simple economics. If you bring in cheap labor, it pulls wages down for most, if not all.