The New Jungle

Summary

99% Invisible – "The New Jungle" (September 23, 2025)

Host: Roman Mars
Reporter: Esther Hoenig
Episode Theme:
This episode explores the hidden design behind the American meatpacking industry’s labor force, tracing the arc from Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle to the present day. Focusing on Greeley, Colorado—a quintessential meatpacking town—the episode examines how refugees, immigrants, and vulnerable populations have come to power a system that remains as reliant on cheap, invisible labor today as it was 120 years ago.

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Episode Overview

• Purpose: To reveal how the U.S. meatpacking industry continuously fills dangerous, undesirable jobs by recruiting waves of immigrants and refugees, examining the historical, economic, and humanitarian systems that make this possible.
• Setting: Greeley, Colorado, home to JBS, the largest meatpacker in the U.S., and a microcosm reflecting broader industry and social trends.
• Key Question: How did meatpacking become a landing pad—and sometimes a trap—for America’s most vulnerable newcomers?

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Greeley, Colorado: More Than Meets the Eye

• Stereotypes vs. Reality ([01:38])
  • Greeley is assumed to be a conservative, white, agricultural town, but is, in fact, highly diverse due to its role in meatpacking.
• Meet Mohammed: ([01:48-03:55])
  • Rohingya refugee, former rice farmer, arrives via UN program, quickly finds work at JBS without language skills or prior experience—unaware he’d be working in a slaughterhouse.

    Mohammed: "He only say, JBS, there's many different kind of jobs. Then you will do one of them…" ([03:46])

2. The Grueling Reality of Meatpacking Work

• Job Hazards: ([04:16-05:13])
  • Workers use sharp knives to break down up to 450 cows per hour; many suffer injuries or amputations—there are about two amputations a week in the industry.
  • Plants are always desperate to find new workers due to the physically punishing conditions and high turnover.
• Refugee Labor Pipeline: ([05:58])
  • Increasingly, companies rely on refugees who, through resettlement programs, end up in these perilous positions as their "shot at the American dream."

3. History Repeats: From ‘The Jungle’ to Now

• Upton Sinclair’s Legacy: ([06:29-07:42])

  • The Jungle exposed terrible conditions for immigrant workers in 1904 Chicago, leading to public outcry—over food safety, not worker exploitation.

    Roman Mars: "I aimed at the public's heart and by accident, I hit it in the stomach." ([07:14])

• Cycles of “Progress”: ([07:56-08:29])

  • Brief union-led improvements in the mid-20th century, then a retreat as companies relocated to rural America to cut costs and dodge unions/reporters.

• Recruitment of Immigrants: ([08:49])

  • Initial reliance on Mexican workers, then a shift to more diverse populations as local labor dried up.

4. The 2006 ICE Raids & Aftermath

• Swift Plant Raids: ([11:08-12:34])
  • ICE raids on December 12, 2006, led to the arrest of nearly 1,300 workers, 10% of the Swift workforce, abruptly causing a labor crisis.
  • Swift (later acquired by JBS) needed new workers, so they turned to federal refugee resettlement programs.

    Esther Hoenig: "Overnight, Swift lost about 10% of its workforce. Without enough people, some factories couldn't operate…" ([12:34])

5. How the U.S. Resettlement System Feeds Industry Needs

• Recruiting Refugees as a Labor Solution: ([17:19-18:16])

  • JBS and others proactively recruited refugees—especially from East Africa and Burma—offering bonuses and relocating them en masse to rural towns.

• Insufficient Services, Swift Integration: ([19:11-20:36])

  • Community support structures lagged behind, with most services geared toward Spanish speakers; new offices and nonprofits had to develop from scratch.

• Refugee Act of 1980 and "Economic Self-Sufficiency": ([21:21-22:37])

  • U.S. resettlement is designed to get refugees quickly off public support and into any available job, often meatpacking.

    Esther Hoenig: "We wanted them to lift themselves up by their bootstraps… the very first priority… was economic self sufficiency." ([22:11])

• Comparison to Canadian Model: ([23:31])

  • Unlike Canada’s year of support, U.S. refugees receive just three months before they must support themselves.

6. Caseworkers as Labor Brokers

• John Tabor’s Experience: ([24:15-28:14])

  • Former "job developer" describes the rush to get refugees (who often lack transferable skills) into entry-level positions.
  • Relationships with companies like Tyson became transactional; caseworkers matched "preferred" worker groups to employer specifications.

    John Tabor: "So like we were selling a product, really." ([26:54]) "The narrative that we're giving people these great opportunities, you know, like there's a dark side." ([28:35])

• Refugees’ Lack of Choices: ([28:42-29:18])

  • With few alternatives and high urgency, refugees stay in risky jobs even if injured or discriminated against.

7. Modern Greeley: Changing Demographics and Social Tensions

• Transformation of the Town: ([20:11-20:36], [31:26-32:07])
  • Greeley shifts from white, to white-and-Latino, to distinctly international. New businesses, religious institutions, and markets emerge.
• Discrimination and Resilience: ([32:07-32:46])
  • Instances of anti-Muslim sentiment, but also growing support networks and ESL programs.
  • Community leaders like Karim Abdulmanaf and organizations like the Immigrant and Refugee Center of Northern Colorado step in to help.

8. The Cycle Continues: New Arrival Populations

• Recent Arrivals & Uncertainty: ([34:48-36:30])
  • New groups from Haiti and Venezuela (via Temporary Protected Status) now fill the meatpacking jobs—and face abrupt policy changes.

    Karim Abdulmanaf: "TPS, the fact that the new just came out like minutes ago for sure next week, it's gonna be like overwhelming for them… what can I do?" ([36:13])

9. Structural Issues and the Future

• Meatpacking’s Dependency on the Vulnerable: ([36:30-37:55])

  • Refugee entries are paused, leading to renewed panic over labor shortages.

    Roman Mars: "This country depends on vulnerable people to do its dirtiest, most grueling work. We've just never wanted to see it." ([37:55])

• Broader Economic Reflection: ([37:14-37:34])

  • Industry and policymakers must reckon with the essential contributions of these populations amidst a hostile immigration climate.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “I aimed at the public’s heart and by accident, I hit it in the stomach.” – Upton Sinclair, quoted by Roman Mars ([07:14])
• “The American machine just swallowed him up and there was never any breathing room.” – John Tabor ([28:14])
• “The narrative that we're giving people these great opportunities, you know, like there's a dark side.” – John Tabor ([28:35])
• “I cannot hold something as a firm way. So this is the problem.” – Mohammed, describing his hand injury from work ([30:43])
• “They have to do it because they have no other options here in the guerrilla.” – Karim Abdulmanaf on refugees working at JBS ([34:32])
• “This country depends on vulnerable people to do its dirtiest, most grueling work. We’ve just never wanted to see it.” – Roman Mars ([37:55])

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Timestamp Map of Key Segments

• 01:38–03:55: Introduction to Greeley and Mohammed's story
• 04:16–05:58: Dangers of meatpacking and refugee labor pipeline
• 06:29–07:42: Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle and its legacy
• 08:49–09:39: Recruitment of immigrant workers in rural America
• 11:08–12:34: The 2006 Swift ICE raids and their impact
• 17:19–18:16: Refugee recruitment and new labor strategies
• 21:21–22:37: History and structure of the U.S. refugee resettlement system
• 24:15–28:14: John Tabor's experience as a job developer
• 31:26–32:07: Greeley’s population change post-2007, social tensions
• 34:48–36:30: New arrivals, TPS, ongoing labor and policy cycles
• 37:55: Conclusion: The “invisible” role of vulnerable workers

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Conclusion

Tone & Message: The episode maintains a compassionate, investigative tone, blending storytelling with rigor and historical context. It peels back the surface of “invisible” design—here, not of objects or cities, but of a social and economic system. The listener is left with a lingering question: What does it mean to build an economy on unseen, sometimes unwanted, but utterly essential labor?

Final Reflection:
The evolution of Greeley, the hardship of workers like Mohammed, and the impersonal systems churning beneath it all form a narrative loop dating to Sinclair’s time. Despite changes in policy, demographics, and public attention, the underlying “design” remains—America’s least desirable jobs are performed by those with the fewest options, whose stories remain largely invisible.

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(All advertisements, intro and outro, and non-content promotional material have been omitted from this summary.)

Transcript

[Roman Mars]

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[Esther Hoenig]

When most Americans imagine a place like Greeley, they think of cowboys, farmers, political conservatives, and mostly white people.

[Roman Mars]

That's reporter Esther Hoenig.

[Esther Hoenig]

That was my assumption about Greeley, at least until I worked there as an agricultural reporter. That's when I realized the city is actually incredibly diverse. And test, test. There we go. A few years ago I went to interview a man we'll call Mohammed. Hello. He lived in a small single story house in a quiet neighborhood on the northeast side of town. How old are you?

[Roman Mars]

38 years.

[Esther Hoenig]

Okay. Mohammed spoke Rohingya and only a little English, so we used a translator to communicate. At an old Formica dinner table, Mohammed served me coffee. He wore a longi, a long skirt that's customary in his home country of Burma, and he told me what life was like there.

[Mohammed]

So he's talking about the peddy, the rice. So he ploughed the land and then he pulled in the seedlings. Then he transplants.

[Esther Hoenig]

Mohammed was a rice farmer, but then he faced persecution by the government and had to flee his country. He was registered as a refugee by the UN and eventually, after undergoing a rigorous background Check. He was one of the lucky ones selected for resettlement.

[Mohammed]

I was always thinking how America would be and what I will do there. And I was excited.

[Esther Hoenig]

Especially in 2015, Mohammed left the refugee camp where he'd been living and flew across the world, ending up here in Greeley. This would be his new home.

[Mohammed]

So when I got in America, then my case will occur within one month. I got a job in jbs.

[Esther Hoenig]

Jbs, the massive meatpacking plant in Greeley that we mentioned earlier. To get his job, Muhammad didn't have to speak English. He didn't need any prior experience. The caseworker didn't even really explain what JBS was.

[Mohammed]

He only say, jb, there's many different kind of jobs. Then you will do one of them, he said, just like this.

[Esther Hoenig]

So he didn't tell him that it was a slaughterhouse or that he would be working with meat. He didn't know that.

[Mohammed]

He didn't know that.

[Esther Hoenig]

After his first week at jbs, Mohammed realized just what kind of work he'd be doing. He used a large electric knife to remove the skin from cow legs. It was bloody, exhausting labor.

[Roman Mars]

In most plants, workers assemble things like cars. But in a meatpacking plant, the workers disassemble animals. They stand along conveyor belts where line speeds run incredibly fast. Up to 450 cows are killed every hour. And the workers use wickedly sharp electric knives to break them down into cuts of meat like chuck and rib.

[Esther Hoenig]

And as conveyor belts, meat grinders, and saws rumbled around Muhammad, he looked around the factory floor and noticed something else. Many of the other workers were from places like Somalia, Eritrea, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. They all arrived here as refugees like him.

[Mohammed]

I understand that people are getting their job as I did, as I did. There's a caseworker, caseworker, my brother.

[Esther Hoenig]

So he knew that that was. Everyone was getting the job the same way.

[Mohammed]

The same way.

[Roman Mars]

The scale of meatpacking in this country is staggering. Half a million people work in the industry, producing tens of billions of pounds of meat every year and generating billions of dollars in profits. Companies like JBS are among the largest employers in rural America. But the industry doesn't just process animals. It churns through people. The work is so brutal and physically punishing that many don't last long on the job. Workers often suffer chronic injuries from the repetitive nature of the work. They can also lose fingers, even whole appendages. Research shows that there are about two amputations a week across the entire industry, which means that Meatpacking companies are always searching for new bodies to run the line.

[Esther Hoenig]

But in the last 20 years, companies like JBS have come to rely on a new source of labor. Refugees arriving through humanitarian programs that are supposed to offer safety and a shot at the American dream. And it's through this particular arrangement that rural midwestern towns like Greeley have become home to thousands of people like Mohammed. Men and women who fled violence and persecution, only to find themselves doing what has long been one of the most dangerous jobs in America.

[Roman Mars]

In 1904, the journalist Upton Sinclair went undercover working in meatpacking plants in Chicago. Then he wrote a novel based on his experiences called the Jungle. He described poor, newly arrived immigrants, mostly from Eastern Europe, who worked in dangerous, squalid conditions.

[Esther Hoenig]

These immigrants came to America chasing the promise of a better life. Instead, they found themselves teetering on the edge of poverty and hunger and facing working conditions even worse than today's. The work left their hands so mangled that their fingernails wore off and they were exposed to deadly infections. They'd pour acid on sheep pelts and yank out the wool with their bare hands, scalding their skin with the slip of a sharp knife. Many workers had severed the tendons of their thumbs.

[Roman Mars]

But it wasn't those brutal conditions that captured the public's outrage. As Sinclair later said, I aimed at the public's heart and by accident, I hit it in the stomach. End quote. People cared less about exploited workers than about what was ending up on their plates. Sinclair described poisoned rats ground into sausage, or how cows covered in oozing boils were butchered and made into canned meat. Those were the images people couldn't forget.

[Esther Hoenig]

Even if Sinclair's book didn't do exactly what he wanted it to, it was still influential. Federal laws were enacted to enforce inspections and sanitation. But in the 1940s, it seemed like things were finally going to change for the workers.

[Roman Mars]

A boom in the post war economy meant that people were eating more meat, which in turn increased the hiring at meatpacking plants. Workers jobs became skilled labor and were unionized for the first time. Their positions were salaried. Meatpackers could finally afford a middle class lifestyle. They had boats in their driveways and pools in their backyards. But the relief was short lived because meatpacking companies made a decision that would transform the entire workforce and add a whole new layer of vulnerability in an already dangerous industry.

[Esther Hoenig]

In the 1960s, meatpacking companies left the cities where they'd been based for decades and moved their plants to rural America. The shift put them Closer to livestock and cut down on transportation costs. Critically, it also let them escape the unions in the cities and the prying eyes of pesky reporters and politicians. But there was a problem.

[James Horan]

Rural communities that they relocated to did not have sufficient labor for them.

[Esther Hoenig]

This is don stoll, a professor emeritus of anthropology at the university of Kansas. He told me that without the unions, the working conditions and pay inside the plants declined once again. And to attract the workers they needed, companies looked south to Mexico.

[James Horan]

Well, meatpacking companies had always advertised on radio stations in south Texas and elsewhere, which broadcast into Mexico that there were jobs available in meatpacking plants. But in the 1980s, with the blessing of the INS, they were actually set up recruiting stations in mexico city.

[Roman Mars]

There were many reasons that these latin american workers were drawn to meatpacking, despite its gruesome reputation.

[James Horan]

One of the attractions of meatpacking for immigrants is that you don't have to speak english to work in a meatpacking plant, and you don't have to have any pre existing job skills.

[Esther Hoenig]

By the 1960s, Greeley was becoming a leader in meatpacking. It was one of the first small towns to build a big modern packing plant, and ranchers from all around came there to harvest their cattle. Increasingly, Mexican immigrants staffed the factory. Many of them had previously worked in nearby agriculture. But these packing jobs were inside, shielded from the hot sun, and they paid better than fieldwork.

[Roman Mars]

In the 1980s and 90s, new waves of workers arrived in greeley, not just from Mexico, but other parts of central america. They moved into the neighborhoods around the packing plant, which was now called Swift and company.

[Esther Hoenig]

By the early 2000s, about 1/3 of Greeley's population was latino. You could see it everywhere. Local grocery stores started selling fresh tortillas and dried chiles imported from Mexico. The schools created ESL courses. But the change also brought backlash. The city was starkly divided along racial lines.

[Roman Mars]

And meanwhile, in the background, another labor problem was brewing. It was an open secret that hundreds of workers at the plant were undocumented. The meatpacking company reviewed their workers documentation with a federal system called e verify, which was known to be deeply flawed. And on the morning of December 12, 2006, the situation reached a breaking point.

[Esther Hoenig]

That morning, Greeley's meatpackers started the day like most other days. The first shift arrived at the factory before sunrise. They put on their hard hats and white smocks and took their positions along the massive conveyor belt, ready for the first slaughter of the day.

[Roman Mars]

But then, just before the giant factory rumbled to life. All hell broke loose. Just after dawn, federal agents from ice, Immigration and Customs Enforcement descended on plants run by Swift and Company, the nation's third. It's the largest ever crackdown on illegal.

[John Tabor]

Immigration in the workplace.

[Roman Mars]

1200 arrests now reported across six states. Shortly after 7am Agents from immigration and Customs Enforcement charged inside and swarmed the factory floor.

[Esther Hoenig]

People ran like mad. Some tried to hide in the cattle pens or inside the bathrooms or supply closets. But in the end, hundreds were rounded up and arrested.

[Roman Mars]

Several hundred family members gathered along the.

[James Horan]

Fence between the Swift Co. And Highway 80.

[John Tabor]

Some were crying.

[James Horan]

Some were praying, others were yelling at the federal agents on the scene today. There was no word.

[Roman Mars]

Similar scenes played out in six different meat packing plants across middle America. At the same time. On the same day, ICE agents arrested close to 1300 workers for having, quote, questionable documentation.

[Esther Hoenig]

Overnight, Swift lost about 10% of its workforce. Without enough people, some factories couldn't operate and the company was hemorrhaging money. It was a crisis of epic proportions and it raised the same old where on earth would Swift find more people willing to perform this dangerous work?

[Roman Mars]

This time, Swift found its answer in an unlikely place. A federal program meant to help people fleeing war and persecution. That's when we return. Most people think home security is just an alarm that goes off after a break in, scaring the intruder off and getting your neighbor's attention if you're lucky. But that's a reactive approach. By the time an intruder is in your home, it's too late. Your feeling of safety is shattered. That's why you should trust SimpliSafe. Their system is designed to be proactive, not reactive. They use smart AI powered cameras to identify threats lurking outside your home and immediately alert Simplisafe's professional monitoring agents. They access two way audio to confront the person, trigger sirens and spotlights to scare them off, and request rapid police dispatch when needed, all helping to stop the intruder while they're still outside. What I love is that you can set up Simplisafe to whatever level of sensitivity or alertness you want. It's completely customizable and controllable on the app, which is simple, hence SimpliSafe and easy to use. At this point in my life, I look for any opportunity to not worry. And with Simplisafe on the case, my monkey brain can just relax a little bit more. Visit simplisafe.com invisible to claim 50% off a new system. That's simplisafe.com invisible. There's no safe like Simplisafe One of the hardest parts about B2B marketing is reaching the right audience. So when you want to reach the right professionals, use LinkedIn ads. LinkedIn has grown to a network of over 1 billion professionals, and that's where it stands apart from other ad buys. You can target your buyers by job title, industry, company role, seniority, skills, company revenue, all the professionals you need to reach in one place. Stop wasting budget on the wrong audience and start targeting the right professionals only on LinkedIn ads. LinkedIn will even give you an extra $250 credit on your next next campaign. So you can try it yourself. Just go to LinkedIn.com invisible that's LinkedIn.com invisible Terms and conditions apply only on LinkedIn ads. Great design is invisible until you start noticing. Have you ever wondered why that street layout makes walking so pleasant? Or maybe why that font choice makes reading so effortless? Meet Claude, the AI designed for problem solvers who want to understand the why behind great design. Claude helps you dive deeper into the design choices. You can't stop coming back to see why the world's best problem solvers choose Claude as their thinking partner and try Claude for free At Claude AI Invisible in business, they say you can have better, cheaper or faster. But you only get to pick two. What if you could have all three at the same time? That's exactly what Cohere, Thomson Reuters and Specialized Bikes have since they upgraded to the next generation of the cloud. Oracle Cloud Infrastructure OCI is the blazing fast platform for your infrastructure, database, application development and AI needs where you can run any workload in a high availability, consistently high performance environment and spend less than you would with other clouds. How is it faster? OCI's block storage gives you more operations per second cheaper. OCI costs up to 50% less for compute, 75% less for storage and 80% less for networking. Better. In test after test, OCI customers report lower latency and higher bandwidth versus other clouds. This is the cloud built for AI and all your biggest workloads right now with zero commitment. Try OCI for free. Head to oracle.com invisible that's oracle.com invisible before the raids in 2006, Swift and company was already limping along financially. For years they'd struggled to make a profit and then only got worse when they lost a a large fraction of their workforce. Five months after the raids, it was announced the company was being sold to jbs, the Brazilian owned meatpacker.

[Esther Hoenig]

The new owners got busy trying to solve the labor problem. One news article from that time reported how Company officials met in a war room with maps pinned to the walls. They marked the cities and towns outside their meatpacking plants as potential recruitment zones. They advertised the open positions on the radio, newspapers and billboards. But not many people wanted to sign up.

[Roman Mars]

And so, to dig themselves out of this labor shortage, JBS adopted a new strategy. The company set its sights on a new population. Like the undocumented workers before them, these workers didn't speak much English. They were eager to find jobs and willing to do hard labor that many others refused. And crucially, they were in the country legally. JBS turned to refugees.

[Esther Hoenig]

An aggressive recruitment campaign began. Company representatives went to Denver and staked out East African restaurants and mosques. They offered new hires a cash bonus of up to $1,500 and more for referrals. And they used these same tactics across the heartland, convincing refugees to move away from the cities where they had access to federally funded support services. They chartered buses and drove hundreds of refugees to isolated meatpacking towns like Cactus, Texas, and Grand Island, Nebraska, and Greeley.

[Roman Mars]

Colorado, at the time of the swift raids. Right. Everything changed in 2006.

[Esther Hoenig]

Paul Stein was Colorado's refugee coordinator at the time, the most senior person at the state level. And he started to notice more and more refugees moving to Greeley.

[Roman Mars]

They were recruited by Swift, vigorously recruited. You had a lot of, at that point, primarily Somalis, some Burmese, who moved in to take advantage of the employment opportunities, and then those refugees would petition and bring their families.

[Esther Hoenig]

According to Stein, as well as several other people I interviewed for the story, the number of refugees living in Greeley ballooned overnight.

[Roman Mars]

This is a story of backing into a plan rather than having the plan. It totally started because of meatpacking.

[Esther Hoenig]

But when refugees landed in Greeley, they struggled with everything. Most of the services Greeley had developed over the years were tailored to Spanish speakers, not speakers of Rohingya, Somali or Tigray.

[Roman Mars]

Housing was hard to find, and without translation services, families struggled to enroll their kids in school or see a doctor. Soon, an office for refugee resettlement opened up.

[James Horan]

We started with a very limited presence. I think we had a mighty team of one. One case manager who for a time actually worked out of his vehicle.

[Esther Hoenig]

This is James Huran, the president and CEO of Lutheran Family Services, Rocky Mountains, which ran the office.

[James Horan]

I think, you know, there really wasn't an infrastructure for other than Spanish speaking newcomers.

[Karim Abdulmanaf]

Right.

[James Horan]

And so I think a lot of it was just as simple as making the adjustment of new languages, new cultures, and everything that came along with that.

[Esther Hoenig]

Gradually you could see another wave of change washing over Greeley, once again driven by the meatpacking plant. For decades, the town had been mostly white. Then it became white and Latino. Now it was increasingly international. On the main boulevard there was the Mexican grocery store, but you might also see women walking by in abayas. Eventually, a halal market and an East African restaurant opened up downtown.

[Roman Mars]

And the population of refugees continued to grow. Not long after JBS bought Swift, they announced a second shift, meaning the plant would operate more than 18 hours a day and they'd have to double their workforce.

[Esther Hoenig]

Lucky for jbs, America's refugee resettlement program became a steady source of workers. When I first noticed how this had happened, I was shocked. A program meant to be humanitarian in practice was pushing people into some of the hardest, most dangerous jobs in the country. But as I dug deeper, I learned this wasn't part of a grand malicious scheme. The meatpacking companies were just taking advantage of America's flawed resettlement system and how it was designed to work.

[Roman Mars]

America's current refugee system first emerged in the aftermath of the Vietnam War with the Refugee act of 1980. It increased the number of refugees admitted each year into the country. And for the first time, it created a standardized resettlement process overseen by the federal government. The new system helped to resettle the hundreds of thousands of refugees arriving from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

[James Horan]

They could be called the new settlers.

[Roman Mars]

Of the United States. And they come to America's shores out.

[James Horan]

Of desperation, sadness, violence and deprivation from.

[Roman Mars]

Their own battered homeland. Many have escaped by small boats from the new communist governments. Often they've braved dangerous seas in small boats, attacks by pirates, and months of overcrowded conditions in refugee camps. They're part of the 300.

[Esther Hoenig]

The resettlement program was well intentioned, a way to welcome people and offer them a shot at the American dream. But it carried a built in flaw rooted in another American impulse. We wanted them to lift themselves up by their bootstraps. That's why the very first priority of the 1980s Refugee act was economic self sufficiency. Refugees were expected to find work and get off government support as quickly as possible.

[Roman Mars]

Job counseling is a key part of the orientation effort. Job skills previously learned are sometimes adaptable. In other cases, however, entirely new jobs must be learned and training programs must be set up. In the 45 years since the passage of the Refugee act, making it to the US as a refugee has become a significant feat.

[Esther Hoenig]

To start, you have to undergo several interviews with international and US agencies who decide if you qualify they ask a series of questions like, are you fleeing political persecution? Will you be killed if you return home? If the answer is yes, and you can prove it, then the US Government subjects you to a series of rigorous background checks and medical screenings. The process takes up to two years.

[Roman Mars]

If you're approved and you already have family in the US you'll be sent to live near them. Otherwise, the State Department decides which relocation site to send you to.

[Esther Hoenig]

Historically, the US has accepted more refugees than any other nation. But once people get here, we offer them little support. Places like Canada give newly arrived refugees up to a year of services and financial assistance, but the US Gives people just three months, and then they're on their own.

[Roman Mars]

When a refugee arrives in the US to a place like Greeley, one of the first things that happens is that they're assigned a caseworker who teaches them the basics of life in America, like how to find an apartment, how to take the bus and buy groceries, and how to see a doctor. But the most critical thing a newly arrived refugee needs to learn is how to get a job.

[John Tabor]

I started as just what's called, like, a job developer.

[Esther Hoenig]

Back in 2008. Early on in his career, John Tabor worked at a refugee resettlement agency in Illinois. I found John through a researcher on refugee resettlement who worked with him at that same organization. They both thought they'd be helping refugees, but soon learned that wasn't necessarily true. In fact, years later, when I spoke with John over the phone, he felt a lot of remorse, which is why he was so honest and candid with me about what his work was actually like.

[John Tabor]

There is only a very, very small amount of resettlement money that these families are allocated. You know, if they don't get a job pretty much immediately, they're unable to pay their bills. So, you know, within a few months they'd be facing homelessness. You know, like, literally, welcome to America, now you're going to be evicted.

[Esther Hoenig]

At his job, John was up against the same clock as the refugees he was helping. He had to get everyone gainfully employed before their three month safety net ran out. And he might have a caseload of.

[John Tabor]

50 to 60 people, you know, did a little bit of sort of skill development, but frankly, we didn't really have a lot of time for that. It was mostly get their resume together, try to figure out what they did in the past and get them into work as soon as possible.

[Roman Mars]

But it was rarely that straightforward. We're talking about some of the most vulnerable people on the planet. Many didn't have any skills that would translate to the modern American job context. Some had lived in refugee camps for their entire lives.

[John Tabor]

They didn't have any work experience. You know, you couldn't put like sitting around the refugee camp or you couldn't put like tilling the field. You know, it just wouldn't translate.

[Esther Hoenig]

And so John and his fellow job developers connected the refugees with whatever employment options they could find.

[John Tabor]

It's not like they were applying to some high level management position. They were at entry level meatpacking jobs.

[Esther Hoenig]

Meatpacking. Remember Mohammed, the Burmese refugee from the beginning of the story? This is exactly how he got his job. A caseworker referred him to jbs.

[Roman Mars]

John remembers it was one of the most reliable choices because meatpacking plants were always hiring and they paid better than most of the other options. With the high rates of injury and turnover, plants were constantly looking for new workers. And the jobs didn't require any English or previous experience.

[John Tabor]

This one company, Tyson Foods, like JBS.

[Esther Hoenig]

Tyson, is also a massive American meatpacking company.

[John Tabor]

Tyson would announce like eight positions or nine positions, and you'd get, you know, we would all show up with our refugees. And it was a very, a very well established theater. It wasn't a humanitarian project for them. It was, here's a group of workers that'll be efficient and effective and, you know, we'll work faster and better than your American employees. And so that was the kind of relationships that we would form. So like we were selling a product, really.

[Esther Hoenig]

And as time went on, John noticed that the recruiters he was in touch with at Tyson became more specific about what type of worker they wanted.

[John Tabor]

Not so subtly would say, you know, we give us Burmese. You know, they were just sort of, you know, these workers have worked out in the past. And there was this sort of tacit understanding was we should deliver them, these workers. Like if we showed up with five or six, I'm just saying, like Iraqis, let's say, because, you know, Iraqis had personalities, you know, big personalities. They came from different culture that we knew that wasn't going to satisfy their demands. And that's not something I'm particularly proud of, but it was just the realities we were facing.

[Esther Hoenig]

He says this part of the job kept him up at night. He and his team at the agency even tried to come up with alternatives.

[John Tabor]

But nothing ever really worked. You know, it just. The American machine just swallowed him up and there was never any breathing room. I mean, the margins are tiny in our system.

[Esther Hoenig]

After a few more years in this work, John left the field. But it taught him something about America's refugee resettlement program.

[John Tabor]

The narrative that we're giving people these great opportunities, you know, like there's a dark side.

[Roman Mars]

The system is supposed to get refugees out of danger, but it then leaves them with little support. Many don't have language skills or a safety net. Compared to other immigrant groups. They're overrepresented in low skilled work. They earn less and are more likely to live in poverty.

[Esther Hoenig]

That's what makes them ideal recruits for meatpackers like jbs. With so few options, they take jobs most others won't. And even when the work leaves them injured, pushes them to work at impossible speeds, or exposes them to religious discrimination, many feel they have no choice but to stay.

[Roman Mars]

We reached out to JBS for this story, but they declined to comment.

[Esther Hoenig]

Back in Muhammad's home, he tells me a bit about what it was like when he first came to Greeley. It was a shock to leave behind the hot tropical climate of Burma. He remembers he saw snow here for the first time. What's something that Greeley doesn't have that you miss from your home country, Burma?

[Mohammed]

He's talking about the gardening.

[Esther Hoenig]

He said Greely didn't have the same variety of fruits and vegetables he was used to, so he started a garden in the backyard. How did you grow.

[Mohammed]

Radish, watermelon, pumpkin?

[Esther Hoenig]

When I met him, Mohammed had been off work for several weeks on disability with an injured hand. He showed me how when he tried to make a fist, some of the fingers wouldn't bend. It gets stuck like that.

[Mohammed]

Yeah, yeah.

[Esther Hoenig]

Just from the same gripping motion.

[Mohammed]

Yeah.

[Esther Hoenig]

He had surgery a few years ago, but it still doesn't work like it used to.

[Mohammed]

And I cannot fix fist. It made a fist properly and I cannot hold something as a firm way. So this is the problem.

[Esther Hoenig]

Still, he tells me he's eager to get back to work. When we spoke, his immediate family, including his wife and five kids, were still displaced and living in India. And he helped support about 20 members of his extended family as well.

[Mohammed]

Yes, I want to go back as soon as possible because there's many kind of bills. So I can't go because I don't get doctor's approval yet.

[Esther Hoenig]

With this influx of refugees, the city of Greeley was once again transformed. In 2007, just one year after the ICE raids, the foreign born population grew to about 13,000, a 76% increase from seven years earlier.

[Roman Mars]

In 2008, Greeley became an official refugee resettlement site. Now, instead of moving to Greeley from a nearby city. A person could be brought there directly from a refugee camp, and inevitably they'd be recruited for a job at JBS. It was a lot for a small city of 90,000. And just like before, it wasn't always pretty. A local mosque was shot at in broad daylight. There was a small anti Sharia law protest.

[James Horan]

In the lens of history, that was not long after 9 11.

[Esther Hoenig]

Here's James Horan again from the Refugee Resettlement Agency.

[James Horan]

And so I think there was a lot of focus on Islam. And what does it mean that now there is an Islamic community in my.

[Esther Hoenig]

Community, James spent a lot of time holding community meetings where people could come to ask questions. He remembers he had to dispel a lot of the same myths that persist today.

[James Horan]

Another thing I would talk to people a lot about is the security clearances that refugees go through, because that was another question. Is this a public safety issue?

[Roman Mars]

But with time, Greeley once again adjusted. Today there's a strong network of support services like food pantries and driving courses. There are free English classes and GED courses taught in the evenings at the local library. The public schools have a successful ESL program.

[Esther Hoenig]

And then there's the Immigrant and Refugee center of Northern Colorado, which helps refugees do everything from interpret their mail to apply for citizenship.

[Karim Abdulmanaf]

Yeah, I'm just helping him pay the bill. I think this is the toll bill that he needs help paying. So this is like a regular stuff that we do here.

[Esther Hoenig]

This is Karim Abdulmanaf who works at the center. And why is that? Just because it's all in English?

[Karim Abdulmanaf]

Yeah, sometimes it's all because it's all in English, and other times they don't know how to navigate all those websites and everything. So that's one of the reasons they come here.

[Esther Hoenig]

Karim arrived in Greeley about eight years ago. He and his family became refugees after facing persecution in their home country of Burma. He speaks Rohingya and helps other Rohingya refugees translate things from English, like their phone bills and bank statements. So you're kind of able to be the helping hand that you didn't really have.

[Karim Abdulmanaf]

Yes, and I'm glad that I can help the community to give them back, because I know how it feels to be lost in a new place.

[Esther Hoenig]

Karim worked at JBS for two years, and so did his four older brothers when they were first resettled in Greeley. It was, and still is the primary job in the area that doesn't require English or any previous experience.

[Karim Abdulmanaf]

I wouldn't say jbs is a long term job, but for some of the families, they are planning to just do JBS for as long as they can. They have to do it because they have no other options here in the guerrilla.

[Roman Mars]

And recently there's been yet another new wave of arrivals. The many thousands of Haitians and Venezuelans who came to the US on temporary protected status. TPS allows people from certain countries to stay and work here if it's too dangerous to go back home.

[Esther Hoenig]

What community do you primarily work with?

[Karim Abdulmanaf]

Haitian community.

[Esther Hoenig]

This is Dree. He originally came to Greeley from New Jersey because he heard about the work available at jbs. But after a few weeks, he quit.

[Karim Abdulmanaf]

It was overwhelming. A lot of pressure, especially from the management staff. They're trying to get stuff done, like in a record time. So it's kind of challenging for your body and your mental.

[Esther Hoenig]

Then he showed up at this refugee and immigration center with a friend and was quickly offered a job because he speaks English and Haitian Creole fluently. Just like Karim, he helps Haitians navigate life in Greeley. But the day we met, things got a lot more complicated. The Trump administration canceled temporary protected status for Venezuelans. Haitians with protected status would be next.

[Karim Abdulmanaf]

The Supreme Court just canceled the TPS for open residents. Now we are talking about like 300,000 people.

[Esther Hoenig]

And that just happened.

[Karim Abdulmanaf]

Yes, probably gonna cancel for Haitians.

[Esther Hoenig]

Do you think you'll get a lot of people in here today asking about that?

[Karim Abdulmanaf]

The tps, the fact that the new just came out like minutes ago for sure next week, it's gonna be like overwhelming for them, like to come in asking questions, what can I do? What can I do? What would be the next step?

[Roman Mars]

The refugee program as we know it, the one created in the 1980s, is on pause indefinitely. The flow of people like Mohammad, Karim and Dree has all but stopped, which raises the same question the industry has faced faced for generations. Where will the workers come from?

[Esther Hoenig]

If I were the CEO of a big company like jbs, I might be wringing my hands right about now. Of all US industries, meatpacking has the fifth highest concentration of refugee workers. And more broadly, about 40% of meatpacking workers are foreign born.

[James Horan]

I think there's definitely an economic conversation to be had, and I think employers will probably be the drivers of that.

[Esther Hoenig]

That's James Horan again.

[James Horan]

It's just going to be a math issue, Right. I think when you're an employer and you have a workforce need and you have a certain number of jobs open and you don't have people to draw on to fill those jobs. You are limited as a country, we're.

[Esther Hoenig]

Once again in a fiercely anti immigrant climate. And while every country needs a fair immigration system, we can't deny that the populations we're targeting play an essential role in our economy. They don't just fill jobs, they fill hard, dangerous jobs, the ones that most people will avoid if they have the choice.

[Roman Mars]

When people are deported in droves, it leaves a vacuum. When refugees aren't allowed to come, it leaves a vacuum. And when there's no one left to slaughter our cows, we're reminded of a truth Upton Sinclair tried to tell us in the jungle. This country depends on vulnerable people to do its dirtiest, most grueling work. We've just never wanted to see it. 99% invisible was reported this week by Esther Hoenig and was produced and edited by Delaney hall and mix by Martin Gonzalez. Music by Swan Real and George Langford. Fact Checking by Naomi Barr this story was reported in collaboration with fern, the Food and Environmental Reporting Network, and with funding from the 11th Hour Food and Farming Fellowship at UC Berkeley. Special thanks this week to Colin Cannon, Ted Genoese and Brent Cunningham. Cathy Tu is our Executive producer, Kurt Kolstead is the Digital director. The Rise of team includes Chris Barube, Jason De Leon, Emmett Fitzgerald, Christopher Johnson, Vivian Lema, Dawn, Joe Rosenberg, Kelly Prime, Jacob Medina Gleason, and me, Roman Mars. The 99% invisible logo was created by Stefan Lawrence. We are part of the Sirius XM podcast family now headquartered six blocks north in the Pandora Building in beautiful uptown Oakland, California. You can find us on all the usual social media sites as well as our own Discord server. There's a link to that as well as every past episode of [e-mail].

[Esther Hoenig]

Department of Rejected Dreams if you had a dream, rejected IKEA can make it possible.

[John Tabor]

So I always dreamed of having a man cave, but the wife doesn't like it.

[Karim Abdulmanaf]

What if I called it a woman cave?

[Esther Hoenig]

Okay, so let's not do that, but add some relaxing lighting and a comfy IKEA hofburg ottoman and now it's a cozy retreat.

[John Tabor]

Nice.

[Karim Abdulmanaf]

A cozy retreat, man Cozy retreat, sir.

[Esther Hoenig]

Okay, find your big dreams, small dreams and cozy retreat dreams in store or online at ikea.us dream the possibilities hello.

[Roman Mars]

Beautiful nerds, It's Roman here. If you're loving 99% invisible and you want to hear new episodes, ad free and get access to exclusive bonus content, subscribe to Sirius XM podcast plus on Apple Podcasts or visit SiriusXM.com podcastplus to start your free trial today.