Fremont, Nebraska, has three massive meat-processing plants that need workers. It also requires anyone renting a home to sign a declaration that they’re in the U.S. legally.

Big-city mayors may be complaining about the economic impact of an influx of migrants, but the residents of a small city near Omaha can’t decide how they feel.

Fremont, Nebraska, population 27,000, has three massive meat-processing plants. As young locals leave in search of better jobs, Central American migrants have been taking their places in the slaughterhouses, especially after Costco opened a huge rotisserie chicken facility in 2019.

“We need these people,” said Mark Jensen, president of the city council. “We need this work done. This is what feeds the nation and the world.”

But instead of a welcome mat, for more than a decade Fremont has had a controversial law on the books that tries to bar undocumented migrants from living within city limits. In 2010, residents voted 57% to 43% to require that all people renting property in Fremont must first sign a declaration that they are legally present in the U.S.

  • LEDZeppelin@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    This is the same Nebraska that depended on pork and soy exports to Gyna that “Stable Genius” destroyed to play his easy-to-win trade wars. Not sure what he got in return but Nebraska farmers lost bigly. Still they voted for repubes.

    Absolutely no sympathy when these asshats inevitably go out of business.

    • OpenStars@startrek.website
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      8 months ago

      Though when they fail, the price of groceries will go up, primarily affecting those who can least afford it. It is all a tangled, interconnected web:-(.

      I want these people to be free to live however they wish. But I do NOT agree that their votes should be worth several magnitudes more than mine:-(.