The administration quietly delivers a huge win to corporate poultry processors, who have donated tens of millions to Trump and his allies, at the expense of family farmers.
They'll probably lobby the government to lower the age for children to work in the poultry processing plants. Or Trump will simply make a carveout for immigrants in those jobs since the only consistent thing about his administration is that everything, even their own policy positions, is for sale.
The immigrants are being deported so that they can be replaced by "guest workers". The guest workers are mostly supplied by employment agencies that bring in foreign workers and supply them to employers like construction, farms and other employers.The employment agencies effectively OWN these people and rent them out to small businesses. Many of these "employment agencies" keep these indentured servants in line by threats to them or their families. It is simple. It is corruption. Money buys power. Power brings you more money.
Not to worry, college drop-outs and even some liberal arts degrees can do the work when AI is doing the jobs once available to them but, sorry, no longer.
Ironic how Trump is hurting or even bankrupting his supporters. Nothing he does is of benefit to the common man. So sad how misinformed so many of his supporters are!
This doesn't sound too good. First they're cutting food safety rules, and now, the cutting out the number of farmers able to make a living in the industry. Sounds like the American public is going to have a tough time with high prices and poor quality.
I am glad that I gave up buying and eating chicken decades ago. I will not support these massive industries that help destroy smaller family farms. This giveaway to regime donors will be destructive for consumers’ grocery bills and their health.
I forwarded a copy of your article to a reporter at Delaware News Journal, Patricia Talorico. Delaware has a huge poultry industry, including Mountainaire. I hope they will contact you to follow up. Kudos to the Popular info staff for combing through that document and finding this.
I’ve been in that Mountaire chicken processing plant in Millsboro, DE many years ago when I first moved to Maryland for a promotion. I can tell you firsthand that I didn’t want to eat chicken for years after seeing the inside of these plants (also been in Tyson plants; JBS plants; Sanderson Farms plants... )
If more people saw how disgusting this process is (beef & pork too), there would be millions more people who don’t eat meat. 🤢
To be fair, the sanitation in modern plants is light years ahead of Upton Sinclair’s time…
However, the amount of waste these plants generate is unbelievable. Not to gross people out more, but I’ve seen literal 5 foot high piles of chicken 💩 under hatcheries —hundreds of feet long. Thousands of dead rats after a pest company was hired to try to manage an out of control rodent population.
Water usage is very high. Waste water is an ongoing issue. Check out a satellite image of any kill plant and note the huge ponds & acres of wastewater drying plots. It’s not an accident that many, if not most, of these plants are along rivers, ponds & lakes. Contamination of waterways has happened for decades. EPA had been gutted & trump appointed Yes Men (most former lobbyist) do their best to reduce the regulatory “burden” on these huge multinational corporations.
The vast and obscene amount of money being funnelled into and sloshing around partisan political interests is gross. As long as money buys favours, greed and corruption will be greater guiding forces in American democracy than will be fairness and integrity.
How the 80 year old 2 year old operates......You Give Me Money and I Give You TAXPAYER MONEY and SCREW the AMERICAN TAXPAYERS at the same time - to help me!!! Pay to Play!!! And to HELL with everyone else in America!!! Massive Corruption on a Massive Scale!!! Requiring Massive Investigations and Massive Prosecutions and Massive Numbers going to jail and Massive Paybacks to the American Taxpayers!!!
Excellent reporting. I had no clue this was how it works. So what’s to stop farmers from loading our chickens with weight altering additives? Our food supply is so corrupt and we, the consumers, are now paying the price from both a monetary and health perspective.
As he told the oil & gas honchos, (paraphrasing) donate enough to my campaign and you’ll get policies you want, easier licensing & fewer regulations. While this is happening his regime is buying shares of selected corporations (on our behalf of course /s) & pressuring others to do business with them.
Meanwhile, progressives and DSAs are labeled as ‘communists’. While in Turkey, Drumpf claims communism is the biggest threat. In the next breadth he said "Communism is easy to sell. I would be the greatest communist in history. I'd be right up there with Lenin."
He’s been selling Americans truckloads of horse chestnuts for years. The GOP is about to find out people are sick of it.
And that’s not chicken feed… Pilgrim’s Pride, the nation’s second-largest poultry processor, donated $5 million to President Trump’s 2025 inauguration — the single largest donation by any corporation or individual. —Cameron, the owner and chairman of Mountaire Farms, the nation’s fourth-largest poultry processor, donated about $5 million to the Congressional Leadership Fund (CLF) and the Senate Leadership Fund (SLF), —Cameron has donated about $29 million combined to the CLF and SLF.
And what do we think is going to happen to chicken prices when trump deports all the immigrants currently working in the processing plants?
They'll probably lobby the government to lower the age for children to work in the poultry processing plants. Or Trump will simply make a carveout for immigrants in those jobs since the only consistent thing about his administration is that everything, even their own policy positions, is for sale.
The immigrants are being deported so that they can be replaced by "guest workers". The guest workers are mostly supplied by employment agencies that bring in foreign workers and supply them to employers like construction, farms and other employers.The employment agencies effectively OWN these people and rent them out to small businesses. Many of these "employment agencies" keep these indentured servants in line by threats to them or their families. It is simple. It is corruption. Money buys power. Power brings you more money.
Not to worry, college drop-outs and even some liberal arts degrees can do the work when AI is doing the jobs once available to them but, sorry, no longer.
Birds of a feather flock together, they say. Well, Trump and his donors are united in their seemingly endless greed.
Ironic how Trump is hurting or even bankrupting his supporters. Nothing he does is of benefit to the common man. So sad how misinformed so many of his supporters are!
And so goes our “pay to play” presidency and government.
This doesn't sound too good. First they're cutting food safety rules, and now, the cutting out the number of farmers able to make a living in the industry. Sounds like the American public is going to have a tough time with high prices and poor quality.
I am glad that I gave up buying and eating chicken decades ago. I will not support these massive industries that help destroy smaller family farms. This giveaway to regime donors will be destructive for consumers’ grocery bills and their health.
I forwarded a copy of your article to a reporter at Delaware News Journal, Patricia Talorico. Delaware has a huge poultry industry, including Mountainaire. I hope they will contact you to follow up. Kudos to the Popular info staff for combing through that document and finding this.
I’ve been in that Mountaire chicken processing plant in Millsboro, DE many years ago when I first moved to Maryland for a promotion. I can tell you firsthand that I didn’t want to eat chicken for years after seeing the inside of these plants (also been in Tyson plants; JBS plants; Sanderson Farms plants... )
If more people saw how disgusting this process is (beef & pork too), there would be millions more people who don’t eat meat. 🤢
Too bad people dont read anymore. Upton Sinclaire's "The Jungle" should be required reading.
To be fair, the sanitation in modern plants is light years ahead of Upton Sinclair’s time…
However, the amount of waste these plants generate is unbelievable. Not to gross people out more, but I’ve seen literal 5 foot high piles of chicken 💩 under hatcheries —hundreds of feet long. Thousands of dead rats after a pest company was hired to try to manage an out of control rodent population.
Water usage is very high. Waste water is an ongoing issue. Check out a satellite image of any kill plant and note the huge ponds & acres of wastewater drying plots. It’s not an accident that many, if not most, of these plants are along rivers, ponds & lakes. Contamination of waterways has happened for decades. EPA had been gutted & trump appointed Yes Men (most former lobbyist) do their best to reduce the regulatory “burden” on these huge multinational corporations.
GREAT, Margaret!! Terrific idea. 👏🏼👏🏼❤️❤️
The vast and obscene amount of money being funnelled into and sloshing around partisan political interests is gross. As long as money buys favours, greed and corruption will be greater guiding forces in American democracy than will be fairness and integrity.
Fabulous reporting. I had no idea. Thank you.
How the 80 year old 2 year old operates......You Give Me Money and I Give You TAXPAYER MONEY and SCREW the AMERICAN TAXPAYERS at the same time - to help me!!! Pay to Play!!! And to HELL with everyone else in America!!! Massive Corruption on a Massive Scale!!! Requiring Massive Investigations and Massive Prosecutions and Massive Numbers going to jail and Massive Paybacks to the American Taxpayers!!!
Excellent reporting. I had no clue this was how it works. So what’s to stop farmers from loading our chickens with weight altering additives? Our food supply is so corrupt and we, the consumers, are now paying the price from both a monetary and health perspective.
They definitely inject water. That adds weight.
Self dealing by MAGA/GOP and their rooster-in-Chief.
As he told the oil & gas honchos, (paraphrasing) donate enough to my campaign and you’ll get policies you want, easier licensing & fewer regulations. While this is happening his regime is buying shares of selected corporations (on our behalf of course /s) & pressuring others to do business with them.
Meanwhile, progressives and DSAs are labeled as ‘communists’. While in Turkey, Drumpf claims communism is the biggest threat. In the next breadth he said "Communism is easy to sell. I would be the greatest communist in history. I'd be right up there with Lenin."
He’s been selling Americans truckloads of horse chestnuts for years. The GOP is about to find out people are sick of it.
No worries. I’m sure Grassley’s right on top of this.
Corruption everywhere you look. But, oh, those communists!
And that’s not chicken feed… Pilgrim’s Pride, the nation’s second-largest poultry processor, donated $5 million to President Trump’s 2025 inauguration — the single largest donation by any corporation or individual. —Cameron, the owner and chairman of Mountaire Farms, the nation’s fourth-largest poultry processor, donated about $5 million to the Congressional Leadership Fund (CLF) and the Senate Leadership Fund (SLF), —Cameron has donated about $29 million combined to the CLF and SLF.