In February 2023 the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) issued new findings on an ongoing investigation of Packers Sanitation Services, Inc. (PSSI) for illegally employing over 100 children between the ages of 13 and 17 in hazardous occupations at 13 meatpacking facilities owned by JBS, Cargill, Tyson, and others (DOL 2023). These children worked illegally on overnight shifts cleaning razor-sharp saws and other high-risk equipment on slaughterhouse kill floors. At least three of them suffered injuries, including burns from caustic cleaning chemicals. The Department of Homeland Security has announced a parallel investigation into whether these young workers, many of whom may be unaccompanied migrant children, were connected to illegal employment by traffickers who profited from their labor (Strickler and Ainsley 2023).
Multiple factories in Hyundai-Kia’s supply chain in Alabama are also under DOL investigation for employing children as young as 14 (DOL 2022a). Many of these children are from Guatemalan migrant families. Like meatpacking plants across the Midwest, “many of the Alabama [auto] plants relied on staffing firms to recruit low-wage assembly line workers” (Schneyer, Rosenberg, and Cooke 2023).