By Tom Polansek
CHICAGO, Sept 25 (Reuters) - US immigration agents fanned out across southwest Kansas, home to a large concentration of feedlots and slaughterhouses, this week in an operation that had immediate effects on the beef industry, community organizers and local officials said.
The prospect of arrest kept much of the largely immigrant labor force away from work, forcing beef processing plants to slow down and backing up cattle, according to two community organizers and three groups representing
livestock producers.
"It's been chaotic," said Kathleen Alonso, a community volunteer from Liberal, Kansas. "Obviously they were stopping Brown people. They were not stopping any other races."
As affordability concerns weigh on the Republican Party's chances of maintaining control of the House and Senate in the upcoming US midterms, President Donald Trump has enacted policies aimed at controlling the cost of beef.
Immigration enforcement could be the latest to work at cross purposes, causing record-high beef prices to tick up even higher, according to industry and union officials. Cattle futures gyrated this week as traders weighed tight US supplies against processing disruptions due to the crackdown.
Local residents said they believed that dozens of people were detained, though the exact number was not immediately clear. The Department of Homeland Security, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the White House did not respond to requests for comment.
ICE officers have stopped motorists this week to ask about their citizenship status around Dodge City, Liberal and Garden City, Kansas, small communities where most of the population is Latino, according to organizers and local government officials. Agents patrolled and parked in areas around meat plants and a large dairy, they said.
The activity led to workforce disruptions at processors, feedlots and dairies, and delayed shipments of thousands of cattle, the Kansas Livestock Association, Oklahoma Cattlemen's Association and Texas Cattle Feeders Association said in a statement.
"These ICE operations are having a massive chilling effect on the legal, documented, skilled workers that put beef on the table and keep the cattle supply chain moving," the groups said. "These types of disruptions will lead to higher beef prices for consumers."
BEEF PRICES HAVE SOARED
US beef prices soared to records this year after a multi-year drought drove ranchers to reduce their herds to a 75-year low and Washington suspended cattle imports from Mexico. Trump has struggled to lower prices with a bevy of policies and other pronouncements, including increasing low-tariff beef imports and launching an investigation into meatpackers.
Meatpackers slaughtered an estimated 90,000 cattle on Thursday, down 16% from a week earlier, the US Department of Agriculture said.
Kansas ranks second nationwide for commercial cattle processing behind Nebraska, according to the agency.
"A large percentage of milk and beef come from this region thanks to a lot of immigrants who work very hard to do jobs not many people do," Alonso said. "We are the heart of this country, and it is being terrorized, and we need it to stop."
Two of the country's four large beef processors, National Beef Packing Company and Cargill, have plants in Dodge City. National Beef also has a plant in Liberal.
Immigration agents focused their activity in areas around the plants on Wednesday, said Alejandro Rangel-Lopez, senior Latino and rural program manager for Kansas voting rights group Loud Light.
"They tried really, really hard to get into National Beef in both Liberal and Dodge City," said Rangel-Lopez, who lives in Dodge City. "They were in the parking lot and trying to pick up people."
National Beef said it was committed to supporting employees and following the law.
"We are providing legally appropriate cooperation and attempting to work through this process with the Department of Homeland Security in an orderly way," spokesperson Toby Cook said. He declined to answer specific questions about ICE activity.
Cargill did not respond to a request for comment.
Few employees showed up to the National Beef plant in Liberal on Thursday because ICE agents were targeting all people of color, said Janeth Vazquez, the city's vice mayor.
ICE agents also circled an elementary school that has students with undocumented parents, and many children did not show up for class, she said.
"Our community is a ghost town," Vazquez said. "Businesses are not open because people are scared to leave their homes."
(Reporting by Tom Polansek; Editing by Emily Schmall and Andrea Ricci )
