The Rainbow Motel in Greeley, Colorado, where Haitian migrants were housed while they started new jobs on the JBS beef processing line. (Photo by Mary Anne Andrei)
Mackenson Remy didn’t plan to bypass security when he drove into the parking lot of a factory in Greeley, Colorado. He’d never been there before. All he knew was this place had jobs…lots of jobs.
Remy is originally from Haiti, and in 2023, he’d been making TikTok videos about job openings in the area for his few followers, mostly other Haitians.
What Remy didn’t know was that he had stumbled onto a meatpacking plant owned by the largest meat producer in the world, JBS. The video he made outside the facility went viral, and hundreds of Haitians moved for jobs at the plant.
But less than a year later, Remy—and JBS—were accused of human trafficking and exploitation by the union representing workers at the plant.
“This is America. I was hoping America to be better than back home,” says Tchelly Moise, a Haitian immigrant and union rep. “Someone needs to be held accountable for this, because this is not okay anywhere.”
This week on Reveal, reporter Ted Genoways with the Food & Environment Reporting Network looks into JBS’ long reliance on immigrant labor for this work—and its track record of not treating those workers well. The difference this time is those same workers are now targets of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda.
This episode was produced in partnership with the Food & Environment Reporting Network, a nonprofit news organization.
