According to three officials, agents from the Department of Homeland Security’s Bureau of Investigations are interviewing young children who were used to clean up a JBS Foods slaughterhouse in the city of Grand Island, Nebraska.
There is no evidence the investigation was directed at Packers Sanitation Services Inc. (PSSI), which hired the children for human trafficking, NBC News said.
However, the outlet pointed out that an investigation is in place to rule out the possibility that outside traffickers coerced youths into working for PSSI and benefited from it.
According to the Labor Department, Packers Sanitation Services Inc. was accused last year of employing minors to do cleaning chores.
Investigators found a total of 50 PSSI child laborers at at least five locations, including the Grand Island plant and another JBS Foods plant in the city of Worthington, Minnesota, whose duties included cleaning machinery, primarily in electrical equipment.
The teenagers attended school during the day and worked at night in unsafe conditions, and some 13- and 14-year-olds had burns on their hands from exposure to strong chemicals, the TV station said.
The Department of Labor classifies many of the jobs that take place in slaughterhouses and meatpacking plants as dangerous for minors.
Following a Labor Department investigation and a government lawsuit filed against PSSI last December, authorities argued that the company violated the Fair Labor Standards Act, which prohibits oppressive child labor and dangerous underage employment.
The Department of Homeland Security’s Bureau of Investigation investigation into a possible human smuggling was sparked by the large number of immigrant children involved in the case, officials said.
Local authorities and attorneys in Grand Island and Worthington say they have noticed an increase in the number of Spanish-speaking unaccompanied minors in their areas in recent years.
PSSI’s 17,000 employees clean the largest meat processing plants in the United States for domestic brands at 700 centers across the country, NBC News recalled.
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