INDIANAPOLIS — The Indiana attorney general is demanding information from companies that he suspects of engaging in human labor trafficking. One of the targets of Todd Rokita’s investigation is Tyson Foods in Logansport.
Rokita has sent legal notices to at least seven organizations that are called civil investigative demands — or "CID."
Rokita said his office believes that Tyson Foods may have information relevant to an investigation concerning human labor trafficking. His office also sent CIDs to Berry Global Group Inc, a plastics company in Evansville; the Cass County Health Department; Logansport Community School Corporation; Tent Partnership for Refugees, which partners with companies to put refugees to work in their relocated countries; God is Good, a ministry in Evansville; and Jackson County Industrial Development Corporation.
"What we suspect is that businesses, in conjunction with nonprofit entities, are incentivizing, acting like magnets for these illegal aliens as they come over the border to place them in low paying work or otherwise engage in labor trafficking,” said Rokita.
Tyson Foods did not respond to 13News' request for comment Wednesday. Rokita said the company has until Dec. 4 to respond to his office.
"We are looking at their practices, and particularly nonprofits and business practices, to see if they're creating an indecent nuisance or if they're in violation of the Deceptive Sales Act,” said Rokita. “So quite honestly, we're creatively using those statutes and applying them to this issue.”
The Immigrant Welcome Center in Indianapolis is not directly involved, but worries about the impact or Rokita’s investigation.
"It is a direct attack on our immigrant neighbors and our community as well, and the corporations that partner with other community-based organizations that do work in the immigration sector, especially because a lot of these individuals have a legal work authorization,” said Maria Yuquilima, the Immigrant Welcome Center's marketing and communications manager. "It's really going to shy these companies away: whether if it's getting involved in the community work, or hiring our migrant population, because they don't want bad PR or to be attacked like they have already been."
The Jackson County Industrial Development Corporation in Seymour acknowledged that it received the CID from the Attorney General. Executive director Jim Plump said the organization had no public comment. But Plump said the organization has consulted legal counsel and plans to meet the deadline it was given to respond by Nov. 22.
Logansport Schools Superintendent Michele Starkey said the district received a CID with 18 questions, many of them multi-part questions, asking for information about immigrant students. The school district plans to ask for a 30- to 45-day extension to gather the data on more than 500 students over the past few years. The school district is not a target of the investigation. But the attorney general wants the information for his investigation of Tyson Foods.
13News reached out to every organization that received a CID from the attorney general. No others responded.