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THE WEEKLY REVEAL

Saturday, February 1, 2025

Hello! In this issue:

  • Hundreds of Haitians went to Greeley, Colorado, for a good job and a place to stay. Instead, they found squalid living conditions and an unsafe working environment—all in the name of cheap meat.
  • A police officer chased a Native teen to his death. Days later, the police force shut down without explanation.  

THIS WEEK’S PODCAST

Immigrants on the Line

The Rainbow Motel in Greeley, Colorado, where Haitian migrants were housed while they started new jobs on the JBS beef processing line. Credit: 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 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.
Listen to the episode
🎧 Other places to listen: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Pandora, or wherever you get your podcasts.

 

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A Quote to Remember

“It's painful, because how do you as a stranger get to know what happened to my son and the details of his death? How is that possible that you get that information and I don't?”


Nearly three years after her son died in a car chase with a police officer, Blossom Old Bull still had very few details about what happened that night. People wouldn’t talk; her FOIA requests were denied. The police department itself disappeared without explanation.

It was only after months of reporting by Mother Jones reporter Samantha Michaels that the Bureau of Indian Affairs finally released records that showed what happened the night Braven Glenn died, what happened after the police chase, and what went wrong with the investigation into Glenn’s death.

Listen: After the Crash

In Case You Missed It

🎧  In Fallujah, We Destroyed Parts of Ourselves
🎧 Fortress Europe: The Fight for Refugees in Greece
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This issue of The Weekly Reveal was written by Kate Howard and edited by Nikki Frick. If you enjoyed this issue, forward it to a friend. Have some thoughts? Drop us a line with feedback or ideas!
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