February 10, 2025 12:17 PM UTC

Does Gabe Evans Realize Who Packs His Meat?

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• by: Colorado Pols

As the new administration ramps up its promised crackdown on undocumented immigrants across the nation, which includes threats to revoke the temporary legal status of thousands of migrants from certain countries, an example of the cognitive dissonance facing swing-district Republicans like Colorado’s freshman Rep. Gabe Evans can be found in a report last week from CBS4 Denver’s Crista Swanson on an announced major expansion of the JBS meatpacking plant in Greeley:

Officials said the improvements will improve efficiency at the facility and create the ability to increase production in the future.

JBS USA’s Greeley facility employs more than 3,800 team members and works with over 175 producers. Officials said the company pays $3.1 billion for livestock each year…

“As the largest employer in Weld County, JBS USA has consistently invested in our community to create jobs and support local projects,” said U.S. Representative Gabe Evans. “This announcement ensures that the cattle producers and the local businesses that support the facility will continue to thrive and prosper. I applaud JBS USA for this strategic investment and look forward to seeing the finished project.”

But as Denver7 reported last fall and Greeley residents already know, there’s much more to this story: many of the jobs created by JBS in Greeley have been taken up in recent years by Haitian immigrants, who enjoyed temporary protected status under President Joe Biden, and now face an uncertain future after Donald Trump falsely accused Haitian migrants in Ohio of eating the pets of local residents. These workers allege terrible treatment by the company, who promised them good-paying jobs and housing:

Union members at the JBS Foods meatpacking plant in Greeley said hundreds of Haitian immigrants were lured to work at the plant on false promises.

“[They were told,] ‘You can come here. You are going to have a very good job. And you don’t have to worry about where you’re going to sleep because the company is going to take care of that for you,'” alleges plant worker Tchelly Moise.

Instead, these legal Haitian workers were allegedly packed 20 or more into a single hotel room while working one of the nation’s most grueling and dangerous jobs. The meatpacking industry in general experiences extremely high rates of turnover despite relatively good pay, and before Haitians there were several other waves of immigrants who successively staffed JBS’s packing plant before moving on to better things–often after reporting bad treatment themselves.

But for Gabe Evans, celebrating the expansion of JBS and the creation of even more hard unpleasant jobs to be filled by immigrants while enthusiastically cheering on Trump’s migrant crackdown out of the other side of his mouth creates a head-splitting contradiction. Does Gabe Evans support revoking the legal status of the Haitian workers at JBS in Greeley like Trump wants? Where are the employees to staff JBS’s expansion then supposed to come from? If the jobs JBS is creating are to be filled by immigrants like they have been for decades, how is any of this going to work while Trump deports immigrants by the millions?

These are no longer hypothetical questions. At some point, the expansion of JBS’ meatpacking plant in Greeley that Gabe Evans professes to be thrilled about is going to collide with the immigration crackdown Evans also claims to be thrilled about.

On that day, Evans’ two-facedness will at long last fail him.