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>> well, it is way to describe a circular movement of chickens to mexico and immigrants to the united states in the very recent form. >> host: in a longer form how does that occur? >> guest: well the idea is because of transformations in the poultry industry there were increases in labor conflict and because of that, tyson, for example, was indicted for recruiting illegles in mexico, giving them papers, crossing the border and distributing them in their plants. that was part of the movement north. also, as a consequence of

increased industrialization in the poultry industry and nafta there was a flood of poultry exports to mexico which contributed to undermining the poultry industry and rural workers particularly in mexico. there was no alternative for them to be absorbed into an economy and you get the migration back northward as a consequence. that is the slightly longer version. >> host: do a lot of mexican immigrants work in the american poultry industry? >> guest: well, this is for the nation as a whole, the u.s. government has said that in 1970 about 26% of the workers were hispanic. by 1990, it had gone up to 45%. that is the nation as a whole in meet and poultry. it isn't really broken down.

when i looked at five states, alabama, arkansas, north carolina, georgia and mississippi and those states were interesting because half of poultry production in the nation is conducted there and also those were states that gained enormous increases in hispanic population between 1990-2000. i think north carolina has almost a 400 percent increase in the hispanic population in the state. that is relative, obviously the absolute numbers start much lower. but those five states were not traditional gateways for immigrants. normally it was the east with west coast. so, these were new destinations for immigrants. and so the percentage in those states and in the country, particularly the countries with poultry plants put together the u.s. census data with the u.s. economics census and you can see the rise in the hispanic population in those industries.

>> host: were these jobs going untended? >> guest: so, one of the things that got me interested in this project was this discourse about they take jobs nobody wants. i am remembering even the then president fox of mexico in 2005 was praising immigrants for their diligence and hard work during jobs and he said that not even jobs blacks wanted to do. when i look at the poultry industry in the 1980s for example, in those states, most of the workers were african-american. people would say things like they took them out of the cotton fields and put them into the poultry industry or the cotton belt is now the broiler belt. it used to be cotton is king and now it is poultry is king. so the jobs were filled with people who were doing work.

african-americans mostly. there is lots of anecdotal evidence about, for example, the hamlet fire was a poultry fire that went a blaze and there were 25-30 people who died. there were no hispanic names. so you can look at either the government's data, the census data, or anecdotal evidence showing there wasn't a substa i substantial amount of hispanics in those states. >> host: is there a large percentage of these workers that are undocumented? >> guest: this is a hard number to get. the estimates vary. i looked at the social security administration data of no matches and theyescalate after '94. that says these are social

security numbers submitted by firms which do not match existing social security numbers in the social administration and after earning files. they call those mismatches. when they get to a certain number, the social security administration sends out letters to the firm. so, the top hundred firms, there is a good representation of plants and businesses in those five states. poultry plants were perated by

operation everest, which was an undercover operation by the department of justice and they indicted for tyson for engaging in the illegal activity of hiring immigrants. no tyson executives were found guilty. they were indicted but not found guilty. >> host: you said it escalated after 1994. is that a response to nafta? >> i think possibly but also the peso dropped in mexico and it meant people's savings were diminished and many were bankrupted. that increases the immigration flow. there are other things going on in mexico at the same time which is restructural of the economy

and the government. some of this begins after the debt crisis of 1982. so, mexico defaulted on its debt. in order to renegotiate loans, it had to follow certain conditions set down by the international monetary fund, the world bank and others and they included a series of restructuring such as privatizing state-owned enterprises, reducing the size of the government, and opening tariffs/the border. some already began. the opening of the tariff borders began when mexico joined the earlier version of the world trade organization. there had been some lowering of tariffs but even with nafta, the national association of poultry producers, managed to get a

phase out of 10-15 years on some poultry parts -- legs and concords. so, that meant that the tariff was going to step down little by little to zero. 2003 it was destined to be zero. there was a lot of imports coming in. they complained it was illegal u.s. poultry. they would send the secretary of agricultural there but somebody was tipping them off and by the time they got there are illegal eggs were gone. >> host: what got you interested in this? >> partly being in arizona because this is major thorough fair of immigration and it is place where there is a lot of talk about pro and anti

immigration. and the discourse was interesting. the discourse is polarized what people would negatively call liberals and racist. there is a pun vision and that is the only actors of stakeholders are immigrants and those who are against immigrants. you don't get much onversation at that level about the mexican government which was remittance higher than oil earnings, the u.s. government, businesses and one of the other problems for me as a socialologist is the conversation of the groups demonize or sanctify, whichever group you are on, and as a sociologist my question is there is no analytical value in slander. that is not going to help us.

we need to move to something more historical, perhaps more global, in understanding the conditions under which these conflicts emerge. >> host: what is the advantage of tyson to supplying documented -- >> guest: i think my attention to tyson had to do with this indictment which was public. but when where looked at surveys and research and ethnography others are gone, in that early period, many were playing recruiters or existing employees to bring in others. you get chain migration and

family villages come. it wasn't really just tyson. and i don't want to demonize tyson but it is originally what called my attention to the difficulty. it is not even poultry per se. there are many others who are in these states who were doing the same labor recruitment. it was more like a metaphor. you could see the exports going up to guatemala and up to mexico. >> host: as we enter a new presidency and discussion about trade and revamping nafta have you reached any conclusions? >> guest: one of the ironies is what the world trade

organization promotes is that one branch of the united nations which is the committee on migrant rights. you have the u.n. pushing one way and other organizations trying to protectprotect migrans which is different from the current discussion about trade. when i think about work done by the food agricultural organization, they talk about import surges. this is not about the developed county but the developing one. so they talk about when cotton was the border on cotton was dropped in india, in one year there were 18,000 suicides.

people talk about it as though it came down from the mountain on the tablets with moses. what is it that it is doing to developing nations? here is an natural about the

micro versus the acro. we passed the slave act of capturing and returning slaves. there were quakers and abolitionists who didn't support this. in fact, they were against slavery. they were engaged in the undergrounds bringing in escaped slaves and harboring them. in 1860 there were four plus million slaves and two plus million pennsylvanians. this is hypothetical. if every person in pennsylvania harbed a slave every person has to harbor 1.7 slaves. it is a well intentioned humanitarian approach but it is not sustainable. obviously the solution was abolition. immigration today, migration today. well it is about excess population, it is about

inadequate food production, it is about unfair trade so -- for the developings nation and civil unrest and war. how can we not just think about sanctuary cities but think about conditions?

why do we think about changing our educational system so we have our own students with these science things and i have a more cynical thing about cabbage pickers which is i am ready to argue for send our unemployed high school students. >> what about the hb2a program?

is that successful? what is it? >> they were using it in agricultural areas to bring people in as guest workers. that would be the h2a. >> host: is it successful? >> guest: i don't know the answer to that. my guess is if it was so successful there would not be as much recruitment for others. another way the guest work matters is that this is a little b

bit. but we already a pipeline if you are born here. it is called an anchor baby. even if the border slowest is still in the pipeline and also the family reunification is quite broad at this point and allows people to bring in family, extended family who in turn can bring in others and that is perceived since the 1965 immigration legacy. >> host: the book is called the chicken trail: following workers, migrants and corporations across the americas". the author kathleen