SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – When Martha Kebede’s adult sons immigrated from Ethiopia and reunited with her in South Dakota this year, they had few work opportunities.
Lacking English skills, the brothers took jobs at Smithfield Foods' Sioux Falls pork plant, grueling and increasingly risky work as the coronavirus sickened thousands of meatpacking workers nationwide.
One day half the workers on a slicing line vanished; later the brothers tested positive for the COVID-19 virus. “It was very, very sad,” Kebede said. “The boys teared up seeing everyone.” The brothers — who declined to be identified for fear of workplace retaliation — are among roughly 175,000 immigrants in U.S.