INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita confirmed that his office sent a civil investigative demand (CID) to the Tyson Foods plant in Logansport, Ind., seeking information about concerns about a large influx of “illegal aliens and ‘legal migrants’” into the local community.

Rokita began investigating specific community reports on Nov. 9 in Logansport, Seymore and Evansville. 

In his latest CIDs, Rokita’s office said it was alleging a coordinated effort “among internal and local nonprofit ‘refugee resettlement’ organizations and employers, like Tyson Foods, to bring large numbers of migrants to Indiana.” 

“The vast number of additional people coming into our communities is alarming, and that’s just from the standpoint of seeing the staggering number of resources being put towards this fight – Every. Single. Day,” Rokita said in a release. “When you have an open border and an influx of people coming over illegally by the millions, we can’t have companies incentivizing this criminal behavior by offering jobs for cheap labor. It’s not fair to those looking for employment or to our law enforcement, local hospitals and healthcare facilities, taxpayers that fund these services, and our housing and labor markets. We will continue looking into this growing issue.” 

The Indiana attorney general’s office stated that it had reasonable cause to believe that Tyson Foods may have documents and materials relevant to its investigation.

The CID requires that Tyson must respond by Dec. 4.

Tyson Foods responded with the following statement after the inquiry from Rokita’s office:

 “As we have stated previously, everyone working at our Logansport facility is legally authorized to do so and the majority of those team members are American citizens or permanent residents,” a Tyson spokesperson said to MEAT+POULTRY. “We are committed to operating our business legally and have policies in place to prevent the recruitment or use of any illegal labor across our supply chain. We are complying with this request and demonstrating how seriously we follow all labor laws and regulations.”

Other local entities that received CIDs from Rokita include the Cass County Health Department, Logansport Community School Corp., Berry Global Group Inc., Tent Partnership for Refugees, God is Good, and Jackson County Industrial Development Corp.