(December 16, 2006)--When hordes of police and immigration agents stormed meatpacking plants in Texas and five other states this week, the illegal workers arrested may not have been the only ones affected.

Consumers and the industry itself may feel the repercussions in a shortage of meatpackers, higher wage costs and ultimately higher prices for beef.

Swift and Company said its meatpacking plants were running at reduced levels a day after nearly 1,300 workers were arrested in a massive immigration sweep.

The raids involved six Swift plants nationwide, including one in the Texas Panhandle town of Cactus.

Some analysts see the current emphasis on enforcement in the meatpacking industry as the prelude to getting an immigration bill through Congress.

They say the sweep demonstrates the government's capability to enforce laws at the work site.

They say every labor-intensive industry will be similarly affected including the hotel industry, the construction industry and agriculture.

But Kansas State University agricultural economist James Mintert says continued massive immigration raids would reduce the available labor supply putting the US meatpacking industry in a position more comparable to the Canadian slaughterhouses.

Those north of the border have much higher labor costs because they have less access to cheap immigrant labor.

Swift and Company says the plants in Colorado, Nebraska, Texas, Utah, Iowa and Minnesota were staffed for all shifts Wednesday, but that production is expected to be below normal, for now.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested 1,282 people on immigration violations Tuesday in raids on the plants.

About 65 of them were also charged with identity-theft related offenses or similar criminal violations, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Wednesday.

Agents arrested 295 workers in the small Texas Panhandle town of Cactus in a raid that rocked not only packing plant employees, but also residents throughout the community.

Swift said the six plants represent all of its domestic beef processing capacity, and more than three-fourths of its pork processing capacity.

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