Tyson Foods to spend another $1.5 million on immigrant legal services

Tyson Foods will spend $1.5 million to help immigrant employees defray legal and citizenship expenses. Over the past two years, Tyson has spent $2.4 million to support Immigrant Connection, a non-profit organization that provides legal services for immigrants.

“I am thankful to Tyson Foods and the Immigration Partnership Program. I am now an American citizen, proud to be able to vote for the first time in a country I lived in and called my home for the last 12 years,” said Johanna Soderstrom, executive vice president, chief people officer, Tyson Foods, and a native of Finland. “This is a wonderful benefit available to all Tyson team members and their family members.”

Since 2020, the company has doubled the legal services offered to U.S. employees and helped more than 500 workers with citizenship status and counseled more than 2,500 employees in need of legal services. Tyson said it has historically attracted immigrant workers to its plants, and helping them obtain citizenship or retail other legal status is crucial to the company’s business model.

Programs like Immigrant Connection and funding from Tyson Foods has helped immigrants like Paw Lar, of Clarksville, who immigrated from Thailand, find work while maintaining legal status in the U.S. for the past nine years.

“I was born in a refugee camp in Thailand and didn’t know what to expect when we got to the United States. After going through the immigration program at Tyson Foods, I finally feel like I belong somewhere, and I’m extremely proud to be a U.S. citizen,” Lar noted in the release.

Tyson Foods said it will also receive the “Keepers of the American Dream” award at the Nov. 16, National Immigration Forum in Washington, D.C. The award goes to organizations that make communities better places for immigrants.