(The Center Square) – HelloFresh, the largest meal-kit provider in the U.S., faces accusations from the U.S. Department of Labor of employing migrant children at a factory located in Aurora, Illinois.
ABC7 reports at least six teenagers from Guatemala were found working night shifts at the factory. HelloFresh cut ties with Midway Staffing, an agency that hires migrants and is being investigated by the federal labor agency.
The Illinois Department of Labor told The Center Square it had “no comment.”
State Rep. Chris Miller called the incident an example of “state-sanctioned” human trafficking.
“Tom Homan [President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for border security] will be like a pit bull getting this stuff done. I think Illinois will be a prime place to start. I think that they should start by throwing our governor and some of these politicians in jail for facilitating this nonsense,” said Miller.
HelloFresh told ABC7 they were “troubled” by the staffing agency who facilitated the hiring of migrant children but are a partner of Tent Partnership for Refugees. Miller explained Tent is a nonprofit that supplies big corporations, like HelloFresh, with cheap “refugee” labor.
In December 2022, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken signed a memorandum of understanding with the Tent Partnership to “expand economic opportunity for refugees” in the private sector.
“This is inhuman and immoral and it’s all because of the open border policy and cities and states adopting a ‘sanctuary status,’” said Miller. “This isn’t an ‘oops.’ This is on purpose and it’s all part of a multinational human/sex-trafficking and child labor ring.”
According to the Reform for Illinois’ campaign finance database, Midway Staffing has made campaign contributions to many Illinois politicians like city of Berwyn, Mayor Robert Lovero, state Rep. Fred Crespo, D-Hoffman Estates, Secretary of State Alexis Giannoulias and state Sen. Donald DeWitte, R-St. Charles.
A recent law impacting child labor was passed by state Sen. Robert Peters, D-Chicago, and signed by the governor. The bill requires all minors end work by 7 p.m. on school nights. Peters said the law, which goes into effect in January, ensures young Illinoisans have a healthy balance between their work responsibility and personal lives.
“There are people out there who want to move our child labor laws in the other direction and weaken them,” Peters said at a news conference in the spring. “We are trying to strengthen them and people take that positively. [For example] you have a kid, you don’t want to have your kid working in that environment [hazardous meat-packing plant], you want them focused on their schooling or playing with their friends.”
Miller said politicians are going to pretend to care by introducing bills like Senate Bill 3646.
“The problem is that these people are illegals. They’ve been brought here by the Democrat administrations, both federally and in the state of Illinois,” said Miller. “They’ve created this huge mess now, and now they’re going to pretend like they care, and they’re going to go try to clean it up. It’s all smoke and mirrors and political theater.”
Peters was unavailable to comment on the HelloFresh federal investigation at this time.