JUSTICE DEPARTMENT FOWL

A jury in Chattanooga, Tennessee, has turned back an overzealous federal
prosecutor, checked an unprecedented use of forfeiture law and exposed the
folly of U.S. immigration enforcement. Not bad for five hours of deliberation.

On Wednesday, Tyson Foods, the Arkansas poultry giant, was cleared of 12
counts alleging conspiracy, transporting of illegal workers and document
falsification. Earlier in the trial, District Judge R. Allan Edgar tossed
out 24 other charges related to immigrant-smuggling. Which means that after
a four-year investigation and a seven-week trial, U.S. Attorney Sandy
Mattice went 0-for-36. His response: "We are consoled by the fact we did
the right thing to bring this prosecution."

We are consoled that Justice lost this case, which should never have been
pursued. The government's resources are limited. Time and money spent
chasing Mexicans out of chicken plants is better spent tracking people who
enter the country to do us harm.

Justice began investigating Tyson back in 1997. An undercover agent posing
as a smuggler said the company was importing workers from south of the
border to staff plants in six states. He counted 136 undocumented cases in
total. The eventual indictment named 15 people. For a company with 120,000
employees, one-third of whom are Hispanic, it's hardly shocking that a few
illegals slipped through. Given that there are upward of eight million
undocumented workers in the U.S., we'd say Tyson is doing a bang-up job of
screening its work force.

What's disturbing is the government's behavior. Tyson acknowledged that its
hiring process wasn't foolproof but denied that higher-ups conspired to
break the law. A judge and jury agreed. But prosecutors were bent on
holding Tyson responsible for failing to catch immigrants the government
missed at the border.

Justice also abused its power by trying to apply forfeiture law, under
which a guilty defendant must give the government any ill-gotten gains. The
tactic is usually reserved for drug dealers, and it recalls other efforts
to expand criminal statutes -- like RICO -- into areas where they were
never intended.

Prior to the indictment prosecutors wanted $140 million to go away. The
U.S. Attorney's office said that was its calculation of what Tyson saved by
hiring illegals at lower wages. By the start of the trial, the government
had reduced its demand to around $30 million. We're not surprised when a
tobacco lawyer demands five times what he thinks his case is worth, but
it's the government's job to enforce the law not raise revenue.

Nor is it Justice's role to shake down American companies for not doing
what is the government's job, especially when businesses are simply
responding to the realities of the marketplace. Food processing,
construction, agriculture, manufacturing and other businesses that rely on
low-skill hires know full well that the pool of Americans willing to take
these jobs is small. Without immigrants -- legal and illegal -- our economy
would suffer gravely.

The Bush Administration has made noises about immigration reform -- such as
providing more guest worker permits -- but September 11 put things on hold.
That's unfortunate, because bringing these individual out of the shadows
would both help our economy and improve homeland security. It would also
mean fewer expensive fiascoes like the one this week in Chattanooga.