McHugh calls the Dallas RICO action a "copycat lawsuit," arguing that the company did due diligence in filling out employment paperwork and checking the IDs presented by prospective workers. "The evidence will show the lawsuit has no basis in fact or law," he says.

The two lawsuits against Swift are separate, but the lawyers describe both as painting a picture of a company that, after it was purchased by Hicks's HM Capital Partners, systematically and deliberately purged injured legal resident workers and replaced them with illegal Guatemalans. "When the venture capital cowboys come to town, they know where to find the money," Reyes says of the Dallas investment firm.

"What really upsets me is that ICE arrests all these immigrants working in terrible conditions, and yet the CEOs in their suites are left untouched," Garcia says.

A former worker who is not a plaintiff but says he'd like to join the RICO lawsuit says managers helped two of his friends who were in the country illegally get jobs at the plant. Genaro Cantú, a 37-year-old McAllen-born man who worked at the plant for 14 years, alleges it was common knowledge that Arriaga helped illegal immigrants get jobs. One day in 2003 or 2004, he says, he told Arriaga he had two friends who were looking for work but weren't legal residents. "He said each one would have to pay $1,000 and to just make sure that the Social Security numbers were real," Cantú claims. Arriaga allegedly told him to take the men to Leonore Hernandez, an employment manager who, according to a deposition, was later fired for taking kickbacks. Cantú says he went with the men and watched them pay her $1,000 each in cash. They'd bought stolen IDs from someone in Cactus, he says, and both were hired. The Mexican man has since left the plant, and the Guatemalan was fired after the raids, Cantú says.

Asked if he was willing to tell his story on the record, Cantú replied, "I want to testify. I'll tell Arriaga to his face in court." The former worker says Arriaga fired him last July after he complained that he was doing the work of two people, though the manager told him he was being terminated for fighting. In a deposition, Arriaga denied all of these allegations. He didn't return phone calls from the newspaper requesting comment.

Numerous other former workers said it was common knowledge that a large number of employees were using stolen IDs. Serrato, the 62-year-old who worked in the hide department for 18 years, says his granddaughter's husband worked at the plant using someone else's Social Security number and discovered that child support was being withdrawn from his checks. Such accounts are similar to others chronicled by The Dallas Morning News last November. There was an Iraq war veteran who was jailed on a DWI-related offense he knew nothing about and a mother who nearly lost food stamps and Medicaid benefits because a Guatemalan immigrant was using her Social Security number to work at Swift.

Several former employees say there were even underage Guatemalans working at the plant. Margie Salazar says she often ran into boys who worked on the kill floor who looked like they were her kids' age -- 13 or 14 -- with new mustaches just coming in. Once she asked one of them how old he was. Thirteen, he told her. "Why are you working here?" she asked. "We need the work, we need the money," he replied.

Serrato, Salazar and others also said that vans, even buses, full of Guatemalans would sometimes arrive at the plant.

What makes the former workers so angry is not only that they assume they lost their jobs to these immigrants but that the Guatemalans' illegal status and their fear of complaining or reporting injuries made conditions worse for everybody.

Shortly after HM Capital Partners and Booth Creek Management bought a majority interest in ConAgra Foods' beef and pork processing business in September 2002, rumors of firings began circulating at the Cactus plant. By that time Blanca Valenzuela had left her leadership position at the union, so she asked one of the union leaders about the rumors. He said they were true. "Is my name on the list?" she asked. He nodded. "What are you going to do about it?" "There's nothing we can do about it," he answered, explaining that orders had come from corporate headquarters to get rid of injured workers. McHugh says the new policy was agreed upon between management and the union. Local Union 540 leaders at the plant did not return phone calls for comment.