Anyone who has driven through or is familiar with western Kansas probably knows that the meatpacking and agricultural jobs of the region draw the largest number of undocumented immigrants (USCIS) to the state. An interviewer for Underground America came to this region, and according to Orner, "had a very interesting time there." My parents moved from Dodge City to Wichita when I was two, but they still talk about the Mexican immigrants fishing in toxic ponds for food, how the wind blew the smell of cow manure to the part of town that slaughterhouse workers lived in, and most of all, how people from those parts of town did not intersect. Now, 22 years later, I wonder how "interesting" of a time the interviewer had in the area.

Perhaps it's an out of sight out of mind mentality, but no one seems to have a problem eating food that was prepared by grossly underpaid, abused, and invisible workers. University of Kansas anthropology professor and industry expert Don Stull estimated that about one fourth of people working at the nation's meatpacking plants are here illegally. We know some of the facts- that they're overworked and/or denied certain rights, but what if we had to acknowledge the harmful and lasting effects we've created by labeling a group of people "illegal"?

According to Human Rights Watch, immigration status is directly related to health and safety on the job. An Associated Press report published in 2004 found that Mexican workers in the United States are 80 percent more likely to die in the workplace than U.S.-born workers, and almost two times as likely as the rest of the immigrant population to die at work.

It isn't like undocumented slaughterhouse workers come here because they really want one of the most dangerous jobs available. I'd even go as far as to say they're invited here under false pretenses. Meatpacking companies are notorious for recruiting foreign workers to come work for them and make "good American money." They'll even send a bus to come and take them across the border. To upstanding citizens, undocumented workers are taking American jobs. But lets be honest. These jobs weren't created for upstanding citizens. The slaughterhouse jobs of today seem to have been created for people who can't complain, who are desperate for pay, and whom companies can use as just another expendable resource in the food chain.

Slaughterhouse labor involves pulling and cutting carcasses with sharp hooks and knives, keeping up with automated machinery moving the dead animals past the worker at rates such as: four hundred head of beef per hour, one thousand hogs per hour, thousands of broilers per hour. Statistics for 2000 reveal that one out of every seven poultry workers was injured on the job, more than double the average for all private industries. Despite protective gear, workers are bound to come into contact with blood, grease, animal feces, and other detritus from the animals they slaughter.

Upstanding citizens have rights. Undocumented workers do not. It's the perfect business strategy. When someone's illegal status means they don't count it also means their voice can't be heard. Their stories obviously count though, and what Underground America does is give a voice to those who need it most. So when does the point come where Kansas asks to hear the stories of its silenced population?

Assistant U.S. Attorney Brent Anderson noted that about half of immigration-related cases in Kansas are associated with the food-processing industry, and I can't help but wonder about all the stories people have that won't get told. The scariest thing I question though, is even if a real face does get put to this problem, will we be willing to listen?

"Everything we do is a crime," says a Mexican man called El Mojado, one of the Underground America interview subjects whose story is set in the meatpacking triangle. "You don't have papers, it's a crime. You buy fake papers, it's a crime."

Based on case studies from Kansas and seven other states, a report issued in October by the American Rights at Work and the National Employment Law Project found that the federal government's immigration enforcement's heavy reliance on raids has severely undermined efforts to protect both immigrant and native-born workers' rights. After the raid at Iowa kosher meatpacking plant Agriprocessors in 2008, 270 immigrant workers entered guilty pleas and were sentenced in four days of fast-track hearings held in temporary courtrooms in a cattle fairground.

Imagine the 270 different voices we succeeded in silencing that day. A victory for America, indeed.

Although this raid, as well as others in surrounding states, has increased fears of unemployment and deportation among meatpacking workers of the massive Kansas slaughterhouses, federal intervention hasn't slowed the rate at which undocumented workers are hired. With an increasing number of undocumented immigrants entering the country, Meatpacking companies are finding them to be quite the expendable resource.

We don't buy products made by child labor or in a sweatshop. But no one cares about the lack of basic human rights for the sub-citizens who prepare our beef. It is, after all, what they get for crossing illegally. It is the human price we pay for a hamburger.