United States-The Immigration raid on Swifts in 2006.

The Center for Immigration Studies released a report on Thursday that examined the after-effects of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids on Swift & Co. plants in 2006.

The nonprofit think tank, which seeks to curb immigration to the United States, concluded that:

Wages paid by Swift, when signing bonuses are factored in, increased between 6.1 percent and 9.4 percent for workers in least four of the plants involved in the raid, within a short period of time after the raids occurred

All the plants involved in the raids had returned to full capacity production within five months after the raids

Swift hired more native-born and legal immigrant labor after the raids.

The report notes that wages in 2007 were 45 percent less than wages in 1980, on an inflation-adjusted basis. CIS indicates that wages paid to production workers now account for between 4 percent and 9 percent of retail meat prices, and posits that higher wages would have a minimal effect on consumer costs.

It also proposes that slower production lines and better working conditions would reduce turnover at Swift plants — which ranges from 40 percent to 70 percent — and that costs would be offset with less spending on new employee recruitment.

Executives from Swift, which now is part of JBS S.A., declined to answer questions for the report. JBS spokesman Chandler Keys told the Omaha World-Herald, however, that, "We want to have a thoughtful debate on immigration policy, and that’s what we need in the future to keep our type of manufacturing jobs and system in the United States."