Omaha NE October 7, 2009 - Meatpacking remains “one of the most dangerous jobs in America,” according to a Lincoln nonprofit group, citing its survey in which packinghouse workers reported higher injury rates than official statistics.

Of 455 workers surveyed, 62 percent reported being injured in the previous year, according to the Appleseed Center for Law in the Public Interest.

Nebraska, October 13 - Credit Nebraska Appleseed for perseverance in its effort to improve working conditions in the state's meatpacking plants.

Appleseed, a nonprofit public law center in Lincoln, has been pushing for improvements in the meatpacking industry for more than a decade.

Immigrants fired by two suburban Chicago businesses are testing an Illinois law that sets the nation’s toughest limits on verifying eligibility for employment.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a favorite tool of prosecutors in immigration cases, ruling unanimously that a federal identity-theft law may not be used against many illegal workers who used false Social Security numbers to get jobs.

The question in the case was whether workers who use fake identification numbers to commit some other crimes must know they belong to a real person to be subject to a two-year sentence extension for “aggravated identity theft.”

The answer, the Supreme Court said, is yes.