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Immigrant Teenage Student Dies of Poultry Factory Injury

HeadlineJul 20, 2023

In Mississippi, a 16-year-old immigrant died Friday after he was injured while working at a poultry plant in the city of Hattiesburg. Duvan Tomas Perez was a middle school student who came to the U.S. six years ago from Guatemala. Witnesses say the teen’s fatal injury came as he was cleaning heavy machinery that was left on, an apparent major safety violation. Several U.S. states have recently rolled back child labor laws, though Mississippi law does not allow minors to be employed in slaughterhouses and meat packing plants. Click here to see our recent interview with Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter Hannah Dreier about child labor in the U.S..

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