translator: yes, it takes its toll it s very tiring and also because of th sleepiness pager works for packe sanitation services ink, o pssi 100 children, some as young as 13, working illegally. as part of it settlement, pssi pleasure would no longer hir children, and pay them 1. million dollar fine, a tin fraction of its revenues nationwide, children were fire at multiple pssi locations according to some compan employees. but pedro is still on the job, a dangerous job. like other child workers, he told us he had been severely burned from powerful cleanin come pickles i noticed you were coughing is that from the chemicals translator: yes, it s because the chemicals ar strong pedro says he fled povert in guatemala two years ago he relied on the smuggler to illegally cross the u.s. border, and bring him here alone t find a job he says he sends almost all of
United States Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack wrote a letter to major meat and poultry processors in the country, urging them to take precautionary steps to prevent or eliminate illegal child labor.
for pedro s real name, saying they d fire him immediately for working underage we re withholding his identity because we want him to be able to speak freely without the fear of losing his job he says he needs. pssi said they d redouble efforts to identify him. julia, how does he pass over 18 i m assuming now that pssi knows it is under scrutiny, it is on the lookout for underage employees, does he look much older than his 16 years? how does he do it? it s interesting. i mean, before this investigation, before the labor department finished their investigation, former employees said pssi was looking the other way. it was a well-known secret there that there were children as young as 13 works there. after that, after they ve become so much under public scrutiny, we understand now that, basically, pedro is able to get an id that says that he is of
translator: yes, it s because the chemicals are strong reporter: pedro says he fled poverty in dwguam guatemala. he relied on a smuggler to bring him here he sends almost all his salary to his parents 2,000 miles away. translator: they have a lot of people here who spend the money as they please, and we earn the money the hard way. reporter: pssi would not grant an interview but has said it uses the government s e-verify system to confirm employees work eligibility, and suggests responsibility lies with underage employees that deceive the company about their age. pedro told us he used fake papers that say he is an adult too to get the job. thee kids are living in fear. these kids will do anything. reporter: this pastor knows of a dozen children, mainly guatemalans, who were told by
area clean now, we re calling him pedro. pssi is the company he works for. they asked for us to disclose his real name so they can immediately fire them. they say that these minors have deceived the company by using fraudulent identities to show that they are of age we, of course, are going to continue to withhold his identity so that he can freely share his story. but we ll have more about those stolen identities and how that process works and other victims, people had their identities stolen that this process can continue we ll have more of that reporting tonight on nbc nightly news. with senator hickenlooper on this program and he sent a letter to a number of ceos demanding child exploitation cease. you re saying it is still happening. thank you. appreciate that. we re also following breaking news right here, where historic flooding has impacted much of south florida. concentrating mostly in broward county fort lauderdale international