Charleroi, PA meatpacking plant to shut down after federal investigation into undocumented workers, migrants face unemployment

( Post Millennial )

A meatpacking plant employing a large number of Haitian migrants in the small town of Charleroi, PA, south of Pittsburgh, is set to close at the end of the month. The Huntington National Bank alleged that Fourth Street Barbeque defaulted on more than $80 million in loans earlier this month. Now, according to WTAE, the factory is set to close on Oct 31, sparking layoffs of over 250 employees. 

Charleroi City Council President Kristin Hopkins said, “There are just no words for the devastation that something like this causes our community, both in, you know, job loss and the far-reaching effects of it with housing, food insecurity.”

With the closure, many of the plant’s workers, who are Haitians who came to the US under the Temporary Protected Status (TPS), will be jobless, and will become illegal immigrants once their TPS protections expire. The TPS designation for Haiti is currently set to expire in February 2026.

Local immigration attorney Joseph Murphy told the outlet, "From the perspective of the company itself, it’s not a bad move. There’s a whole bunch of workers in there that are on temporary programs that are slated to end, and they’ll become, by operation of law, effectively full of illegals, a giant target for immigration enforcement. Who would want to be in that position?"

Murphy said of the end of TPS, "It’s, among other things, a plain old humanitarian disaster right here. Eight hundred families, just like that, turned off, no legal status, no ability to work, thousands of miles from home in some foreign city in western Pennsylvania in February. This is just not a pretty picture.”

In late 2024, federal authorities began investigating a company that supplied migrant workers to the plant. Federal investigators said that the contractor, Prosperity Services, "knowingly paid undocumented non-citizen employees with cash" and "transported and housed undocumented non-citizens for employment purposes," per WTAE at the time. The outlet noted that the contractor’s vans used to transport workers are frequently seen throughout Charleroi. The owner, Andy Ha, pleaded guilty to harboring illegal immigrants for financial gain as well as failing to pay employment taxes in February 2025.

This is the same town that President Trump called out in Sept 2024, with some reports that the small town had become 50 percent Haitian. At a rally in nearby Indiana, PA, Trump asked if anyone in the crowd was from Charleroi. One person called out, "It’s completely different."