A special immigration status helped Mills Manufacturing, which makes parachutes for the U.S. military, keep its workforce fully staffed. But last week, an order from the Supreme Court allowed the Trump Administration to revoke temporary protections for about 500,000 immigrants from Cuba, Venezuela, Haiti, and Nicaragua. WSJ’s Ruth Simon explains why companies like Mills are scrambling. Annie Minoff hosts. Further Listening: - A New Phase in Trump’s Immigration Fight - How Frog Embryos Landed a Scientist in ICE Detention Sign up for WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What is the role of Mills Manufacturing in military parachute production?
A couple months ago, our colleague Ruth Simon took a trip to Asheville, North Carolina to tour a factory there.
I've got a five-minute tour and a five-hour tour and everything in between.
Okay, I'll take the in-between. Ruth is being led around the factory by John Oswald, CEO of Mills Manufacturing. Mills isn't just any factory. They make crucial equipment for the U.S. military, specifically parachutes. When a soldier jumps out of a plane, whether on a training mission or in combat, there's a good chance they're trusting a Mills parachute to carry them safely to the ground.
And if you have any questions or you're curious about anything, don't hesitate to stop and ask me.
I'm fascinated. I'm just trying to take it all in. Overhead, fluorescent lights illuminate rows of workstations covered with fabrics, straps, and thread. There are hundreds of sewing machines in the Mills factory, operated by employees who painstakingly cut and stitch each piece of each parachute. So how many steps to make a parachute?
Oh, so in this particular one, there's 27 steps.
A single skipped stitch among thousands is considered a major defect. Throughout the factory, signs spell out the company's mission — to bring troops safely to the ground 100 percent of the time.
And it's and your signs are all in English. Oh, you have it. Wait. So you have multiple languages. So English, Spanish, Moldovan and Russian.
But we also speak Ukrainian and Romanian.
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Chapter 2: How many steps are involved in making a parachute?
This ruling will allow the Trump administration to terminate their parole legal status and also their work permits that have allowed them to live and work in the U.S. legally.
— About half a million immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela, and Nicaragua have lost their legal status as a result of the Supreme Court's move. Many have pending applications for other immigration statuses they hope will protect them from deportation.
— And so that's creating a lot of anxiety and a lot of confusion among workers and their employers. And everyone's trying to figure it out.
including at the Mills parachute factory. Eleven employees are from countries directly impacted by Friday's Supreme Court order.
It's a meaningful portion of Mills' workforce. These people all work together, and one step is important, and one skill is important.
It sounds like you take one person out of that production line, and you're not just going to miss them, but the people who are connected to them in the process are also going to have problems.
can't just say, we're going to bring someone new in, even if you can find them, and they're going to be able to, like, step in and fully do the job right away.
Mills CEO John Oswald told Ruth on her tour that if Mills loses its employees on humanitarian parole, the company might struggle to fill the military's parachute orders.
We would then have to go and because we can't do everything. And then we would have to start over and try and rebuild the workforce in other ways. But it would take us a long time to recover.
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