Hamdi Ulukaya, the founder of Chobani yogurt, has become a target of far-right groups angry that he employs 300 refugees in his factories, says the New York Times.
Some critics have called for boycotting Chobani, while the company’s Twitter feed and Facebook page have been lit up with racist comments. “Fringe websites have published false stories claiming Mr. Ulukaya wants ‘to drown the United States in Muslims.’ And the mayor of Twin Falls (the site of one of Ulukaya’s factories) has received death threats, partly as a result of his support for Chobani,” says the Times.
The attacks started after Ulukaya, himself a Turkish immigrant of Kurdish descent, addressed the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last January, arguing that corporations need to do more to assist refugees. Apart from hiring refugees from countries like Iraq and Afghanistan, Ulukaya started a foundation to assist migrants and pledged to give the majority of his annual income to refugee aid. He also recently gave 10 percent of the company’s profits back to its 2,000 employees.
“He’s the xenophobe’s nightmare,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. “Here’s an immigrant who isn’t competing for jobs, but is creating jobs big time. It runs completely counter to the far-right narrative.”
Social-justice advocates like Cecillia Wang, director of the Immigrants’ Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, see larger, national tensions playing out in the attacks on Ulukaya. “What’s happening with Chobani is one more flash point in this battle between the voices of xenophobia and the voices advocating a rational immigration policy,” she said.