Postville decimated by immigration raid one year ago

[Robbien]

Source: The Gazette

<snip>

Like many other Postville residents, Menahem suffers the ill effects of what local clergy describe as a government-inflicted disaster comparable to the floods and tornadoes that ravaged other parts of Iowa last year.

The arrests of 389 Agriprocessors workers and the tearing apart of their families, followed by criminal charges against plant supervisors, including former top executive Sholom Rubashkin, plunged the town's leading employer into bankruptcy and a shutdown that put hundreds more employees out of work.

"Drive down main street, and you'll see the condition of Postville. Five businesses have closed, and more are in the process," said the Rev. Paul Ouderkirk, a leader in the Catholic Church's ministry to Postville's Latino community. Hispanic attendance at Postville's St. Bridget Catholic Church, he said, declined sharply after the raid, which led to the deportation of hundreds of mostly Guatemalan and Mexican workers.


A year later, St. Bridget's Hispanic Ministry is still caring for 30 families, most of which include members awaiting court hearings, and Ouderkirk said the ministry has hired a psychiatric counselor to help church wards cope with stress caused by the raid and its aftermath.


much more . . .


Read more: http://www.gazetteonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090510/NEWS/705109994/1006

---

And another article today in the Quad City Times:
http://www.qctimes.com/news/local/article_ca5b36ba-3d0d-11de-a14b-001cc4c03286.html

A year after Agriprocessors raid, Postville still struggles

POSTVILLE, Iowa — People fill the sidewalk outside the food pantry every Wednesday as downtown Postville’s businesses wake up and open their doors.

Since Agriprocessors, the town’s kosher meatpacking plant, declared bankruptcy in November, it’s about the only reason people fill downtown. A mix of longtime residents and Latino immigrants arrive to grab numbers to ensure they walk the aisles first when the pantry opens in the afternoon.

. . .

But like the rest of Postville, Toj is tired. She is tired of waiting in line, tired of not working and most of all, tired of an uncertain future. “When it’s sunny, raining or cold, you’re out here, because if you come later you don’t get anything good,” she said.

A year of uncertainty has taken its toll on the small town. Postville’s mayor resigned this spring in frustration and exhaustion. City leaders, churches and passionate volunteers have struggled to work together behind a unified vision for the future of Postville.

much more . . .

[IndianaGreen]

1. But, but, Lou Dobbs wet his pants in delight after the ICE raid.

Remember the GOP mantra that we can't have empathy.

:grr:

[Robbien]

3. Many of the people snatched up in the raid are sitting in private prisons

generating profit for prison owners and costing taxpayers almost two hundred bucks a day. A whole year of sitting in jail cells awaiting disposition of their situation.

Lou Dobbs is quiet on the subject.

[msongs]

2. raids lead to decline in catholic church attendance. catholic church complains. nt

[Wapsie B]

4. When I read of the Postville plant being purchased by the current owners way back when

I thought good, it's good to keep local businesses open and local people employed. Little did I know they'd pull the same shit that's been done all over the meat packing industry. :eyes:

[Enrique]

6. me too

I was fooled by their religiosity. Seriously.

[Enrique]

5. a question for the reporters

do the crooked owners of Agriprocessors share any blame in this "government-inflicted disaster"?

Was this disaster a complete disaster? Isn't the fact that the crooks were caught worth something?

[Robbien]

7. It is all a matter of degree

When the raid happened, almost four hundred people were wisked away. Gone. The families and the town left holding the bag trying to find out what to do next. Then, months and months later the Feds came by and said "oh yeah you owners are breaking the law you better hire a lawyer".

Immediate devastation for the working people (and the town) and polite delayed cotton gloved handling of the real crook owners.

[WriteDown]

11. That's what happens when you are not a citizen....

you are sent home.

edited for spelling.

[AlphaCentauri]

26. also when you are a minority you are kept in poor neighborhoods

:blush:

[WriteDown]

34. We're not talking about minorities in general here...

We're talking about illegal aliens. You are right in the fact that HOA's do frown on 25 people living in a 3 bedroom house though.

[Mnpaul]

30. I believe the HR person responsible

received a 20 yr prison sentence. About damn time.

[CornField]

48. I'm a reporter in Iowa

In the 12 months since this raid I've been to Postville numerous times and have written roughly 150 articles about the raid and its aftermath.

This link will take you to the the first page of the search results of my coverage, which began in May 2008:
http://iowaindependent.com/page/15?s=Agriprocessors

Do the owners of Agriprocessors share blame? The knee jerk answer is "Yes, of course they do." But laws are specific and crafted in ways that make it much more difficult for prosecutors to go after corporations and management. For instance, there must be proof that the employer "knowingly" took falsified identification documents. This particular part might be somewhat easier for prosecutors to prove in the case of Agri, since there was allegedly stacks of blank immigration cards seized from the HR department.

The recent SCOTUS ruling, however, has muddied the waters a bit. A former HR employee who had entered a guilty plea has now withdrawn in, stating that she did not "knowingly" do the things she's been accused of. Others, including plant officials and former employees, are also hoping to use the SCOTUS ruling in their favor.

You asked, "Isn't the fact that the crooks were caught worth something?" Well, I guess if you equate charged with crimes the same as being "caught," then that did happen. There are only two individuals, to my knowledge, who were in supervisory positions at the plant who have been convicted and sentenced for crimes -- and their convictions will likely be revisited due to the SCOTUS ruling. Both of those individuals are Hispanic, came into the country illegally and later became citizens.

During the past year, I've been asked by civic clubs to come and offer a photos in a slideshow and talk about what happened in Postville. I always start those discussions in the same way: "Covering Postville has been one of the most difficult assignments I've ever faced. This is not because stories are difficult to come by -- in fact, the stories are as multiple and diverse as the population of the town itself was before the raid. The problem with Postville is that the entire story line is depressing. I've yet to discover one true good guy."

[sendero]

8. God forbid...

.. these folks hire LEGAL AMERICAN WORKERS and OBEY THE LAW.

I guess replacing these folks with LEGAL AMERICAN WORKERS was NOT AN OPTION.

I feel sorry for the town but not for the factory owners, not one bit.

[AlphaCentauri]

27. After Kosher plant raid, Legal Somalis replaced Latinos

Saturday August 02, 2008, 1:28 AM
POSTVILLE, Iowa -- Scores of Somali immigrants are taking jobs at the largest U.S. kosher meatpacking plant, replacing Hispanic workers arrested in a huge immigration raid and forcing a remote Iowa town to make another cultural shift.

Before the May 12 raid at Agriprocessors, hundreds of Mexican and Guatemalan immigrants maintained a vibrant community in Postville, a largely white community of 2,200 people in northeast Iowa.

Now the stoops and haunts once occupied by Hispanics are being filled by about 150 Somali men.

Aydurus Farah, a 21-year-old who immigrated from Somalia in 2004, set out for work in meatpacking plants to make money for his family back home in Somalia.

He planned to begin work at Agriprocessors last week, drawn from Minneapolis to Postville by the promised wages.

http://www.cleveland.com/nation/index.ssf/2008/08/after_raid_somalis_replace_lat.html

[CornField]

49. Not entirely true -- other groups came before the Somali men

In particular, headhunters pulled people -- often ex-cons and recovering drug addicts -- from Texas homeless shelters and brought them to town to fill plant vacancies. It was only after the town balked, primarily due to severe increases in crime, that the practice waned.

The Somalis came on the back end of that development... as did men from tropical Palau.

[AlphaCentauri]

68. Well look like US citizens got their chance to get those jobs.

[Iggo]

9. But they got those dang brown people...

...and that's all that matters.

And it's not like they hurt any regular white folks. Just a bunch o' Jews and Jew-lovers.

God Bless America. A Christian Nation (Well, as long as you're a WHITE Christian, that is.)

[WriteDown]

12. Lame argument...

Illegal alien is still illegal regardless of color.

[Iggo]

21. Yeah, whatever....

[EFerrari]

22. Yeah, right. The next time ICE rounds up a bunch of white people

or the next time we invade a country populated by white people, get back to me.

[WriteDown]

23. Considering that statistically...

most illegal aliens are "brown" as are the majority of people around the world, the odds just work out that way. Then again, I've never seen a group of Germans living 15 to a house working construction for under the table cash.

[AlphaCentauri]

28. That means that Germans are more accepted because they are white?

[WriteDown]

33. That means that Germans adhere more to occupancy

and citizenship laws.

[AlphaCentauri]

36. Please don't tell me that because they are Caucasians they can get better jobs

and better salaries to afford bigger houses

[WriteDown]

38. Without socials?

That's a neat trick.

[AlphaCentauri]

39. So German illegals can't get better jobs without socials?

[WriteDown]

41. Doubtful...

Unless you want to work construction for a contractor. Across the pond in Germany where they have real progressive policies, they have extremely controlled immigration recognizing that their first responsibility is to German citizens. Probably why many Germans enjoy actually staying in Germany.

[AlphaCentauri]

42. Lower IQ Americans vs. Illegal Immigrants (Can't believe someone wrote this)

I was at a resort in Pennsylvania this month attending my niece’s wedding. I noticed that some of the staff in the restaurant at the serving stations seemed to have noticeably low IQs (in my judgment). They were polite and nice and did their jobs adequately, so there were no issues with me. It is just that you don’t run into people often anymore serving you, in restaurants or elsewhere, with noticeably low IQs.

My father, who is involved in economic development through a non-profit he runs in western PA, told me that many new restaurants are not opening because the investors determine that they cannot find enough suitable workers to staff the restaurants.

So this made me wonder about people with lower IQs and the struggles they have getting decent-paying jobs. A little known fact is that 25% of Americans have an IQ under 88. This raises an important question: Will employers even hire them?

The answer is - if no one else is available - then yes employers will hire lower IQ persons for various manual labor jobs. With the right training and oversight, low IQ people can do many jobs adequately. In the case of the resort I stayed in this month, perhaps this is just what happened. The managers of the resort would surely have preferred some higher IQ persons to do all of their jobs (who ever looks for lower IQ persons to do jobs except for charitable reasons?), but they settled for persons with lower IQs because that is all that they could find. If others are available with higher IQs (which tends to improve a worker’s productivity), employers will hire them first.

http://nospeedbumps.com/?p=1394

[WriteDown]

45. Cringe...

I shudder to think of the "criteria" you used to determine IQ.

[EFerrari]

52. Sorry, that's simply wrongheaded. Immigrants have bunked together

in every wave.

But thanks for telling me that white Germans are more law abiding than brown people. Is it their DNA, in your opinion?

[WriteDown]

54. Probably due to their own countries competent immigration

policies that make German's less likely to illegally immigrate anywhere. Try going to a German McDonald's. The cleanliness and stellar service will blow you away. Also, it seems that everyone who works there has a robust command of the German language.

[EFerrari]

56. Deutschland, Deutschland uber alles!

lol

[WriteDown]

Its an amazing place....

Sorry that you feel the need to denigrate it.

[EFerrari]

64. German has been spoken in Germany for hundreds of years longer

than English has been spoken in the United States. And most Europeans, unlike many Americans, aren't so provincial as to develop phobias about hearing foreign languages. They aren't nearly as anti-intellectual or anti-education as we tend to be.

[WriteDown]

71. Sounds like you've never been there...

Try being a Turk, Hungarian, or Romanian in Germany. They will not give you the most cordial greetings.

[EFerrari]

51. How old are you? When I was growing up in an Irish Catholic neighborhood

just outside of San Francisco, most of my Irish Catholic neighbors lived exactly that way.

[WriteDown]

53. Late 30's....

Interesting that you should mention San Francisco which is the definition of gentrification.

Regardless of who does it, it is wrong.

[EFerrari]

55. No, it's not wrong, it's survival. Unless you mean poverty is wrong

and then I'd agree entirely.

[WriteDown]

57. So we should ignore pesky things like occupancy laws....

seems like they are there for a reason. What other laws should we ignore?

[EFerrari]

59. Your priorities are upside down. And I say that as a landlord

who has to deal with tenants and their real lives all the time.

[WriteDown]

60. Yeah, priorities like fire safety, health concerns, etc...

are just old fashioned. Nothing like having 10 cars out front of a 2 bedroom house either.

[EFerrari]

62. Unless you put people first, fire safety and health safety don't mean anything.

[WriteDown]

63. Oookay...

I'm fairly certain that fire codes and health codes are putting the general populace first.

[EFerrari]

65. And I'm very familiar with anything on the books being used to disappear poor people

when a simpler solution would be easier and less expensive.

The United States has been selectively enforcing the law against black people since Emancipation. Against Native Americans long before that. This last bigoted wave of anti-Latino "law enforcement" is just that, the latest.

[WriteDown]

70. Yeah, because nothing bad ever happened from overcrowding

a structure. Occupancy laws are woefully under-enforced on all people. Sounds like you are making a bit of money as a landlord though, so its easy to see where you are coming from.

[JonQ]

76. What predominately "white" country

shares a border with the US and has between 10 and 20 million of its citizens here illegally at any given moment? You're trying to make this a race thing simply because most of those rounded up were "brown". When in fact that merely represents the demographics of those breaking the law. I'd wager most were catholic too, does that mean they're trying to wipe out catholicism in this country?

[MellowDem]

46. What a crock...

Do you always use such transparent crap to defend corporate greed?

The people who are replacing those Hispanics are legal Somali immigrants. So, I guess they got black people now instead of brown.

The people who got hurt were using illegal immigrants for cheap labor and basically as second class citizens, something that is much more bigoted than anything you're proposing.

But keep it up, corporate America thanks you for your volunteerism in defending them.

:puke:

[Betsy Ross]

10. Agriprocessors hurt the kosher consumer terribly.

Kosher meat from small, organic farmers has disappeared. Even the Friday night chicken can be difficult to find. The industry-wide production shift has impacted kosher consumers dramatically.

[proud2BlibKansan]

13. Just horrible

Make me ashamed to be an American.

[Blue_Tires]

14. they can't find any Americans to work there?

especially in this economy?

[bertman]

19. Great question, Blue_Tires. The meat-packing industry used to have some of the highest-paid

blue collar workers in America. They were unionized, got good wages and benefits, and paid taxes.

And then came the union-busting and importation of illegal immigrants to work for shit wages, no benefits, and with no legal recourse if they were screwed over.

But, hey, the profits went up for the corporations who engaged in this immoral and unpatriotic bullshit. And, most important of all, the campaign contributions to our Senators and Congresscritters went up, up, up.

God Bless America.

[AlphaCentauri]

29. See Post #27 no illegals there

[SomeGuyInEagan]

40. Demanding, dangerous work ...

... I grew up in the Waterloo-Cedar Falls (Iowa) area in the '70s and '80s, not far from Postville.

I remember reading somewhere that at one point mid-century, one-in-five families in Black Hawk county depended on Rath Packing in Waterloo for primary or sole income (Waterloo-Cedar Falls also had a strong manufacturing base with John Deere, Waterloo Industries, Viking Pump among employers, probably peaking in population around 150,000 - 175,000 around 1980 (my guess).

They all paid very good wages and had good benefits. Many of my classmates in elementary school through high school and into college had fathers and mothers who worked at Rath, John Deere, WI, Viking Pump, etc. In some cases, employment at Rath and Deere in particular went back generations. Not glamourous, demanding and sometimes dangerous (moreso in meat packing, I believe), not the fast track to riches, but good paying jobs (again, with benefits - the family medical plan at Deere was incredible) that could support a family with a middle class lifestyle, a retirement and the ability to set the table for the next generation.

Rath went under in the late '70s/early '80s (most of the plant buildings are still there, mostly empty last time I was there). Shortly after, the city of Waterloo was desperate for employers and gave a bunch of enticements to another meat packer to move into the city, this one paying low wages. Today, the meat packing industry is very low paying and very dangerous. Sinclair's "The Jungle" was written about the conditions for workers food industry at the turn of the last century. In many ways, we have slide back there again (read "Fast Food Nation" - that'll put you off meat for a good long while).

[Critters2]

72. DAmned Americans and their need for a decent wage! nt

[Hulk]

15. This is the sort of thing that the red necks LOVE to read....

This gives them a h*rd-on. Woot...we got some illegals, and we're gonna put them all in prisons and start the bus train back below the Rio Grande. Such simpletons.

People with a little more intelligence can see what impact this really has....far reaching and devastating! Families torn apart...towns turned up side down....businesses bankrupt. They won't get that bus train until they process each of these cases...costing the tax payers a ton of money, and the courts a ton of time. Meanwhile, all the affected people live in limbo...even worse than it was before.

Yup...dobbs would be so proud. But then, he's a piece of shit by any measure.

[imdjh]

43. The same thing could be said of a drug town getting busted. Bust Garberville and see what happens.

[JonQ]

77. Couldn't that same logic be applied to arresting any criminal?

Anyone arrested will cost this country money, will put their families lives in to disarray, etc.

I still think it's a good idea to have laws though, and a legal system and some way of enforcing all that. As opposed to say, living in someplace like somalia.

[madrchsod]

16. they hired latinos that would work in conditions no one else would

then they hired the homeless and out of work from texas and they refused to work ,and then they hired ethiopians from minnesota. i guess these scumbags ran out of people who would work for them.

[madrchsod]

17. a du member that posted about the cedar rapids fair ground...

being fenced and razor wired. the post was at least a week or two before the raid....

[WriteDown]

18. ?

And the point is?

[madrchsod]

20. the point is...someone here at du noticed something...

one or two weeks later we know why.

[WriteDown]

24. A lot of fairgrounds have razor wire around them....

as do a lot of mechanics. Must be the Illuminati. :eyes:

[EFerrari]

58. I remember that. It was less than two weeks. n/t

[CornField]

50. Could not have happened

The detainees from Postville were taken from there to the National Cattle Congress (fairgrounds facility) in Waterloo. It was public knowledge at least a week to 10 days prior to the raid that ICE had rented the facility and was supposedly planning "training exercises" on the site. The Waterloo fairgrounds did have temporary additions -- concrete walls, fencing, etc. Many in the Hispanic community were nervous, but most believed the target would be one of the larger employers in the immediate Waterloo area. (Tyson being one)

Although the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Iowa is headquartered in Cedar Rapids, there was no fairgrounds in that town that was prepared or used for temporary holding of detainees. Once the detainees went through preliminary hearings, many were farmed out to local county jails. At that point, it is likely that the Linn County (Cedar Rapids) jail had some housed there -- but that would not have been any type of long-term arrangement, due to the June 2008 massive flooding in Cedar Rapids that closed the jail.

[roody]

25. Wine country, California, would be decimated also if

all the people without papers were shipped off.

[ima_sinnic]

31. because Americans don't want those jobs? (n/t)

[roody]

35. Mexican immigrants are Americans.

They are even North Americans. I don't know how many US citizens apply to prune and pick grapes. The pay sucks and no benefits. I am amazed at how the immigrant families survive economically. Notice that the union-busting came before the job turned into one for an immigrant.

[imdjh]

44. Another translation - "would be 'decimated' if labor laws were enforced"

That's really what it comes down to. People who hire illegal immigrants are simply hiring people who aren't legally eligible to live and work in the US- they're violating labor laws.

Agricultural and food processing employers will employ illegals under the table, and avoid payroll taxes because the illegals won't go to Labor Department when they get fed up. If you hire a bunch of Americans under the table, they will eventually figure out that they have more on you than you do on them.

The solution is to make the violation of these laws as painful on the employers as it is on the employees. That means that Joe's Drive In get's fined $100,000 for an illegal employee and TGI Friday's get's fined $2,000,000 for an illegal employee. That will put a stop to it right quick.

[AlphaCentauri]

69. Union leader says Agriprocessors raid shows need for immigration reform

Lauritsen says the immigration reform would help rebuild the economy. Lauritsen says the reform should be part of the economic recovery package and should move illegals "out of the shadows" to become full participants in our society. He says we must punish employers like Agriprosscesors "who ganged the immigration system to drive down wages and working conditions to bring an end once and for all to this cycle of exploitation of the working men and women in this country."

Lauritsen says a good thing that might come out of the Postville situation is that it gives the U.S. a chance to change immigration laws and "change the course of history." Lauritsen made his comments on a conference call with reporters discussing Tuesday's one-year anniversary of the Agriprocessors raid.

http://www.radioiowa.com/gestalt/go.cfm?objectid=31781C33-5056-B82A-37AEC8D84CD93F34

[Romulox]

32. "Agriprocessors charged with over 9,000 child labor law violations"

http://iowaindependent.com/5235/agriprocessors-charged-with-9000-child-labor-law-violations

The OP has a LOT of compassion (for the bosses). Not so much for child labor. :shrug:

[Robbien]

37. Perhaps there is a misunderstanding?

As the OP, I can assure you there was no compassion for the bosses intended in the posting of this thread.

The bosses recruited undocumented workers from the southern countries and placed them in deplorable working conditions and paid them slave wages while the bosses raked in million dollar bonuses and lived in luxury.

The raid hurt the workers many of whom are right now sitting in for profit jail cells while the bosses were free to go recruit replacement workers from other poor countries. Only later did the justice system finally get off their butts and start going after the bosses.

This entire situation was totally mishandled by ICE, justice and town officials. The people who were hurt the most were the undocumented workers.

[Romulox]

47. Part of what was "disrupted" in Postville was rampant child labor violations.

When you critique enforcement of our labor laws without offering an alternative because they "decimate" the illegal labor force assembled by these disgusting employers, you're lending tacit support to these exploitative labor practices.

[Romulox]

73. Your silence speaks volumes. No misunderstanding, I'm sure. nt

[LanternWaste]

61. I imagine to many people...

I imagine to many people, the death of a small town is little more than an asterisk when it comes to those all-important imaginary red and blue lines on maps and who should be allowed to live on which side of the imaginary...

[Hannah Bell]

66. more fucking the workers. when labor's tight, bring in foreign workers to hold down wages.

when the bubble bursts, arrest & deport them. historical pattern, nothing changes but the acronyms.

all they do is screw us, all of us, including foreign workers.

[MellowDem]

67. That's what happens

when the only real business in a small town employs illegals to avoid having to follow labor laws or pay good wages. I'm not shedding any tears.

You know, things got worse for many slaves after the Civil War and the end of slavery, but when you're striving for real justice, sometimes things have to get worse before they get better.

I don't blame the town, mostly the corporation, but the town and Americans in general have been turning a blind eye to having second class citizens among us in exchange for cheap labor and cheap products. It's a bad trade off all around.

[Romulox]

74. 1865 Headline: Union Soldiers Disrupt Southern Agricultural Town! nt

[MellowDem]

75. Exactly nt