Hundreds arrested in Iowa immigration raid
By Nigel Duara and William Petroski, The Des Moines Register
POSTVILLE, Iowa — A raid by federal immigration officials at the nation's largest kosher meatpacking plant may have resulted in as many as 700 arrests, immigration officials said Monday
Agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement entered the Agriprocessors Inc. complex in northeast Iowa Monday morning to execute a criminal search warrant for evidence relating to aggravated identity theft, fraudulent use of Social Security numbers and other crimes, said Tim Counts, a Midwest ICE spokesman.
Agents are also executing a civil search warrant for people illegally in the United States, he said.
Immigration officials told aides to Rep. Bruce Braley, D-Iowa, that they expect 600 to 700 arrests. About 1,000 to 1,050 people work at the plant, according to Iowa Workforce Development, the state's employment services agency.
Chuck Larson, a truck driver for Agriprocessing, was in the plant when the agents arrived. "There has to be 100 of them," he said of the agents.
Larson said the agents told workers to stay in place then separated them by asking those with identification to stand to the right and those with other papers, to stand to the left.
"There was plenty of hollering," Larson said. "You couldn't go anywhere."
When asked who was separated, Larson said those standing in the group with other papers were all Hispanic.
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ICE spokesman Harold Ort in Postville did not confirm or deny that anyone had been detained, but went on to say that the children of those detained would be cared for and that "their caregiver situation will be addressed."
"They were asked multiple times if they have any sole-caregiver issues or any childcare issues," Ort said.
Aides to Braley said they have been told that "hundreds" of arrests are expected because the action is more of an "investigation" than an immigration raid, and specific individuals are being targeted for arrest as part of the investigation.
Counts described the events in Postville as a "single site operation." He said he was not aware of any other immigration raids being conducted elsewhere Monday.
Postville Police Chief Michael Halse said he did not know anything about the raid until Monday morning.
Postville is a community of more than 2,500 people that includes natives of German and Norwegian heritage and newcomers who include Hasidic Jews from New York, plus immigrants from Mexico, Russian, Ukraine and many other countries.
The Agriprocessors plant, known as the nation's largest kosher slaughterhouse, is northeast Iowa's largest employer.
About 200 Hasidic Jews arrived in Postville in 1987, when butcher Aaron Rubashkin of Brooklyn's Crown Heights neighborhood reopened a defunct meat-packing plant with his two sons, Sholom and Heshy, just outside the city limits. Business boomed at the plant, reviving the depressed economy while pitting the newcomers against the predominantly Lutheran community.
Former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack said that the Postville immigration investigations were warranted despite concerns that federal official violated the constitutional rights of people in past raids.
"Remember our concern has not been about whether or not there should be raids," Vilsack said. "It's the way the raids have been conducted and the way in which American citizens' rights have been violated by virtue of sort of a roundup process that's used and what we think are inappropriate and unconstitutional actions on the part of immigration officials."
Vilsack and others have alleged that immigration officials used humiliation, opposite-sex searches and long periods of secrecy in the Dec. 12, 2006, raids at Swift & Co. in Marshalltown, Iowa, where 90 people were arrested on immigration charges.
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Contributing: Jane Norman, The Des Moines Register
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1 comment:
Oh please if more of the people on their pedastals would jump off for a moment and understand how hard this job truley is they would shut up. They should be thanking I.C.E., for saving them from "illegal" immigrants. Most of these people that are not documented there is a reason, usually they have committed crimes and have been deported or are running from the "hands of the law" avoiding prosecution. You see I know lots of them and they come over with different identities issued to them from corrupt offices in Mexico and avoid the states that they have committed their crimes in the past. So if you want to defend the people who may kill you and flee the country only to aquire another identity and come back, go ahead. (where are the human rights of Americans?) And the parents that bring their children into America knowing full well they are not legal, therefore should not be here, are at fault for the trauma to their own children when I.C.E. deports them. I say hold these parents responsible for their actions and making their illegal children go through the process, they are at fault more so. What happen to the concept that the children stay with grandparents or family while the parents are in America working and sending money home for them, and returning when their temporary resident has ran out, oh yeah, they don't plan on going home. Instead, taking advantage of over staying your visa or using fake information (identity theft) to file taxes and gain the full benefits for dependents at the same time, by taking advantage of social services offered to America's poor. "Stealing is stealing" and "Illegal is illegal" no matter how you try to powder puff it, use the cranal muscle and think more clearly. Look up "los zetas" and you will understand the "war against Americans" that those innocent creatures have in store for America.
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