Thread: 1,000 rally against immigration raid in N.E. Iowa town

1,000 rally against immigration raid in N.E. Iowa town

The biggest operation of its kind in the U.S. netted 400 arrests at a kosher meatpacking plant

By HENRY C. JACKSON
Associated Press

POSTVILLE, Iowa — About a thousand protesters descended on a small town in northeastern Iowa on Sunday, decrying the raid of a meatpacking plant that arrested nearly 400 residents and calling for a change in federal immigration policies.

Postville, a town with about 2,200 residents, was pushed to the forefront of a national debate when federal immigration officials raided Agriprocessors — the nation's biggest kosher meatpacking plant — in May in the largest raid of its kind in the United States. Most of those arrested were Guatemalan and Mexican nationals who lived in the area.

Sunday's protesters — many arriving by bus from the Twin Cities and Chicago — circled the streets of Postville on a route about a mile long. Some clutched banners and signs such as one that read, "United for immigrant and worker rights."

Rabbi Harold Kravitz, of the Adath Jeshurun Congregation in Minnetonka, Minn., spoke when the rally paused near the driveway of Agriprocessors, on the outskirts of town.

Shouting into a portable microphone, he said the protesters wanted to stop the criminalization of people who come to the U.S. simply to make a living.

"People have come here from Minneapolis, Wisconsin, Chicago, New York and New Jersey ... because we care," Kravitz said.

The rally also drew about 75 anti-immigration protesters.

Claire Jamison, who said she'd traveled from Minneapolis, wore a hat emblazoned with a U.S. Border Patrol logo and held a sign reading, "What would Jesus do? Obey the law."

"I'm just so fed up as an American. We have laws. Why can't they obey our laws?" Jamison said. "I empathize with those people, but they are not victims. They should not have even been here."

About a half-dozen Agriprocessors workers stood watching the rally from just inside the company's gates.

Getzel Rubashkin, an Agriprocessors employee and a member of the family that owns it, approached reporters outside the plant as the rally moved on. He said it was unfair to blame his family and Agriprocessors for the raid and suggested that unspecified competitors and enemies of the plant were behind the enforcement action.

"Agriprocessors doesn't have a position on immigration reform ... it's a business," Rubashkin said, emphasizing that he was not speaking on behalf of the company.

Many residents appeared largely supportive of the workers.

Cindy Moser, 53, from nearby Elkader, said her daughter and son-in-law were marching while she watched her two grandchildren.

"If they want to come and work here I say fine," Moser said. "We all saw the effect of this. My grandson, he told me, 'Grandma, they took my friends away.' I hope this stops."

Resident Dave Hartley, 50, said he didn't fault protesters for coming to his town to make their point.

"It's not their fault," he said. "It just didn't need to get to this, to a boiling point. People knew what was going on in there, in Agriprocessors, and this could have been dealt with another way."

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5910417.html

If this 400 arrested illegal criminal aliens had 3 more illegal criminal aliens and/or associate who aid and abet then 1000 would be easy to pull together and be upset for a march on POSTVILLE, Iowa.

KEEP GOING ICE....

Iowa Rally Protests Raid and Conditions at Plant
By JULIA PRESTON
Published: July 28, 2008

POSTVILLE, Iowa — About 1,000 people, including Hispanic immigrants, Catholic clergy members, rabbis and activists, marched through the center of this farm town on Sunday and held a rally at the entrance to a kosher meatpacking plant that was raided in May by immigration authorities.

In Postville, Iowa, people protested working conditions at a kosher meatpacking plant that was raided in May by immigration authorities.

The march was called to protest working conditions in the plant, owned by Agriprocessors Inc., and to call for Congressional legislation to give legal status to illegal immigrants. The four rabbis, from Minnesota and Wisconsin, attended the march to publicize proposals to revise kosher food certification to include standards of corporate ethics and treatment of workers.

The march drew a counterprotest by about 150 people, organized by the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which opposes illegal immigrants and proposals to give them legal status.

At one point, tension surged as the two sides shouted slogans at each other through bullhorns from opposite sidewalks of the main street of this town with a population of about 2,200. The marchers said, “Stop the raids!â€

Hundreds protest immigration raid in small-town America

by Jens Krogstad
1 hour, 32 minutes ago



Led by 43 women with electronic tracking bracelets on their ankles, hundreds of people from around the country marched down main street here Sunday to protest the biggest immigration raid in US history at a kosher meat plant that has split this tiny Iowa town asunder.

Released from jail so they can take care of their families, the 43 women out front were among 390 mainly Guatemalan and Mexican workers arrested by federal agents May 12 at the Agriprocessors meat factory and charged with identity theft.

It was the biggest raid on a workplace in US history, as part of the government's crackdown on illegal immigration, a hot-button issue nationally three months ahead of the US presidential election.

The demonstrators marched through Postville's tree-lined streets past Jewish stores and Mexican restaurants, drowning out the shouts of about 100 anti-immigration protesters with chants of "No more raids!"

The arrests have torn families apart, devastated local businesses, especially those serving Hispanics, and left what was before the raid the country's largest kosher meat processing plant operating at only 50 percent capacity.

Maria Laura Gomez, a former plant worker, has looked after her nephew for months while her mother sits in prison.

"My prayer is the words here today will be heard in the halls of power," she said. "I see the pain in my nephew's eyes when he visits his mother in jail."

The protest is not only directed against the anti-immigration movement, but also the meat plant itself, which over the years has left a long trail of workplace safety and environmental violations, including amputations and spilling 40,000 gallons of turkey blood into a nearby stream.

Hundreds from the Jewish communities of Chicago and Minneapolis drove for hours to Postville to publicly decry the plant's owners, who are accused of abusing the workers.

Before the march, which snaked its way to the main entrance of the plant, religious leaders held a prayer vigil in English, Spanish and Hebrew.

Listening to the service on loudspeakers with an overflow crowd on the lawn of Postville's Catholic church, Abbey Romanek, from Chicago, said the plant is a black eye on her Jewish faith.

"I'm embarrassed and ashamed at the way Agriprocessors has treated its workers," she said. "I don't think its kosher meat. I think they're pulling a farce on the Jews of this country."

Two supervisors at the meat plant have been arrested, and the plant's owners remain under investigation.

An estimated 12 million illegal immigrants inside the United States has become a key issue for Democratic and Republican White House contenders Barack Obama and John McCain.

Both are wooing the vote of the legal Hispanic community of about 45 million people, or 15 percent of the US population.

In this small but extraordinarily diverse town of 2,300, the crackdown has less to do with votes than with the fragile social fabric.

Although illegal, the workers and their families were an important segment of the community.

School officials anticipate many empty seats when classes resume in the fall, with students' mothers and fathers now in jail.

Town leaders said that legal workers have meanwhile taken over the vacant jobs, but many are single men with no ties to the community.

And the Postville police said the town's relatively quiet evenings are a thing of the past. Now, they regularly respond to calls of public intoxication and drunken brawls on Friday nights.

"The Hispanic families are the ones who make our community and our schools," said Postville Mayor Robert Penrod.

http://news.yahoo.com

From a Minnesota news source.
~~

Iowa immigration rallies draw locals
By Mark Fischenich
Free Press Staff Writer


July 28, 2008 12:53 am

— Ruthie Hendrycks and Ernesto Bustos each made the long drive to Postville, Iowa, Sunday because of their passionate interest in the immigration controversy.
Despite the 350-mile round-trip, however, they didn’t share a ride.
Hendrycks, of rural Hanska, is the founder and president of an organization that adamantly opposes illegal immigration and isn’t predisposed to large numbers of legal immigrants either.
Bustos, a former Minnesota State University student and community organizer in Owatonna, believes current immigrants — legal and illegal — are an integral part of the American economy and are just the latest chapter in a centuries-old story of American immigration going back to Plymouth Rock.
Both were drawn to Postville for a rally organized by Jewish and Catholic leaders to express support for immigration reform and fair labor practices for existing immigrants. The small Iowa town was the site of the massive raid in May by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, who arrested nearly 400 workers at a meatpacking plant.
Bustos, who works for Centro Campesino, was there in support of the rally, offering workshops on immigration history in an attempt to connect Americans to the immigrant roots of their ancestors. He said more than 800 people demonstrated their support for the children, relatives and friends of the arrested workers.
“There is a strong message of community and unity sent to the families,â€

Shouting into a portable microphone, he said the protesters wanted to stop the criminalization of people who come to the U.S. simply to make a living.

What a bunch of crap why the hell aren't Americans protesting in the streets against this non sense.

I was pleasantly surprised all the news articles were fairly balanced especially the New York Times.

CBS Evening News did a story on Postville Sundaynight but it was Pro-Illegal.

http://freedomfolks.com/

Freedomfolks has pictures and commentary up. They always manage to capture the usual! I bet they'll have more tomorrow.