Politics led to Postville raid, Democrat alleges

By TONY LEYS
tleys@dmreg.com

Postville, Ia. - The Bush administration tried to score political points by ordering unusually harsh penalties for hundreds of undocumented workers swept up in an immigration raid here, an Illinois congressman said Saturday.

"I think they're kowtowing to the most xenophobic, anti-immigrant heart and base of the Republican Party because there's an election coming up," Rep. Luis Gutierrez said.

The Chicago Democrat made the allegation in an interview after an emotional meeting with about 100 people at St. Bridget's Catholic Church.

He said top White House officials actually favor reforming immigration laws to make it easier for workers to come here, but they ordered the May raid so it would look like they were cracking down. A federal Department of Homeland Security spokesman later called Gutierrez's allegations "preposterous."

Gutierrez and two other members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus spent three hours listening to former Agriprocessors workers tell about mistreatment by the meatpacking-plant's managers and by federal officials who arrested 389 people at the facility.

Several teenagers said that they took production-line jobs at Agriprocessors when they were 14 or 15, and that they often worked grueling shifts lasting 12 hours or more. Other people said that in order to gain better jobs or hours, workers had to pay bribes, buy overpriced cars or give sexual favors to managers.

The raid, the biggest in U.S. history, led to five-month jail sentences, then deportation, for most of those arrested.

Many of the people at Saturday's meeting were mothers who were arrested, then let go with electronic tracking bracelets on their ankles.

"They say it's humanitarian, but it's not, really," one of the women, Maria Laura Gomez-Solove, said. The women aren't allowed to work, so they have to rely on the church to help them pay for food and rent.

Reached for comment after the meeting, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security denied politics motivated the raid or prosecutions. Russ Knocke, whose agency oversees immigration enforcement, said the allegation is "completely unfounded." He said the White House does not direct where raids happen or how those arrested are prosecuted. He said those decisions are made by immigration officers and prosecutors, based on the circumstances.

Gutierrez said federal authorities filed unfairly tough criminal charges against the workers. He said most of the workers were charged with aggravated criminal identity theft, which means they allegedly stole someone's Social Security number with the intent to gain something, such as a credit card.

"Well we haven't heard testimony here that anybody did anything with Social Security cards other than going to work," he said.

Gomez-Solove said most of the workers were poor, uneducated Guatemalans who didn't know what a Social Security card was.

Union organizer Jerry Messer said the Agriprocessors plant has the worst working conditions he has ever seen. Messer's union, the United Food and Commercial Workers, has been trying to organize the plant. He called for criminal charges against members of the Rubashkin family, who own the company.

When asked for a response, Menachem Lubinsky, a consultant representing Agriprocessors, said Messer should not be calling for such charges. "It's not his call. In this country, those things are based on evidence."
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