Back to web version Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Posted on Mon, May. 19, 2008
Are immigration raids really doing what backers claim?
By MARY SANCHEZ
The Kansas City Star
The federal government has been hard at work in Iowa lately.

In May, federal officials quietly leased a huge cattle complex in Waterloo, Iowa. Soon citizens were speculating about what might possibly be coming to the National Cattle Congress fairgrounds. A simulation exercise for federal officials to practice responding to an incident of mass terrorism?

Soon it was learned that the acreage was to be used as a giant holding facility. The stock would be human. On May 12, federal agents raided the Agriprocessors kosher meatpacking plant in the tiny nearby town of Postville, hauling in 390 immigrant workers, the majority from Guatemala. Most were accused of working illegally in the United States.

Postville, federal officials boasted, is the largest immigration raid in history — so far.

Clearly, such “operationsâ€