Iowa raid helps shape immigration debate

Jens Manuel Krogstad, USA TODAY9:41 p.m. EDT May 9, 2013

Federal agents no longer enter workplaces with guns drawn as they did at the Postville Agriprocessors plant, and they no longer haul out hundreds of workers in splashy and expensive shows of force.

Story Highlights
Agriprocessors was raided on May 12, 2008
Raid devastated town's economy, galvanized immigrants and their advocates
Senate debating bipartisan immigration bill

DES MOINES, Iowa -- Fallout from a historic raid on a kosher meatpacking plant in northeast Iowa five years ago continues to shape the nation's immigration debate, several experts said.

Memories and lessons from the May 12, 2008, raid at the Agriprocessors plant in Postville are seen in current federal enforcement strategies as well as the immigration reform debate, they said.

"Postville was the turning point in the deportation-only approach to dealing with immigrants here illegally," said Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., who visited the town after the raid. "The raid and the broad community destruction was a preview of what deporting 11 or 12 million immigrants and their families would look like."

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Opened in 1987 by butcher Aaron Rubashkin, Agriprocessors blossomed into the nation's largest kosher meatpacking plant.

Over the years, immigrants from around the globe settled in Postville, which called itself the "Hometown to the World." The first wave of workers arrived from the former Soviet Union. Next came Mexicans in the 1990s, followed by Guatemalans in the early 2000s.

At its peak, Agriprocessors employed nearly 1,000 workers in a town with a population of about 2,200.

The 2008 raid has had a lasting effect on immigration enforcement. Federal agents no longer enter workplaces with guns drawn. They no longer haul out hundreds of workers in splashy and expensive shows of force.

A bipartisan immigration bill proposed in the Senate last month allocated billions of dollars to law enforcement, most of it along the border.

Money has not been allocated for federal agents to apprehend immigrants at workplaces and in homes located far from the border, said Steven Camarota, research director at Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, D.C. The group favors restricting immigration levels.

"It's clear they don't want anything to do with it," said Camarota, who supports workplace raids because he believes they deter illegal immigration.

The raids, regardless of their effectiveness, produced an intense political backlash, resulting in a bipartisan aversion to the enforcement strategy, he and other experts said.

Judicial process criticized

Postville was the most notorious of the previous decade's large raids, several experts said.

It remains the only one that resulted in the mass criminal prosecution of immigrants, and a congressional hearing that investigated the actions of federal law enforcement, prosecutors and the judge involved.

The raid on Agriprocessors — still one of the largest in history — shocked and galvanized immigrants, their advocates and some in Congress. People pushed back against what they described as a misguided and inhumane response by law enforcement to what, at its core, was a failure of immigration policy, said Margaret Stock, an attorney in Anchorage, Alaska, who has testified before Congress on immigration and homeland security issues.

"It was a military-style raid, so it reminded people visually of some sort of terrorist incident; there were helicopters, people with flack vests," Stock said. "We expect to see this kind of thing when there's a terrorist incident, but not when it's a group of indigenous people from Central America trying to support their families."

The judicial process was also criticized, and like the raid itself has not attempted again. The 389 workers arrested were processed at a temporary federal court set up at the National Cattle Congress in Waterloo. More than 300 served jail time instead of being deported, then the usual procedure.

Critics said plea deals that expired one week after the workers' arrests pressured them to accept the deal without seeking further legal advice. Dozens of those deported under the process later received a special visa for crime victims and have returned to the U.S.

In the end, nearly one-fifth of Postville's estimated 2,200 residents were removed in a matter of hours, devastating the local economy and community. With the town's main employer struggling to stay open, lines grew at the food pantry. The plant eventually closed and then re-opened under new ownership.

"Overall, the way it was handled by the federal government was tremendously overbearing," Stock said.

Feds audit verification

While large-scale immigration raids have stopped, deportations have increased to record levels under President Barack Obama.

A focus on deporting immigrants with criminal histories has resulted in a new strategy. A program called Secure Communities allows the names of those arrested by local police to be run through a federal immigration database.

Workplaces, meanwhile, are subject to "desk raids." Agents audit federal worker verification forms for valid Social Security numbers. If discrepancies are found, business owners must fire the worker and pay a fine of up to $1,100 per worker, said Amy Peck, an immigration attorney in Omaha, Neb.

The number of audits has quadrupled over the past four years, Peck said. That total could continue to grow, because the Senate's immigration bill provides more resources for workplace audits.

"Employers not hearing this message are going to get in trouble," Peck said.

To see just how far out of favor workplace raids have fallen, look to some of the more than 300 amendments proposed to the Senate immigration bill that are being considered this week, experts say.

Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley, ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, filed 77 amendments. Several of his amendments focus on additional border enforcement. The original bill provides about $7 billion for border security.

Elected officials' aversion to workplace raids doesn't surprise Josie Gonzalez, a Pasadena, Calif., immigration attorney who has represented employers for nearly 30 years.

Besides splitting up families and harming communities, she said such raids are expensive. The Postville raid cost federal taxpayers more than $5 million, according to government figures.

"We've realized over the past five years, massive raids are not a good enforcement tactic," Hernandez said. "They're a wasteful use of government resources.

Jens Manuel Krogstad also reports for The Des Moines Register

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/n...ebate/2149039/