Thread: Iowa raid remains a flashpoint in immigration debate

Iowa raid remains a flashpoint in immigration debate

By Mike McGraw
The Kansas City Star

POSTVILLE, Iowa — If there is an epicenter in the shifting, emotionally charged debate over U.S. immigration policy, it is here, amid some of the richest soil on Earth.

That alluvial black dirt nurtures corn, beef cattle, chickens and turkeys, which require massive slaughterhouses. And that in turn nurtures a lively trade in the illegal immigrants willing to work in them.

All that ended in Postville a year ago today, when two government helicopters and some 900 immigration agents descended on this town of 2,200 and rounded up nearly 400 illegal immigrants working at a nearby meatpacking plant.

Believed to be the second-largest workplace immigration raid in U.S. history, it cost taxpayers $5.2 million, according to one estimate; it terrified workers and their families; and it left economic devastation in its wake.

"I am not angry at the people who do not want us here," said a weeping Nohemi Hurtado, who is from Mexico and earned $7.50 an hour cleaning the hair from beef carcasses at nearby Agriprocessors. "It is their country, but I just ask God that I can stay."

Hurtado and the others – mostly Guatemalans – were prosecuted for violating U.S. immigration laws, then scheduled for what the government now calls "removal."

"I am disturbed that local religious leaders in Postville seem to think it is immoral to arrest people who violated federal laws," said Roy Beck, president of NumbersUSA, a group that believes in limiting immigration.

Beck said he believed the detainees were being treated humanely despite claims from local religious leaders to the contrary.

While the raid answered the prayers of millions of Americans on the anti-immigration side of the debate, it fed the passions of millions of others who are lobbying for leniency toward undocumented workers.

To read the complete article, visit www.kansascity.com.

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Comments: 8


FletcherFramer wrote on May 12, 3:54 PM:
The law should be applied equally - those individuals that are here illegally should be subject to arrest and deportation AND those employers who knowingly hire illegals or recklessly fail to determine citizenship should also be prosecuted. It shouldn't be "either or".

The excuse that they are "only here to feed their families" just doesn't cut it. Years ago, when I had 2 young kids and a wife to support and got laid off I could have turned to selling drugs and made the excuse that " I was only doing it to feed my family". I didn't take that shortcut. I found honest, legal work.

It should be pointed out that illegals who are here working often break other laws, too. Like perjury, when they file a W-4 form with a fake SS number. This often causes difficulties for the legitimate owners of those SS numbers. And they take employment opportunities away from citizens and legal immigrant workers.

After arrest - the plant owners and execs could afford good lawyers. Not so illegals.


capnmike wrote on May 12, 10:26 AM:
Ariel...I am neither "racist" nor "xenophobic"...my wife is a Venezuelan Immigrant...probably a whole lot darker than YOU! We did it LEGALLY! But you love name-calling, don't you!

If 20 million people massed at the Mexican border and started marching into the US, we would call out the National Guard and Army to repel them, and rightfully so. Just because they did it a dozen at a time does not mean it is any less of an invasion. Invasion is NOT a "military" term...Not a single one of these people possesses an "invitation" from an American Business. There are legal ways of entering the US...but they require a background check, which many of these illegals would not pass...because many of them are criminals. Oh yes, and people like you don't want to prosecute Bush officials who aided and abetted torture, because after all it was only Ay-rabs that got tortured, not real humans.


jtak101 wrote on May 12, 10:25 AM:
There we go again, some bleeding heart idiot calling the enforcement of our immigration laws "racist". What exactly is racist about it??. I suppose arresting an African American bank robber is racist also??.

Ariel wrote on May 12, 9:19 AM:
capnmike wrote "The foundation of the United States of America is that we are supposedly a nation of law. Not some arbitrary laws meted out for political advantage, or favoritism, or unequally. The law is the law."

Under your reasoning, we must ticket everyone who goes 1 mph over the speed limit. We must prosecute for tax fraud everyone who claims even $1 of unjustified deductions on their tax returns. We must prosecute every Bush Administration official who in any way aided and abetted torture. Right? That's what you argue for.

These people did not invade our country. Invasion is a military term. You must be really scared of Mexicans to use it. These people are here at the express invitation of American business. They are not illegal people.

You lost your racist, xenophobic battle. America has left you and yours behind. Get used to it.

toolman28 wrote on May 12, 9:16 AM:
To Bad - The only way to stop this is to send to PRISON empoyers that hire them - and not some middle manager - send the CEO to Prison
when that happens it will stop


Ariel wrote on May 12, 9:08 AM:
The only real way to use legal sanctions to reduce the number of undocumented workers is employer sanctions. The first people to be arrested should have been the managers of the plant. The gov't should have seized the plant from its owners. Any criminal liability should have been imposed on the managers and owners. Going after the workers is like going after the mules in the drug trade while ignoring the leaders of the drug rings.

Arresting workers may make the anti-immigrant xenophobia crowd feel good. But arresting the owners will actually accomplish something.

Anyone like Roy Beck of NumbersUSA who doesn't support employer sanctions as the primary law enforcement tool against undocumented workers is raving hypocrite.

But then, most conservatives are.


capnmike wrote on May 12, 9:05 AM:
The foundation of the United States of America is that we are supposedly a nation of law. Not some arbitrary laws meted out for political advantage, or favoritism, or unequally. The law is the law. Lately various people seem to think it's OK to bend or break the law if you are rich and famous (OJ Simpson) or powerful (George W. Bush, Richard Cheney) or enough people feel sorry for you (illegal immigrants)...if this sort of thinking prevails, what good is our Constitution? What is the basis of our country? Those nations who apply their laws arbitrarily, dictatorships like Nazi Germany and Venezuela, and theocracies like Iran, show by their examples that this plain does not work. These people are lawbreakers. They have invaded America, their first act in their "new country" being the breaking of our laws. There are ways to enter legally, and they have chosen not to do so. They must be deported..


kpk wrote on May 12, 9:04 AM:
Wow! Do you think there was enough agents on hand? Who did they think they were rounding up-----a bunch of gun runners. I seems to me that we have a group of people (INS) that have WAY to much time on there hands!!!! And when do you think the citizens of this country will figure out that the illegals here are not looking for a hand out but only for WORK!!!!

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/67973.html

Related I believe
12 Jewish Congressmen blast Agriprocessor Pres/Rabbi
http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-133121-postville.html