Thread: Postville decimated by immigration raid one year ago

Article published: May 10, 2009
Postville decimated by immigration raid one year ago

For flat-broke landlord Gabay Menahem, the dog and cat feces littering one of his many vacant rental units symbolizes post-immigration-raid life in Postville.

The word he uses to describe the litter sounds incongruous coming from a learned member of the town's Orthodox Jewish community, but Menahem can hardly be blamed for letting slip the occasional epithet. He's lost a fortune in the year since federal agents raided kosher meatpacker Agriprocessors Inc.

His 3-1/2-year-old business, GAL Investments Ltd., generated monthly revenue of $192,000 before the May 12, 2008, raid that plunged Postville into an economic recession months ahead of the rest of the nation. Now, with just 19 of his 129 rental units occupied, Menahem took in $16,000 last month — a fraction of his expenses.

Like many other Postville residents, Menahem suffers the ill effects of what local clergy describe as a government-inflicted disaster comparable to the floods and tornadoes that ravaged other parts of Iowa last year.

The arrests of 389 Agriprocessors workers and the tearing apart of their families, followed by criminal charges against plant supervisors, including former top executive Sholom Rubashkin, plunged the town's leading employer into bankruptcy and a shutdown that put hundreds more employees out of work.

"Drive down main street, and you'll see the condition of Postville. Five businesses have closed, and more are in the process," said the Rev. Paul Ouderkirk, a leader in the Catholic Church's ministry to Postville's Latino community.

Hispanic attendance at Postville's St. Bridget Catholic Church, he said, declined sharply after the raid, which led to the deportation of hundreds of mostly Guatemalan and Mexican workers.
A year later, St. Bridget's Hispanic Ministry is still caring for 30 families, most of which include members awaiting court hearings, and Ouderkirk said the ministry has hired a psychiatric counselor to help church wards cope with stress caused by the raid and its aftermath.

Departing laid-off workers, some embittered by their Postville experience, left many of the town's rental units in shambles.

Menahem's property was trashed, he said, by transients recruited after the raid, not by the longer term Agriprocessors employees who had put down roots in the community. The loss of those productive, stable and family-oriented workers may prove to be one of the greatest downsides of the raid, Menahem and Ouderkirk say.

As for GAL Investments, "The company is long gone, man. There's nothing to save," Menahem said.

"A year ago it was impossible to buy a house in Postville. Now there are 228 houses for sale out of 700 total," said Menahem, who describes the town as "a sinking ship."

Mayor Leigh Rekow, who was appointed in April after Robert Penrod resigned, said the city has struggled financially since the raid and the subsequent virtual shutdown of Agriprocessors, which employed more than 900 full-time workers a year ago and now has about 350 part-time workers.
On June 1, the city likely will be unable to make its twice-annual $167,000 payment to the U.S. Department of Agriculture on the mechanical wastewater treatment plant built specifically to process wastes from the kosher plant.

City Clerk/Administrator Darcy Radloff said the USDA has denied the city's request to defer payments for at least a year while the future of the bankrupt plant is resolved.

Bankruptcy trustee Joseph Sarachek said he is confident the plant will be purchased by a responsible new owner but acknowledged that delay is one of the strategies employed by potential buyers to drive down the price.

Rekow said the town's most pressing problems include the hundreds of vacant and deteriorating housing units; an anticipated decline in the value of housing stock, with a corresponding reduction in property tax receipts; and a sharp decline in receipts for the municipal water utility.

Radloff said the city has assessed unpaid utility bills totaling $60,000 to Menahem's GAL Investments and another $24,000 to Nevel Properties Corp., a Rubashkin-owned company in Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

The town's economic plight is further illustrated in the decline of sales tax revenues since the raid.

In the quarter ending Dec. 31 — the last period for which data is available — the state collected $3,806,482 in sales tax from Postville businesses, down 27.3 percent from the comparable year-earlier figure of $5,238,204.
Unpaid property taxes also could crimp city, county and school district budgets, Allamakee County Treasurer Lori Hesse said. Among the leading delinquents, she said, are Agriprocessors, owing $259,000, and Nevel, owing $95,000.

While Postville's total population has fallen from an estimated 2,300 to fewer than 2,000, the city's Jewish community also has shrunk, said Rabbi Aron Schimmel, a 12-year Agriprocessors employee whose kosher slaughter work has been curtailed since the raid.

Schimmel, who also directs the Judaic Resource Center in Postville, said of the 80 Jewish families in Postville before the raid, about 55 remain.

Schimmel said most Postville Jews bear no hard feelings toward the Rubashkin family, whose practice of hiring illegal immigrants precipitated the raid.

"It's illegal. Maybe you shouldn't do it, but it is how it's done in the meatpacking business. You have illegal workers all over America. If you want good workers cheap, you have to take them," he said.

Schimmel said the Jewish boys' and girls' schools in Postville still have enough students to justify continued operation. The future is less certain for the yeshiva, which educates about 40 13- to 16-year-old boys, most of whom are boarders, he said.
One community bright spot is that enrollment in Postville schools has declined only 3.1 percent after the raid, from 542 to 525, Superintendent Galen Reinsmoen said. "We could gain 40 to 50 students by next fall if the plant goes back to full production," he said.

A level of quiet anxiety born of suffering and uncertainty grips many Postville residents, said Maryn Olson, a coordinator with the Postville Response Coalition, a group established after the raid to help its victims.

Though some have said the raid was necessary to depose exploitative owners of the Agriprocessors plant, Olson said Postville would not wish a similar raid on any other community.

"I don't think anyone will ever look back and say it was a good thing. This is a community that is deeply hurt and grieving," she said.

www.gazetteonline.com

You know what would be great?

It would be fantastic if enough American citizens were to go in and start buying up those homes, renting those empty stores, and RECLAIM Postville.......complete with the raising of one HUGE American flag right smack dab in the middle of that town!!

It's times like this when I wish I had the money to get a project like that rolling, or knew how to go about finding some investors for such an effort.

THIS is America, it belongs to US and we need to start taking it back.....both figuratively and literally.....one small town and one job at a time if we have to. That's how it was taken FROM us and it's how we can take it BACK.

Originally Posted by azwreath

You know what would be great?

It would be fantastic if enough American citizens were to go in and start buying up those homes, renting those empty stores, and RECLAIM Postville.......complete with the raising of one HUGE American flag right smack dab in the middle of that town!!

It's times like this when I wish I had the money to get a project like that rolling, or knew how to go about finding some investors for such an effort.

THIS is America, it belongs to US and we need to start taking it back.....both figuratively and literally.....one small town and one job at a time if we have to. That's how it was taken FROM us and it's how we can take it BACK.

If a hunk of money fell on me right now...I would be right behind you, or right in front of you. I would buy all those houses and put an american flag in each yard.

Originally Posted by redpony353

Originally Posted by azwreath

You know what would be great?

It would be fantastic if enough American citizens were to go in and start buying up those homes, renting those empty stores, and RECLAIM Postville.......complete with the raising of one HUGE American flag right smack dab in the middle of that town!!

It's times like this when I wish I had the money to get a project like that rolling, or knew how to go about finding some investors for such an effort.

THIS is America, it belongs to US and we need to start taking it back.....both figuratively and literally.....one small town and one job at a time if we have to. That's how it was taken FROM us and it's how we can take it BACK.

If a hunk of money fell on me right now...I would be right behind you, or right in front of you. I would buy all those houses and put an american flag in each yard.

How about right next to me with everyone else who wants to join in all lined up as one united front?

This is a smear campaign on ICE, just another one of those sob stories to try to defend the indefensible. All these people think about is money and they'll do anything to make it. They violated every law in the book, labor laws, money laundering, failure to pay USDA and cattle suppliers on time, child labor laws, immigration law, civil rights laws, criminal laws. Good Riddance!

Bankruptcy will get a new buyer and the plant will be back up to speed soon. There are towns all over the country suffering now because of the depression caused by illegal immigration and free trade and greed and liars and cheats and traitors. Suffer Cheats! Learn to do it right, or don't play the game. You want a nice bustling town? You hire American Workers, you rent to US citizens and Legal Residents. You pay legal wages, you hire adult workers, you pay over-time, you comply with our laws and you'll have a wonderful little town once again. And if you don't, then suffer!

All these people in the town knew what was going on. And they allowed it to line their own pockets. They deserve everything they're getting.

Originally Posted by azwreath

Originally Posted by redpony353

Originally Posted by azwreath

You know what would be great?

It would be fantastic if enough American citizens were to go in and start buying up those homes, renting those empty stores, and RECLAIM Postville.......complete with the raising of one HUGE American flag right smack dab in the middle of that town!!

It's times like this when I wish I had the money to get a project like that rolling, or knew how to go about finding some investors for such an effort.

THIS is America, it belongs to US and we need to start taking it back.....both figuratively and literally.....one small town and one job at a time if we have to. That's how it was taken FROM us and it's how we can take it BACK.

If a hunk of money fell on me right now...I would be right behind you, or right in front of you. I would buy all those houses and put an american flag in each yard.

How about right next to me with everyone else who wants to join in all lined up as one united front?

Sounds great to me!!!! A wall of patriots united to take back one american town....and it would only be the first of many more after.

Like many other Postville residents, Menahem suffers the ill effects of what local clergy describe as a government-inflicted disaster comparable to the floods and tornadoes that ravaged other parts of Iowa last year.

No this is not government generated. It was caused by greedy employers hiring cheap labor and now paying the price. After the raid, the company continued to hire foreigners over American workers and again ran into problems. Take responsibility moron! This was your fault, not the government's. You were breaking the law. They were enforcing the law. It's that simple.

One could write a story of a drug dealing operation that employed many and made tons of money and how all involved suffered when it got busted. Boo Hoo

You are exactly right Reggie! The employers in Postville were greedy, stupid and are now broke! They shouldn't complain that they got caught and are now facing the consequences of their own stupidity and arrogance. The rest of us follow the law and so should they! You'll get no tears from me.

Originally Posted by ReggieMay

Like many other Postville residents, Menahem suffers the ill effects of what local clergy describe as a government-inflicted disaster comparable to the floods and tornadoes that ravaged other parts of Iowa last year.

No this is not government generated. It was caused by greedy employers hiring cheap labor and now paying the price. After the raid, the company continued to hire foreigners over American workers and again ran into problems. Take responsibility moron! This was your fault, not the government's. You were breaking the law. They were enforcing the law. It's that simple.

Originally Posted by redpony353

Originally Posted by azwreath

Originally Posted by redpony353

Originally Posted by azwreath

You know what would be great?

It would be fantastic if enough American citizens were to go in and start buying up those homes, renting those empty stores, and RECLAIM Postville.......complete with the raising of one HUGE American flag right smack dab in the middle of that town!!

It's times like this when I wish I had the money to get a project like that rolling, or knew how to go about finding some investors for such an effort.

THIS is America, it belongs to US and we need to start taking it back.....both figuratively and literally.....one small town and one job at a time if we have to. That's how it was taken FROM us and it's how we can take it BACK.

If a hunk of money fell on me right now...I would be right behind you, or right in front of you. I would buy all those houses and put an american flag in each yard.

How about right next to me with everyone else who wants to join in all lined up as one united front?

Sounds great to me!!!! A wall of patriots united to take back one american town....and it would only be the first of many more after.

That's the idea!

And we could use the money from the book and movie deals to move on to the next one!!!

Oh well, it never hurts to dream..........