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Iowa 
Sat Apr 18, 2009 at 22:57:06 PM EST
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As the May 12th anniversary of the Postville Iowa Agriprocessors ICE raid is near, I am writing call attention to a very troubling injustice that is developing that only rubs salt in the wound. We all should be outraged how immigrants working in Postville were treated like slaves and then denied any form of justice in swift and chaotic criminal court proceedings orchestrated by the Northern Iowa United States Attorney's office. Apparently the reports about the shame of Postville didn't reach the US Senate because unbelievably now one of the lead federal prosecutors responsible for the egregious and inhumane Postville, Iowa prosecution has been recommend to be promoted to the powerful position of United States Attorney for the Northern District of Iowa. Ms. Stephanie Rose is the nominee of United States Senator Tom Harkin to be the next United States Attorney of the Northern District of Iowa. (U.S.A) The White House is now reviewing Senator Harkin's questionable recommendation. The President's legal team will be conducting a background check on Ms Rose's personal and professional record before deciding whether to formally nominate her to the U.S. Senate for confirmation. Accordingly there is time to impact this appointment and I am told that the White House will be very interested in learning about Ms. Rose's sorry record as a prosecutor.
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Thu Aug 21, 2008 at 23:22:21 PM EST
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We learned from Dr. Erik Camayd-Freixas in his devastating essay (posted by Duke in its entirety), that there were horrible travesties of both the law and justice itself in how the Postville, Iowa raid was executed.
As Dr. Camayd-Freixas said, speaking of his conversation with one of the immigration judges who had no choice but to rule as a rubber-stamp for the ICE:
As a citizen, I want our judges to administer justice, not a federal agency.
Yet that is exactly what happened. A federal agency administered "justice" and the defense attorneys and judges were helpless to change anything. As a result, an entire town was ripped apart, economic devastation ensued, and as we now see (h/t woc phd by way of symsess' great roundups), the human rights abuses continue:
Women were deeply impacted by the raids. First, female workers at Postville were part of the round up. The lost access to their children, including babies that were still nursing, without warning nor concern. For others, many of the primary or main source of income in their household was permanently removed. In many cases, the raids also labeled these women as undocumented, ensuring that they could not work. Others, afraid of being deported in a raid, did not return to their jobs. The result is that most of the women are also unemployed and unable to be employed.
For women who did not immediately hear about the raids, there was also the fear and confusion about the location of their sons and husbands. Some women went for days without knowing what had happened. As fear turned into confirmation that men were being held for deportation, women's anxieties and stressers went up.
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Sat May 24, 2008 at 17:57:16 PM EST
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According to the Des Moines Register, women working at Agriprocessors Inc. allege that they were subjected to quid pro quo sexual harassment while working at the meat processing plant:
Sister Mary McCauley, a Roman Catholic nun at St. Bridget's Catholic Church, said workers have said that "there was sexual abuse, that there's propositioning."
If a worker wanted, say, a promotion or a shift change, "they'd be brought into a room with three or four men and it was like, 'Which one do you want? Which one are you going to serve?'" said McCauley in an interview today with Des Moines Register editors and reporters.
"Unfortunately, they are grateful for some of their ESL classes, and they knew what some of those words meant," McCauley said. "If they had the courage, they could refuse it."
Stories are being collected for further investigation. [Source.]
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Mon May 19, 2008 at 17:20:07 PM EST
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From Fair Immigration Reform Movement (FIRM):
Call to Action: Coming Together in a Time of Crisis
On Monday, May 12, federal immigration authorities raided the Agriprocessors, Inc. meat packing plant in Postville, Iowa. This massive raid led to the arrest of more than 300 workers and quickly threw this small town of less than 3,000 people into chaos.
Throughout the last week family members have been desperate to get information about their loved ones, children are staying away from school for fear of leaving their homes, attorneys have been attempting with limited success to gain access to workers being detained by federal authorities, and the entire town faces an uncertain future. Fears are growing that the detained workers will soon be shipped across the country to be prepared for deportation without being able to speak with attorneys or family members.
But the residents of Postville and neighboring communities including Waterloo, where federal immigration authorities rented out the National Cattle Congress to hold these workers, aren't taking this lying down. On Monday night, more than 200 community residents and family members gathered outside the temporary detention facility for an impromptu vigil. Since then, churches and community organizations have stretched their resources in a tremendous outpouring of support for families impacted by the raids.
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Tue May 13, 2008 at 23:27:06 PM EST
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An immigrant community in Iowa was shattered Monday by a huge ICE raid that appears to still be in progress. Susan Saulny of the New York Times reports: In the biggest workplace immigration raid this year, federal agents swept into a kosher meat plant on Monday in Postville, Iowa, and arrested more than 300 workers.
The authorities said the workers were suspected of being in the United States illegally or of having participated in identity theft and the fraudulent use of Social Security numbers.
A spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement would not say how many people had been rounded up beyond the initial 300 or whether the management and owners of the plant, AgriProcessors, would face criminal charges.
The plant has 800 to 900 people and is the country’s largest producer of meat that is glatt kosher, widely regarded as the highest standard of cleanliness.
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