The Truth Behind the ICE Raid at Iowa Meat Packing Plant

On the surface, the News reports read like any other Immigration Raid. ICE officials crowed that it was the biggest raids in years. According to the Los Angeles Times, “Nearly 400 people were arrested Monday by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in a raid on a meat-packing plant in Iowa. The raid was apparently one of the biggest of its kind and came after months of planning, according to this release from Immigration and Customs enforcement. Of the 390 detainees, 290 were Guatemalans and 93 were Mexicans, as well as a handful of Israelis and Ukrainians, officials said …” But the story behind the story reveals a far more sordid affair involving chummy relations between the plant’s owners and Republican office-holders as well as claims of employee abuse, rampant fraud by the employer and easy treatment for the employer while the employees face the full hammer of the law.

Check out Dee’s report at Immigration Talk with a Mexican American. According to Dee’s research,the plant, Agriprocessors Inc. in Postville Iwoa, is the world's largest kosher meatpacking plant. Digging further you will find one of the most unscrupulous employers in the country. In 1987, Rabbi Aaron Rubashkin purchased an unused meat-rendering plant in Postville and turned it into a state-of-the-art facility for producing Glatt kosher meat. Today, AgriProcessors provides 60 percent of the kosher retail meat and 40 percent of the kosher poultry nationally, and most retail chains depend on it for supply. The company was also the sole American packing plant whose products are accepted in Israel. Rubashkin Family Members are Large Republican Campaign Contributors. As set out by Dee:

Because there is an ongoing Iowa and federal labor law violations investigation of Agriprocessors and the union fears Rubashkin will use the raid to intimidate workers and throw the next unionization vote.
Mark Lauritsen, International Vice President of the United Food and Commercial Workers, wrote a May 2 letter to ICE: ICE action could result in employees leaving the plant, interfering with a government investigation that would “ultimately uncover unscrupulous employer acts,” he said.
IN OTHER WORDS, THE ICE RAID IS PROTECTING THE EMPLOYER FROM FURTHER LEGAL ACTIONS AGAINST THEM!

This harkens back to the days when farmers would exploit laborers and then call INS just before payday or when union activity was threatened. Clearly, ICE cares more about protecting the employers who hire undocumented workers than they do about the abuse of the workers by these unscrupulous employers. As well, nothing like the PR from a “historic ICE raid.” Propaganda.

Find Dee’s post at:

http://immigrationmexicanamerican.blogspot.com/2008/05/gop-pal-employer-going-scot-free-as.html

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ICE Using Unconstitutional and Illegal Means in Raids

In what has become a common practice, agents of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement ("ICE") have again been accused of using unconstitutional and deceitful methods in carrying out raids. The raids are targetting so-called "immigration fugitives" which is an Orwellian method to demonize and target immigrants who fail to appear for their administrative hearings. Contrary to the dark overtones in the use of the term "fugitives," these people have not committed crimes. In fact a great many of them merely overstayed their visas, hardly a criminal offense. Nonetheless, ICE continues to target the most vulnerable in the immigrant communities using offensive tactics. According to Julia Preston, article in the April 4, 2008, New York Times:

Immigration agents systematically entered homes and made arrests without proper warrants during raids to round up immigration fugitives in New Jersey, according to a federal lawsuit filed Thursday.

The lawsuit, brought by lawyers at the Center for Social Justice at Seton Hall Law School in Newark, will provide a constitutional test of law enforcement methods often used by immigration agents since May 2006 when they began operations across the country to track down and deport immigrants who had been ordered to leave by the courts.

The suit, against officials of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, on behalf of 10 plaintiffs, including two United States citizens, contends that teams of ICE agents used “deceit or, in some cases, raw force” to gain “unlawful entry.”

These tactics are not confined to a rogue unit in New Jersey, they are operating procedure throughout the country. Nonetheless, the New Jersey lawsuit may set a precedent for challenging ICE's unlawful actions.

The lawsuit claims that agents, sometimes misrepresenting themselves as local police officers hunting for criminals, entered homes where no fugitives being sought were present and detained residents without showing any legal cause. Immigration agents have broad authority to question foreigners about their immigration status, but they may not enter a home without either a warrant or consent.

The ICE raids are part of a wholesale policy of denying civil liberties and civil rights protections to undocumented workers. In essence, the raids are part and parcel of the war of attrition that nativists are pushing against Latinos and other vulnerable communities.

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