Articles in this document:

· 29 farmers sign letter in support of Postville plant

· A shameful raid in Postville, Iowa

29 farmers sign letter in support of Postville plant

By TONY LEYS

Des Moines Register - Iowa

August 3, 2008

Agriprocessors Vice President Sholom Rubashkin gave The Des Moines Register a copy of a letter of support last week signed by 29 northeast Iowa cattle farmers.

Another Agriprocessors executive cited the letter as evidence of local good will earned by the company's contributions to the local economy.

One of the farmers said he did not know who wrote the letter, but he said a company representative asked him to sign it.

Here is the text of the July 28 letter:

"Dear Agriprocessors (Sholom R),

"We the farmers of the four-county area would like to let you know that we do appreciate all that you and your company has done in the past and hopefully the future. We as farmers need competition in the cattle industry, whether it is in the country selling our cattle or if it is in the sales barns. Without your buyers, we can see a 3 to a 5 cent per pound difference for our cattle. Also without Agri, more than just the farmers feel the hurt. It trickles down to everyone in the area. So with this short note, we hope you feel the support. Thank you."

Farmer Alvin Hageman of Ossian said a cattle buyer who works for Agriprocessors presented the letter to him and asked him to sign it.

Hageman said the company provides an important market for cattle farmers. He said he is unsure what to make of allegations that Agriprocessors exploited its workers.

"They probably did do a few things, bent a few rules," he said. "But I don't know that it was that bad."

Farmer Ryan Collins of Harpers Ferry, who also signed the letter, said it was being passed around by farmers at the Allamakee County Fair last weekend. He said the company generally has been good for the area, although he is withholding judgment on the allegations against it.

"I guess I don't approve if they were helping people get into the country illegally," he said, adding that Agriprocessors possibly should increase employee pay so it can attract and retain legal workers.

desmoinesregister.com

A shameful raid in Postville, Iowa

IMMIGRATION

By MARY SANCHEZ

Miami Herald - Opinion

Aug. 04, 2008

Pray that you never need an advocate as much as those caught up in the Agriprocessors immigration raid in Postville, Iowa.

A lot of people are feeling soiled by the raid, which officials at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement initially bragged was the largest such operation in immigration history. Almost 400 people were scooped up and shuffled in shackles to a fairground designed to hold cattle.

Now, three months after the raid at the kosher meatpacking plant, more details are emerging -- and attorneys, clergy, members of Congress and labor officials are decrying a major miscarriage of justice. Translators and even local townspeople say they were duped into participating in a federal government plan to railroad exploited workers.

And state labor investigators complain that ICE overran an ongoing investigation into horrible working conditions in the Agriprocessors plant. And for what? So that ICE could make its numbers look good. So that it could claim it had deported more ''criminals.'' At the heart of the Postville operation was a ''hurry up and charge `em'' process that made it difficult, if not impossible, for attorneys to meet with the arrestees.

Immigration officials, it seems, were bent on charging the immigrants with higher crimes than simply working illegally. They wanted crimes punishable by mandatory jail time. The hook was the immigrants' use of Social Security numbers not issued to them. That's document fraud and identity theft, which everyone can agree is a bad thing. But it's not clear how many -- if any -- of the immigrants were knowingly using a real person's identity to work at Agriprocessors. For the crime to rise to aggravated identity theft, which is what ICE officials were intent on charging the workers with, the suspects had to be knowingly defrauding those whose Social Security numbers they were using.

Many of the workers were Guatemalan Mayans, indigenous people who are not literate in Spanish, much less English. They were brought in groups of 10 before judges who held court in trailers. ICE was in a hurry because within 72 hours, legal statutes say, the suspects either had to be charged with a crime or released for deportation.

Observers and translators say many of the people didn't even know what a Social Security card was. They had shown up for work and had their paperwork filled out by others employed by Agriprocessors. Almost 100 fraudulent green cards were found in the company's human re sources department. The immigrants were offered a plea deal: Either take five months jail and deportation, or serve as much as two years in jail if convicted.

Guess what the workers chose? Most just wanted to be reunited with their families in Guatemala as quickly as possible, so they took the plea. Now, almost 300 sit in jails nationwide -- yes, at taxpayer expense -- serving their time and awaiting deportation.

Meanwhile, the Iowa labor investigation of Agriprocessors is getting back on track. State officials are attempting to document countless stories of chemical burns, broken bones and amputations when body parts were caught in the machines of the plant, among other injuries. That's in addition to accusations of child labor (one teen told of working 17-hour shifts) and that female workers being told their jobs could become easier in exchange for sexual favors.

No small-town values

But many of their witnesses have already been deported or have simply fled. So much for holding employers responsible for breaking the law.

Postville, Iowa. The name conjures Norman Rockwell civility, small-town values -- the moral fiber of America. Instead, it harbored a throwback to the hellish abattoirs chronicled by Upton Sinclair a century ago.

And then it became, in the words of one federally certified translator brought in to help interpret for the hapless workers, ``a judicial assembly line where the meat packers were mass processed.''

Mary Sanchez is a columnist for The Kansas City Star.

miamiherald.com