Largest Immigration Raid at a Single Site
Presidential candidate Barack Obama will be in Iowa this coming Tuesday, and the topic of immigration reform is guaranteed to be on people's minds. After the events of this past week, you can bet the town of Postville will be listening closely to any discussions about the path to legalization for illegal immigrants.
This week, the Department of Homeland Security raided the largest employer in northeast Iowa. The Washington Post reports that 389 immigrant workers were arrested and detained in the largest crackdown of the Bush administration at a single site. A 16-month investigation revealed that 76% of the 968 employees on the meatpacking plant's payroll were using false or suspect Social Security numbers.
The question is, did we arrest the right criminals?
Are we right to target the workers instead of the employers? Some would argue that the blame rests with the employers of the plant, whose illegal hiring and pay practices lured in immigrants looking for a better wage than they would find in their native countries. The Washington Post points out that the national focus tends to be on the workers, not the employers. "While workplace arrests have risen tenfold since 2002, from 510 to 4,940, only 90 criminal arrests have involved company personnel officials."
To be fair, this particular plant has a long history of violating a variety of laws, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials explained that it would have been irresponsible to perform a search warrant for company records without enforcing the illegal worker issue.
Postville residents may not feel the same way. The arrested immigrants represent about 15% of the town's total population. People fear that their town may soon slip away as immigrants are arrested or quietly slip back to Central America. The effect is already showing. The following day, half of the students were missing from class because their parents were arrested or in hiding.
Members of the community have stepped in to help affected families.
Comments
Oh, poor ILLEGAL immigrants. People, did you see that they used AMERICAN social security numbers? And their hiding? Why? Is it because they are breaking the law and don’t want to get punished? Wake up America! Yes, employers also need to get punished as well. How about putting American citizens first?! These people need to go back and fix their own county. Our leaders are disappointing.
Ken is correct. The employers should be prevented from hiring illegal aliens via fines, jail terms, etc., and the illegal aliens themselve should be prevented from having the jobs in the first place. Enforcing these two aspects of our current immigration laws would go a long ways towards curbing the excessive illegal immigration we have now.
And presenting a social security number that is not legitimately issued to that person is defined as a federal felony. The crime is serious because we must safeguard the integrity of our social security system. Glad to see the feds prosecuting this serious crime instead of looking the other way, like they normally do with illegal aliens.
I’m SO glad to have come across this story! It is about time this happened. I am tired of everyone trying to protect illegal aliens so-called “rights”. WHAT RIGHTS?!? They are breaking the law and being REWARDED for it??? I wish this kind of crack down happened everyday. Then maybe we could get our country back!
When will people start looking at the real culprits like Agriprocessors and their counterparts all across the country? The illegals were wrong to enter the US illegally, but in many cases they are brought in by these horrible employers who then exploit them unmercifully. Reports on Agriprocessors tell of a filty, unsafe plant and I for one am checking my meat source as I do not want anything emanating from that plant. It also seems that some of the plant “exploiters” were here illegally too. Why is it only “hispanics” who are singled out when others are entering in droves from around the world. Print a story like this and the next day it disappears while our Government sits on it’s hands. Is someone being paid off?
Go after the exploiters and most of the problem will be solved.
These 20-30 criminal illegals cost us tax payers 50 billion dollars a year for crime, welfare, jails, health care, schools, etc! Employers get cheap labor, thats what it’s all about, and we pay for it!
Demand congress enforce our current immigration laws, jail employers who hire illegals, and secure our borders before Mexico’s poverty becomes a permanent fixture in America!
Thats 20-30 million criminal illegals, don’t believe the 8-12 million number, in America.