The spacious new homes and pristine commercial strip that have transformed this northeastern Iowa town are a testament to the success of Agriprocessors Inc., the nation’s largest kosher meatpacking plant and the reason for a thriving local community of Hasidic Jews.
But a federal raid last week that exposed a seemingly tacit agreement between the plant and an illegal-immigrant workforce has residents worrying about the town’s future.
This community fashions itself as a cosmopolitan center amid the plains, where long-bearded rabbis, Latin American immigrants and German Lutherans have learned to live side by side.
But everything has changed after the largest immigration raid in U.S. history netted nearly 400 workers — including 18 juveniles — at the plant.
“At a time when America is trying to hold on to industries, you know what I see out of this? Kosher chickens coming from China,” fumed Rabbi Aaron Goldsmith, a former city councilman who was among many who stood transfixed as Homeland Security helicopters and buses raced past the grazing cows toward their town a week ago. “These are hardworking families working there. This isn’t a place that required helicopters and guns.”
The town of 2,600 boasts a kosher deli next to a Guatemalan restaurant and an old-fashioned beauty parlor, along with a reputation for kosher meats known as far away as Israel. The New York-based Orthodox Union, which certifies kosher facilities, estimates the plant supplies 50 percent of the nation’s highest-kosher chickens, and perhaps a third of its meat products.
Now many fear that the success that has set Postville apart from neighboring towns may unravel, and with it the community’s harmony. With local storefronts virtually empty in the days after the raid, residents resent that this was their turn in a ramped-up immigration enforcement that has similarly affected other small communities in the past year.
More raids rumored
The size of the raid has sent shock waves across Iowa, which is among several heartland states that have seen an increasing number of immigrants arriving to work in meatpacking plants and other agricultural factories opening near farms.
After media images spread of the makeshift detention center in Waterloo — appearing as a high-security prison camp on what normally are festival grounds — rumors circulated that more raids are coming.
With an investigation still under way, a 57-page federal affidavit cites numerous reasons for the raid that left officials processing most of those arrested inside the center 77 miles away in Waterloo. Officials completed processing of 389 detainees on Thursday, including charges against 306 of them for using false Social Security numbers and other forms of illegal documentation.
The affidavit also alleges that there was a crystal methamphetamine lab inside the plant, though it did not specify who was running it; and that the eyes of one worker were duct-taped before he was clubbed with a meat hook by one of several rabbinical supervisors hired to ensure the chickens, turkeys and lambs shipped in were killed according to rabbinical law. The reason was not mentioned.
And, in an arrangement common at many workplaces in the absence of comprehensive federal immigration reform, there were numerous alleged instances in which plant supervisors looked the other way when it appeared workers arriving from Guatemala, Mexico and parts of Eastern Europe were carrying false documents.
Fake IDs called rampant
Nearly 80 percent of the plant’s 970 employees were believed to be using fake IDs, the affidavit said, citing 2007 payroll records. Undercover sources wearing recording devices were cited by investigators in the affidavit describing instances in which supervisors instructed employees to “fix” their Social Security numbers.
Federal officials have declined to say whether any plant supervisors or owners face criminal charges or penalties. On Thursday, a class-action lawsuit was filed on behalf of the workers that alleged the company had been procuring fake IDs for employees and that the arrested immigrants were improperly processed by Homeland Security.
Agriprocessors officials would not comment. In a statement issued Thursday, the company said it has agreed to use federal electronic verification software to better screen the identities of new hires. Since the raid, Agriprocessors has been operating on a skeleton crew, flying in workers from New York, town officials said.
“We are working with experts in immigration compliance to help bolster our compliance efforts to employ only properly documented employees,” Chaim Abrahams, a company representative, said in the statement. “We extend our heartfelt sympathies to the families whose lives were disrupted and wish them all the best.”
In Postville, the fear of more raids has hung heaviest inside St. Bridget Roman Catholic Church. There, more than 200 frightened Mexican and Guatemalan immigrants — mostly spouses and children of those arrested — had camped out since the raid, though their numbers had dwindled by the weekend.
‘To feed my children’
Silvia Ruiz was among 40 of those arrested and released with electronic ankle bracelets, in order for them to care for their children.
Still stunned, the single mother of four recounted how she arrived from Guatemala six years ago, pleasantly surprised as she began caring for animals at the plant to find a rural landscape in Iowa as quiet as her own village.
She wondered, shifting a pant leg to hide her ankle bracelet: “Do you think they’ll let me go back? I have to feed my children.”
The idea that many immigrants there were working to support their families has driven much of the local outrage over the raid.
After some tensions between longtime residents and the Hasids who began arriving after the plant opened in 1988, many here viewed their new Latin American neighbors as part of Postville’s evolving diversity.
Their kids played soccer or football together, with Agriprocessors — a major donor in civic projects — sponsoring a team in each sport. They enjoyed the new Latino restaurants that began opening next to Jewish-owned businesses in what once was a struggling commercial center on Lawler Street.
In the face of that new prosperity, many dismissed the complaints of animal abuse or labor violations, which had spurred previous government probes, fines and a drive to unionize workers.
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aolivo@tribune.com
