Raided Postville plant faces new charges

Iowan officials have issued new citations against a meatpacking plant which was the site of a massive immigration raid in May. The Iowa Division of Labor Services proposed over $100,000 in fines for new and repeat safety violations committed at the Agriprocessors plant.

The citations come on the heels of a guilty plea by a former supervisor who admitted to have knowingly hired illegal immigrants, while earlier this month plant management was accused of employing underage workers.

Of the nearly 300 people arrested in the May raid most were undocumented and came from countries like Mexico and Guatemala. One Iowan newspaper suggests that more could’ve been caught:

Nearly 70 percent of people targeted for arrest in a May raid at a meatpacking plant in Postville escaped prosecution, according to a copyright story Friday in The Des Moines Register.

The Register also found that immigrants prosecuted after the raid used Social Security numbers stolen from people in at least 25 states…

Of the 697 people identified in federal warrants, the documents used to justify the raid, only 220 were arrested. Another 85 immigrants prosecuted by the federal government were arrested after being discovered through the raid.

As we noted last month, one of the court interpreters for the arrested workers alleged that the plea agreements most of them signed were “coerced” despite language problems and illiteracy issues.

Image- New York Times (“After nearly 300 illegal immigrants were taken into custody in May in Postville, Iowa, they were tried, convicted and sentenced, based on scripts prepared by the court and prosecutors.”)

Sources- Chicago Tribune, Newsradio 1040 WHO, Guardian UK, BBC News, The Latin Americanist