News (Noticias) Tagged ‘Postville raid’

There is a small-town stillness here, neat houses and kids riding bicycles down quiet, leafy streets. But in the Guatemalan bakery, in church pews, at the meatpacking plant and the kosher deli, the strained voices almost always dwell on the raid that changed everything.

The stillness is not serenity. It’s shock. “*

Forty-five illegal immigrants are caught between a federal agency that wants them out of the United States and a legal system that might need them as witnesses.

The 45 are among the 389 Agriprocessors Inc. workers detained on May 12 after the largest single-site workplace raid in U.S. history. The 42 women and three men were released because they had children to care for, and they now wear tracking bracelets on their ankles.”*

Back in 2002, before all the trouble, the Rev. Paul Ouderkirk retired from St. Bridget’s Roman Catholic Church here, his last station in 43 years of ministry. He built a home 35 miles away in a town along the Mississippi, and he indulged a passion for family history, tracing his lineage to an ancestor who had arrived in New Amsterdam with the Dutch East India Company.”*

Then he was summoned here by court officials to translate in the hearings for nearly 400 illegal immigrant workers arrested in a raid on May 12 at a meatpacking plant. Since then, Mr. Camayd-Freixas, a professor of Spanish at Florida International University, has taken the unusual step of breaking the code of confidentiality among legal interpreters about their work.

In a 14-page essay he circulated among two dozen other interpreters who worked here, Professor Camayd-Freixas wrote that the immigrant defendants whose words he translated, most of them villagers from Guatemala, did not fully understand the criminal charges they were facing or the rights most of them had waived.”*

n an eye-opening essay posted by Duke of Migra Matters at the site The Sanctuary (of which Latina Lista is a founding member), Dr. Erik Camayd-Freixas, Ph.D. of Florida International University recounts his experience as one of 26 federally certified interpreters flown into Postville, Iowa to assist with translating for the 390 Spanish-speaking detainees during one of the biggest immigration sweeps in the nation.

His account is astonishing because, as a layperson with knowledge of how the legal system works, from his 23 years as a federally certified interpreter, he cuts through the legalese to expose exactly what ICE is doing to these people.”*

“The ICE raid in Postville has returned Postville to the state it was in 15 years ago,” said Brackett. “All of the work we have done to embrace the diversity of our community, and all of the efforts to build up our community have been destroyed overnight.”"*

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Leaders of a congressional committee are pressing the U.S. Department of Labor for answers on whether an ongoing investigation of child- labor and wage violations at a meatpacking plant in Postville, Ia., will be compromised by a May 12 immigration raid there.

Democratic leaders of the House Education and Labor Committee wrote to Labor Secretary Elaine Chao on May 16. They’re asking for more information on the complaints that prompted the Agriprocessors Inc. investigation. They also want to know whether federal labor officials had any involvement with the raid, which was conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.”*

Though they are about 80 miles apart, Hispanic businesses in Waterloo have reported potentially crippling drops in business since the Postville Immigration raid. The largest of its type in U.S. history, the raid at Agriprocessors resulted in the detainment of nearly 400 people on Immigration related charges.

Despite the distance from the raid, Hispanic business owners report workers suddenly absent and slower sales. They attribute it to fall out from Postville.

Garcia has seen this before, he said, and believes now is the time to bow out.

“I’ve seen this happen twice. It always takes at least a year for people to regain trust,” he said. “That’s why I’d rather close — it’s going to take time to recover.” “*

Nine undocumented students at Postville High School spoke with The Gazette on Wednesday. Out of concern that they could be arrested and deported, they asked that their names not be printed.

Four were from Guatemala and five were from Mexico. All were children when their parents decided to immigrate illegally and settle in northeast Iowa.

Six of the nine said one or more of their family members was detained in the May 12 raid at the Agriprocessors Inc. meatpacking plant. All said their family has either discussed leaving Postville or made the final decision. “*

In Washington, D.C. tomorrow, there will be a hearing before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and Labor, Subcommittee on Workforce Protections to discuss the impact of Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids on children and what can possibly be done to prevent the ensuing trauma experienced by these children.

One of the raids that will be used as an example is the recent raid in Postville, Iowa. Deemed the largest raid in the country, by ICE officials, the aftershocks of the raid have been rattling the community ever since, and with good reason.”*

“We only want to know one thing — what good comes from displacing so many families?
Mario Basurto, project coordinator of the Centro Latinoamericano, asking about the ICE raid in Postville, Iowa.

Yesterday’s Postville raid at the Agriprocessors’ plant is being boasted as the state’s largest raid netting 390 undocumented immigrants: 290 Guatemalans; 93 Mexicans and a handful of Ukranians and Israelis.

All of the detainees are being held at the National Cattle congress grounds. Among those detained, twelve were minors believed to be 16 and 17-years-old.”*

Hundreds of northeast Iowa Hispanics are living in fear they will be targeted in federal immigration raids, in the wake of the Postville raid Monday. Local volunteers are working to calm the confused and terrified family members left behind.

The anxiety is being felt across Dubuque County, where Hispanics reportedly are not showing up for work and are afraid to leave their homes.

“We’re getting calls from people who are asking if it’s safe to go to work. They panicked when they heard what happened in Postville and walked off their jobs to go see if their families were OK,” said Terri Reynolds, immigration outreach coordinator for the Dubuque Archdiocese Catholic Charities.”*