Iowa has been anticipating an immigration raid since Homeland Security leased the National Cattle Congress fairgrounds in Waterloo late last week (as diaried by isucyclones94). The raid went down this morning at the Agriprocessors Inc. meat processing plant in Postville, Iowa. The plant is known as the nation's largest kosher slaughterhouse and was opened in 1987 by Hasidic Jews from New York. Postville has about 2500 residents and has a substantial Jewish and immigrant community that includes many native Mexicans and Eastern Europeans.
According to the Des Moines Register:
Four Homeland Security buses with U.S. Immigration and Customs tags on them have entered the Agriprocessors Inc. complex.
The buses, along with a trail of SUVs and vans with Minnesota license plates, arrived at about 11:45 a.m. Federal agents descended upon this northeast Iowa community at about 10 a.m. today to conduct an immigration raid at the nation’s largest kosher meatpacking plant. The ICE agents entered the Postville plant to execute a criminal search warrant for evidence relating to aggravated identity theft, fraudulent use of Social Security numbers and other crimes, said Tim Counts, a Midwest ICE spokesman. Agents are also executing a civil search warrant for people illegally in the United States, he said.
Immigration officials told aides to U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley that they expect 600 to 700 arrests. About 1,000 to 1,050 people work at the plant, according to Iowa Workforce Development.
Government officials are turning away anyone trying to get information about what is happening at the Waterloo Fairgrounds and will not say whether it will be used as a detention or processing center.
Former governor Tom Vilsack expressed concern about the constitutionality of the raids:
"Remember our concern has not been about whether or not there should be raids," Vilsack said. "It’s the way the raids have been conducted and the way in which American citizens’ rights have been violated by virtue of sort of a roundup process that’s used and what we think are inappropriate and unconstitutional actions on the part of immigration officials."
Obviously this will have a largely negative impact on this small town and especially the employees and their families. There's supposed to be a press conference sometime soon so I'll keep my eye out for more info.