Washington, DC – Lawmakers today questioned the legality and effectiveness of the government’s crackdown in a May raid on a kosher meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa — called Agriprocessors — that led to the arrest of nearly 400 immigrants.
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Most of the workers, who faced charges of aggravated identity theft for using immigration or Social Security numbers that did not belong to them, accepted plea agreements on a lesser charge of Social Security fraud. Most now face five months of jail followed by deportation.
The raid has come under fire from immigration reform groups and now lawmakers who objected to group prosecutions that they say violated due process and who criticized the decision to disproportionately go after workers instead of employers.
“This looks and feels like a cattle auction, not a criminal prosecution in the United States,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., a former immigration lawyer and chair of the House Judiciary subcommittee on immigration, which held a five-hour hearing today on the Postville raid.
The workers were given seven days to decide whether to accept the plea agreement, and they appeared in groups of 10 at the plea hearings.
“Defendants did not know what a Social Security number was,” said Erik Camayd-Freixas, one of the interpreters brought in to translate at the court proceedings.
Deborah Rhodes, senior associate deputy attorney general at the Department of Justice, defended the “fast-tracking” process, which she said averted flooding the courts and resulted in reduced sentences.
Lawmakers also expressed concern about the government’s priorities, arguing that the mass raid complicated an existing investigation into labor, food safety and environmental violations at the Agriprocessors plant.
Rep. Bruce Braley, D-Iowa, whose district borders Postville, said he was concerned that rounding up, jailing and deporting the plant’s workers would impede the Department of Labor’s investigation.
“Unless we enforce our laws equally against both employees and employers who break the law, we will continue to have a serious problem with illegal immigration in this country,” Braley said.
Photos of the raid in May 2008
I dont understand . Why did they not issue arrest warrents to any employees of Agri. Of course the tactics look unfair because non of the rubashkins were arrested. DUH!
Because non of the Rubashkins broke the law.
This is how it goes when America is in a recession and the unemployment rate is high the federal government want to free another 18 million jobs by confiscating them from the Mexican people and donate them to all low class homeless poor amercing so now lets think a moment those people and they want you support them the black’s want $11 -$12 dollar hour plus insurance and thy will any way take all type of benefits from the federal gov on other names they dream all day with various way how they could lawsuit the owners and after all don’t work they don’t fill their jobs the manufacture keep losing millions of productivity because it does not get fuiled and the prices of the product keeps rising it comes to point they close and move to china and the federal gov loses taxes but Bush administration don’t care fact is the only MEXAIN WORK HARD SOMETIME 10 HOURS WITH OUT INTRUPITION with LESS MONEY and PAY TAXES on other SS card they don’t file taxes so fed makes a lot money and have enough for welfare no amercing will do those jobs almost every slaguerhouse in amercain is struggling to find employers to fill the jobs why cant it be a migration reform to give right to hire them with working permits should the feredl government try to replace them no body want to have this jobs
Anonymous Says:
Because non of the Rubashkins broke the law.
07-24-2008 – 10:38 PM
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What Kool-aid have you been drinking?
Try child labor laws. Try EPA laws. Try NLRB laws. Try Osha Laws. And for argumants sake, try Choshen Mishpat and Yoreh Deah.
If they would arrest anyone being oiver Osha laws
child labor laws etc. instead of issuing appropriate penalties then we would have more people in jail then out of jail and commerce as we know it would cease.
You are a vindictive blood thirsty moron.
I would also like to know what percentage of frume yidden are abiding 100% by Choshen Mishpat.
What do YOU think ? It’s not so simple.
It’s very easy to condemn and accuse anonymously especially if you have an agenda.
Providing employees with false social security numbers is not breaking the law? Hiring underage workers is not breaking the law?
Illegal parking is not breaking the law ?
Jay walking is not breaking the law ?
Not reporting house cleaning help is not breaking the law ?
Big deal – you pay the fine – say your’e sorry and
go on with life. What do want ? that they should be executed ? Get real and stop being sanctamonious.
As far as I know there is no proof and not even an
official accusation (except from some pitt bull bloggers) that the owners were aware of their employees obtained or were being provided with false SS numbers. Just because you wish it doesn’t make it so and thankfully we live in a democracy where you’re innocent until proven guilty. Be careful the yardstick that you use to judge others will be used for you after 120.
# Anonymous Says:
comments – arrow Providing employees with false social security numbers is not breaking the law? Hiring underage workers is not breaking the law?
07-25-2008 – 10:21 AM
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ever seen the workers in 95% of the fast food joints in American? how about grocery stores? or any of the other American retail establishments????
EVERYONE hires teenagers! there is nothing wrong with having teenagers or even 6 year olds working in your company, as long as you have parental permission.
NYC even have a youth employment program, they hire as young as 14!!!! go sue NYC for hiring children!
stop trying to find fault in a good business establishment just because you dont like them.
if Agri did anything illegal they would have been in trouble, fact is they stayed on the good side of the law.
stop being ignorant and just bashing people because you like it.
ben,good job, great comment!!!
The conundrum here is that the illegal immigrant employees broke the law by working for AP but AP did not break any law by hiring them. See here for more “va’eichavei” by the ICE bureau. If you have a problem with that outcome write to your congresscritter.
Anyways, the kosher meats shelves in my local market are gradually filling up again after being mostly bare for the past month-and-a-half or so. It’s mostly poultry right now with a few packs of steaks here and there. That figures since poultry processing is a bit simpler than beef so it is probably much easier to ramp that up to pre-raid outputs.
if Agri did anything illegal they would have been in trouble, fact is they stayed on the good side of the law.
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They ARE in trouble. If they stayed on the good side of the law, they wouldn’t be under investigation by the U.S. Congress.
It seems that for those who purportedly learned “blue light special” as their first english words, and who well know how to come to NYC to get welfare, would have known what an SSN is. How dare this person insult the intelligence of illegal aliens like that!
Can’t we give these people a break? They are trying to provide a necessary service, an essential service to the Jewish community. I’m sick of people beating up on these people. Let them work out their issues, treat their workers fairly, pay them a fair wage, produce high quality meat and meat products with good kashrut and we’ll all thank them. Not to mention they should do all this at a reasonable price. Wow, what a responsibility! We need to have Rachmanus and encourage these people to act right, speak right, do their jobs with intregrity, responsibility, and honestly. We need these people. Treat the Gentiles and the Jews with respect and everything will be beautiful. Be decent neighbors in that community, keep your side of the street clean and others will do the same. That all has to go along with making a fair profit. I say yes to profit and yes to responsibility!
“Can’t we give these people a break? They are trying to provide a necessary service,…”
These people are not trying to provide a necessary service. They are trying to make a living.
Re the comment about teenagers working nfast food retaurants — It is illegal for anyone under the age of 18 to work in a slaughterhouse. It is far too dangerous an environment.
July 25, 2008
Feds Found And Seized Almost 100 Forged And Fraudulent Identity Documents From Agriprocessors’ Human Services Department During May 12 Raid
Federal agents found and took almost 100 forged documents from Agriprocessors’ Human Resources Department during the May 12 raid. The Fed’s description of that find seems to indicate…
…corporate involvement at senior levels.
Jeff Abbas from Postville Radio writes:
I obtained copies of the arrest warrants for the two Agri supervisors arrested three weeks ago. Paragraph 4 of the warant(s) states (referring to actions taken on the day of the raid) –
“4. During the execution of the warrants, agents discovered and seized dozens of fraudulent permanent resident alien cards from offices within the human resources department at Agriprocessors. Most of the cards were attached to paperwork dated May 11th or May 12th, 2008. Additional resident alien cards were grouped in stacks and not attached to any paperwork. Based upon common features, ICE agents determined that the vast majority of the fraudulent resident alien cards were from the same manufacturer. Out of approximately 96 fraudulent resident alien cards, approximately 90 exhibited alien registration numbers which were then assigned to other actual persons.”
There are also 5 individual references to 5 different subjects obtaining false paperwork from the human resources office at Agriprocessors.