PDA

View Full Version : Federal raid leaves town of bank robbers destitute



Little-Acorn
08-17-2008, 07:59 PM
It seems a small town in Iowa has a problem. For years they have been harboring people who supplemented their incomes by robbing banks. Those people have been in the town sometimes for years now, raising families, building homes, etc. But they were still bank robbers. And the kept violating the laws against robbing banks, year after year.

Recently there was a big Federal raid on this town. A lot of the bank robbers were arrested and taken away. Many of their spouses, children etc. fled to a nearby church, claiming sanctuary after the violations they had committed.

Now the town is having a really tough time. Many of the people who had worked there are gone. They are all sad and desperate, wondering what will become of them.

Even after what has happened to them, they still can't seem to get it: If you violate the laws of this country, you are risking arrest and jail time, and resulting LONG periods where you can't help your family, see your friends, etc. They knew that when they started robbing banks, but kept doing it anyway. Now their friends and families are devastated.

I certainly sympathize with them. But what can we do? They violated the laws, they knew what they were doing at the time and what the results might be, and now they've been busted. I don't see any way out, other than the spouses and children living a hard life brought on by their bank-robbing kin and the punishment they got and deserved. Maybe their kin should have chosen less illegal ways to live?

----------------------------

The above story is 100% true, except for one thing: The laws they chose to violate, weren't laws against bank robbing, they were laws against entering the country without visas, background checks, etc. But it's a distinction without a difference: They violated some pretty important laws, they tried to build families, lives etc. under the shadow of their violations, they got busted, and now they're wailing about how much trouble they all have.

My reaction remains the same: They violated the laws, they knew what they were doing at the time and what the results might be, now they've been busted. And by their actions they've brought a whole lot of grief to their friends, families, neighbors, etc.

-----------------------------------------

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080816/D92JGJ8G2.html

A small town struggles after immigration raid

Aug 16, 1:05 PM (ET)

By MONICA RHOR

POSTVILLE, Iowa (AP) - A vague unease whispered through this tiny town in northeastern Iowa, where the rolling hills are a study in vivid colors - red barns, white clapboard houses, and vibrant green cornfields plowed with almost architectural precision.

It drifted through Postville's downtown, where restaurants serving tamales share three short blocks with El Vaquero clothing store, a kosher food market and the Spice-N-Ice Liquor and Redemption store.

It nagged at Irma Rucal that Monday morning after Mother's Day weekend, as the Guatemalan immigrant worked her regular shift salting chickens at Agriprocessors, the world's largest kosher meatpacking plant and Postville's biggest employer.

Then, just after 10 a.m., that insistent murmur burst to the surface with a frantic shout:"La Migra! Salvese el que pueda!" Immigration! Save yourself if you can.

The bulk of the plant's 900 workers - mostly Guatemalan and Mexican immigrants - dashed out doors, through hallways and into corners, trying to escape federal agents conducting what would be the largest immigration raid in U.S. history.

Outside the plant, Postville Mayor Robert Penrod, alerted just before the raid, gasped at the sight of helicopters, buses, vans and armed immigration agents.

"Oh my God, we have a big problem here," Penrod thought, then cursed softly to himself.

A few blocks away, at St. Bridget's Catholic Church, the sanctuary quickly overflowed with the terrified children and spouses of detained workers. They lined the simple wooden pews, and prayed at an altar decorated with an image of the Virgin of Guadalupe, Mexico's patron saint.

For years, even decades, these Mexican and Guatemalan families had called Postville home. Here, in a place first settled by German and Norwegian Lutherans and Irish Catholics more than 150 years ago, Hispanic immigrants were raising children, buying houses, building businesses.

Like the Hasidic Jews who came to the town in 1987 to open the meatpacking plant, and the Eastern Europeans who made up the first band of workers there, the influx of Guatemalans and Mexicans had both buffeted and bolstered this quiet community - until it reached a new cultural equilibrium.

In time, the newcomers became part of the fabric of Postville, which proudly bills itself as "Hometown to the World." Now, they were clustered in hiding or being herded away in handcuffs by immigration agents.

Officials of Immigration and Customs Enforcement said they should not be faulted for carrying out the law and guarding against identity theft. And yet Sister Mary McCauley, the pastoral administrator at St. Bridget's, said the lament of one longtime resident, surveying the chaos unleashed by the raid, summed up the thoughts of many:

"Sister, a real terrible thing has happened to our town."

---

It was as if a tornado had whipped through the town or a flood had swallowed up houses. A disaster. Man-made, but a disaster all the same. Three months after the raid, that's how many in Postville describe the events of May 12.

Lives disrupted. People pushed out of jobs and homes. Children separated from parents. Businesses verging towards collapse.

And as in any small town swept by disaster, the community quickly banded together to help the victims.

In the days following the raid, donations of food, clothing and money poured into St. Bridget's, which became a sanctuary to nearly 400 immigrants, and to the local food pantry, flocked by families in need.

Red ribbons, symbolizing support for the detained workers, still flutter from lamp posts and tree trunks. A sign on one front lawn near the Agriprocessors plant declares: "Immigrants Welcome. Bienvenidos."

"We've got a lot of people here who need help. We can't just throw them out on the street," said the silver-haired mayor. "They're our family. They've made their homes here, had jobs here, raised families here."

As with a disaster, the initial mobilization has been followed by shifting emotions - quiet anger at the federal government's actions; outrage at allegations of abusive working conditions at the plant; and above all, worry.

The entire town seems weighed down by worry and a bone-deep weariness these days.

Gaffer
08-18-2008, 08:32 AM
Too bad the article didn't tell the true story of the immigrants. The multiple families living in one house. The low pay the workers got for long hours of work. No benefits or medical care. The employers getting richer because they have no overhead to speak of. Hardcore criminals living among the population because the people are afraid to report them.

These aren't Americans buying a home with a picket fence and nice yard living the American dream. They are slave labor brought here on empty promises by unscrupulous people. The ones that really need to be locked up are the ones that encouraged them. Brought them here and put them to work.

It's not the utopian little town being painted in the article. It's the real life slave camp that so many of these towns become, for the profit of the businesses that bring them there.

Little-Acorn
08-18-2008, 09:41 AM
Too bad the article didn't tell the true story of the immigrants. The multiple families living in one house. The low pay the workers got for long hours of work. No benefits or medical care.
All of which are better living conditions than where they came from.

But you do point out another result of breaking the law and living under the threat of arrest for what you've done: You become prey to any criminal who strolls by, since you are afraid to report being robbed or even raped, and the criminal knows it.

There are lots of reasons not to break the law. Aside from the direct results (you can be arrested and jailed/deported/etc.), it messes up your life real bad even if you don't get caught.

midcan5
08-18-2008, 10:01 AM
Little Acorn, do you want to destroy 'trickle down' aka 'supply side' aka 'voodoo economics?' Are you nuts, if there wasn't this cheap pool of people to drag down the salaries of American workers how would walmart survive? Get with it boy, socialism is only for the rich, dog eat dog capitalism is for working America. Wages for the working classes have gone down since Reagan, let's keep it that way.

http://www.conservativenannystate.org/

Little-Acorn
08-18-2008, 10:49 AM
The ones that really need to be locked up are the ones that encouraged them.
Well, lots of people encouraged them, including their own friends and neighbors back home.

Brought them here and put them to work.

Here you are correct. And a little of that is starting to be done - witness the prosecutions of employers who knowingly employ illegal aliens. But such prosecutions are very few and far between. They need to be stepped up a LOT... as deportations of the illegals themselves needs to be stepped up. And, of course, strengthening and adeequate patrolling of the border, so they can't get back in without visas.

Trigg
08-18-2008, 12:53 PM
Things are looking better.

•
In FY07, ICE implemented a comprehensive interior enforcement strategy focused on more efficient processing of apprehended illegal
aliens and reducing the criminal and fugitive alien populations.
Result: ICE removed a record 276,912 illegal aliens, including voluntary removals, from the United States.
•
For the first time, ICE’s DEPORT center made it possible to identify
and screen criminal aliens incarcerated in federal prisons nationwide to ensure their removal upon the completion of their sentences.
Result: 11,292 charging documents have been issued to criminal aliens housed in federal prisons.
•
ICE targeted the infrastructure that supports the business of illegal immigration,
including document and immigration benefit fraud, launching six new Document and Benefit Fraud Task Forces in cities nationwide.
Result: ICE initiated 1,309 fraud investigations leading to a record 1,531 arrests and 1,178 convictions.
•
In two years, ICE has quadrupled the number of Fugitive Operations Teams (FOTs) dedicated to identifying, locating and arresting fugitive aliens. FOTs increased from 18 in FY05 to 50 in FY06, to 75 in FY07.
Result: ICE eliminated more than 100,000 fugitive alien cases and reduced the backlog of fugitive cases for the first time in history.•

http://www.ice.gov/doclib/about/ice07ar_final.pdf

Trigg
08-18-2008, 01:11 PM
Another article detailing the slave labor at the processing plant.



In formal declarations, immigrants have described pervasive labor violations at the plant, testimony that could result in criminal charges for Agriprocessors executives, labor law experts said.

Out of work and facing deportation proceedings, many of the immigrants say they now have nothing to lose in speaking up about the conditions in the plant. They have told investigators that they were routinely put to work without safety training and were forced to work long shifts without overtime or rest time. Under-age workers said their bosses knew how young they were.
Sonia Parras Konrad, an immigration lawyer in private practice in Des Moines, is representing many of the young workers. She said she had so far identified 27 workers under 18 who were employed in the packing areas of the plant, most of them illegal immigrants from Guatemala, including some who were not arrested in the raid.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/us/27immig.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1219082750-smMKeuqUFtP5Vx75IgCDpg#


Of course all we hear about are the poor folks who have been deported and how the town has been "torn apart" by the raid.