Iowa Town Turned Into "Open-Air Prison" as Wives of Men Arrested in Largest Immigration Raid in U.S. History Forbid

On May 12th, helicopters, buses and vans carrying dozens of armed immigration agents descended on Agriprocessors, the largest kosher slaughterhouse and meatpacking plant in the country. Nearly 400 workers–most of them Mexican and Guatemalan–were arrested. Nearly 300 of them were charged with aggravated identity theft and Social Security fraud. Many were sent to prisons scattered across the state.

Postville lost more than a quarter of its population in the raid. And for those left behind–namely the wives and children of the men taken away–the town has been turned into what some have described as an open-air prison. Dozens of immigrant women remain in Postville without status or a means of support. Many of them are even forbidden from leaving and have been made to wear electronic monitoring bracelets.

The women are now forced to rely on donations from St. Bridget’s Roman Catholic church and the local food pantry. Father Paul Ouderkirk spent the past half century as a priest and had been in retirement for five years when he was called back to active duty at St. Bridget"s after the raid. He joins us on the telephone from Postville.

The American Civil Liberties Union recently obtained a government “manual” distributed to defense lawyers who were assigned to represent the immigrant workers arrested in the Postville raid. According to the ACLU, the document contains prepackaged scripts for plea and sentencing hearings as well as documents providing for guilty pleas and waivers of rights that were used to push the more than 300 Postville workers through mass criminal proceedings as quickly as possible. Monica Ramirez is a staff attorney with the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project. She joins me on the telephone from San Francisco.

Paul Ouderkirk, Priest at St. Bridget"s Roman Catholic church in Postville, Iowa.

Monica Ramirez, Staff Attorney with the ACLU’s Immigrants’; Rights Project.

Related Links

• Government document distributed to Iowa defense lawyers

Related Democracy Now! Stories

• Court Interpreter Breaks Confidentiality Code to Speak Out for Workers Rounded Up in Largest Immigration Raid in U.S. History (7/14/2008)