Immigration raids tend to spare employers

Some believe the company is culpable
The large number of people arrested, coupled with the allegations against Agriprocessors, has led some to conclude that the company is at least as culpable as the workers.

"I'll be interested to see if federal authorities will be bringing any charges against the employer," Braley said in a telephone interview.

Braley has questioned the cost of the Postville raid as well as an operation at Swift & Co. plants in Marshalltown and five other Midwest cities in 2006. Although federal agents arrested about 1,300 workers in raids at the Swift plants, Braley noted that no top company officials were charged.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials told Braley they didn't have a cost estimate for the Swift raids.

Although it primarily has been Democrats who have questioned why few company officials are charged in immigration raids, the Republican congressman who represents Postville also expressed disappointment about how that operation was handled.

James Carstensen, a spokesman for Rep. Tom Latham, said he views the raid as a blow to families seeking a better life and for the community, which is suffering economically.

"It's a tragedy of an immigration system that is absolutely broken and the tragedy of an enforcement system that is probably not working as effectively as promised by the Bush administration," Carstensen said.

Lawmaker raises concern
Rep. Timothy Bishop, D-New York, raised concerns about the federal action during a May 20 hearing of the Workforce Protections Subcommittee of the House Committee on Education and Labor.

"Is it not reasonable to assume that if over a third of the work force employed at this plant violated labor law in one form or another that management has to have some complicity in those violations?" he asked James Spero, a deputy assistant director for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Spero answered that he couldn't comment on a potential ongoing investigation but said immigration enforcement at workplaces does include investigations into violations by management and owners.

"The goal for our work site operations is to target and develop cases against the egregious employers who are committing violations," he said.

Spero said investigations of the employers often take more time, and noted that agents in Postville had search warrants and seized numerous documents from the company.

Kelly Nantel, a spokeswoman for the agency, said in a statement that it targets employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens, but "must build worksite investigations in stages.

"Developing sufficient evidence against employers requires complex, white-collar crime investigations that can take years to bear fruit," she said.

The agency said it filed criminal charges against more than 90 individuals in company supervisory positions last year. That is out of a total of 863 people who were charged with crimes during the year and 4,000 administrative arrests.

Agriprocessors, established in 1987 when Brooklyn, N.Y., butcher Aaron Rubashkin bought a shuttered meatpacking plant, is now the nation's largest kosher meatpacking facility. The owner's son, Sholom Rubashkin, has been running the Postville operation.

However, the company said in its statement that it was seeking a new chief executive for the Postville operation.

"The best course of action for the company, its employees, the local community and our customers is to bring new leadership to Agriprocessors," Rubashkin said in the statement.

The plant was closed on the day of the raid, but resumed operation the next day at a reduced level.

Company officials said they were hiring replacement employees and were working with immigration officials to "help us bolster our compliance efforts to employ only properly documented employees."

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