Iowa town struggles after immigration raid

updated 8:27 a.m. ET Aug. 17, 2008

POSTVILLE, Iowa - 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.

Called Postville home
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."

A disaster
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.

At a recent Sunday sermon in St. Bridget's, where the pastor, Rev. Richard Gaul, likened the need to help feed immigrant families to the miracle of the loaves and fishes.

Inside Sabor Latino, where owner Juan Figueroa eyed empty tables and sadly considered closing the Mexican grocery store next door.

In Club 51, the town bar, where a jar of pickled eggs sits on the counter and regulars jokingly count down the minutes to the "Big Ol' Fish" segment on local news. On a recent weekday evening, some longtime Agriprocessors workers downed cold beers, and quietly fretted about the raid's effect on the plant — and the stream of new people arriving in town.

Postville has lost more than one-fourth of its pre-raid population of 2,300, including 389 Agriprocessors workers who were detained by immigration officials, and scores more who have fled or gone into hiding.

About 60 workers, mostly women with small children, were released on humanitarian grounds pending court dates. Of those, 40 to 45 were required to wear black electronic monitoring bracelets, leaving them unable to work or to leave.

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