Largest U.S. immigration raid ever

Postville, IA home of the the country's most productive Kosher meat packing plant was barraged by immigration officials with buses and helicopters on Tuesday. Federal officials arrested 390 employees. 56 were released for "humanitarian" reasons. It was likely they needed to care for children.

Sister Mary McCauley, a Roman Catholic nun at St. Bridget’s Catholic Church in Postville explained that families were seeking safe haven in the church as helicopters zoomed overhead.

The Sister said most of the plant workers are Mexican and Guatemalan.

Conditions in meat packing plants are notoriously bad. Particularly in a the kill room. The summer after graduating from high school, I worked as a janitor in an Iowa school. My supervisor was a Vietnam vet. He worked in an Iowa meat packing plant in the kill room prior to the simple life of a janitor. He said he believed nothing would be more horrific than Vietnam until he entered the kill room for the first time.

I am disappointed Governor Chuck Culver - D of Iowa did not do more to protect hard working Iowans from the federal invasion. "Asked about the raid during a Monday news conference, Gov. Chet Culver said both illegal immigrants and companies that knowingly hire them should be prosecuted.

"Illegal means illegal, not just those who are crossing the border illegally but those who are responsible for helping to make it happen,” Culver said. He added that it is also important to consider humanitarian concerns and had raised those issue with immigration authorities.

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The NY Times reported 6 meat plants were involved in the sting, Iowa's just set the record. "The immigration agency raided plants in Hyrum, Utah; Greeley, Colo.; Cactus, Tex.; Grand Island, Neb.; Marshalltown, Iowa; and Worthington, Minn."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/13/us/13raid.html