Posted on 06/05/2008 9:45:32 AM PDT by AuntB
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — After the biggest immigration raid in U.S. history, hundreds of workers have been sentenced but not one company official as yet faces any charges — something critics say is typical of a federal government that is tough on employees but easy on owners.
Worker advocates and lawmakers say the fact that nearly 400 workers were arrested in the May 12 raid at the Agriprocessors Inc. plant in Postville — or more than one-third of the total number of employees — proves that company officials must have known they were hiring illegal immigrants.
"Until we enforce our immigration laws equally against both employers and employees who break the law, we will continue to have a problem with immigration," said U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley, an Iowa Democrat whose district borders Postville.
Such raids are designed to get headlines and make it appear that the federal government is cracking down on illegal immigration, said Frank Sharry, executive director of the immigration reform group America's Voice. But he says even those who think enforcement is the answer can't seriously believe the 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. can be arrested and deported.
"Even if you wanted to pursue an imbalanced enforcement-first strategy, the only thoughtful way to do it would be to go after employers, make examples of them and try to scare other employers into compliance," he said. "They're not doing that."
The owner of the Postville plant, Aaron Rubashkin, has said that the company is conducting its own investigation "into the circumstances which led to the recent work site enforcement action, and is fully cooperating with the government." He said the company could not respond to specific allegations due to pending legal issues.
Court documents filed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent before the raid at the Postville plant indicate that authorities believed company supervisors were violating a number of federal laws including harboring illegal immigrants. An application and affidavit for search warrant alleged that:
_Based on 2007 fourth-quarter payroll reports, about 78 percent of Agriprocessors' 968 workers were using false or fraudulent Social Security numbers in connection with their employment.
_Agriprocessors was notified by the Social Security Administration in five separate letters of 500 Social Security number discrepancies for each tax year from 2000 to 2005.
_A Department of Transportation investigation found that an Agriprocessors supervisor was forcing workers to buy cars from him and allegedly registered the cars under falsified identities. An investigator found at least 200 cars were bought in this manner.
_The Iowa Department of Labor uncovered workplace safety problems including 39 citations since last October. Fines of around $182,000 were reduced Tuesday to $42,750 after the company agreed to correct some of the violations, which included improper storage and handling of hazardous chemicals and inadequate training in the use of respirators and handling of blood-borne pathogens.
_Allegations of child labor law violations are under investigation by the state. The investigation was initially halted by the ICE raid but has resumed, said Iowa Workforce Development spokeswoman Kerry Koonce. If confirmed, the violations could be prosecuted as misdemeanors under state law.
_Occupational Safety and Health Administration logs show records of incidents that led to five amputations, dozens of reports of broken bones, eye injuries and hearing loss at the plant between 2001 and 2006.
Immigration officials said the 389 arrests at the plant meant it was the largest single-site immigration raid in U.S. history. Of those arrested, 297 pleaded guilty and were sentenced. The guilty pleas included use of false identification documents to obtain employment, false use of a Social Security number or cards and unlawful re-entry into the United States.
About 60 of the workers taken into custody were released for humanitarian reasons and do not face criminal charges, while 20 others were detained on immigration violations only and face deportation proceedings, said Bob Teig, spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in the Iowa's northern district. Five other defendants did not enter pleas and have cases pending in U.S. District Court in Cedar Rapids.
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.
ICE 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.
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 ICE.
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 he 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 immigrants but "must build work site 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." On the Net:
* Agriprocessors Inc.: http://www.agriprocessor.com * Immigration and Customs Enforcement: http://www.ice.gov
Hi Gang:
The article I have attached below is an important article for a number of reasons. First of all it clearly illustrates the outrageous conditions under which illegal aliens often toil. Illegal aliens are perceived as being easy to exploit because of their illegal status in our country. Exploitation takes many forms. It includes the payment of substandard wages, it may also include working conditions that are so substandard that they are flat out illegal. The working conditions for illegal aliens often imperil their lives. Consider the serious injuries that had been suffered by the employees of the Agriprocessors plant that where noted in the news article I have attached below.
While not discussed in the news article, it is significant to also consider another component of the employment of illegal aliens. Often payroll withholding taxes are not taken out and the employer often does not pay any fringe benefits for illegal aliens or make the required payroll deductions to Social Security. This means that not only are the illegal aliens being exploited, but our government and hence the citizens of this nation is not being paid the taxes that a company that operates "on the level" would be paying into the system and our nation's economy. This is also true of taxes not paid to states and municipalities by unscrupulous employers.
Another factor that must be considered is that generally when United States citizens and resident aliens receive their pay checks, they often make purchases and through the circulation of money through the economy, we all benefit. That is the theory behind the "Economic Stimulus" program that was implemented this year to provide Americans with relatively minor amounts of cash to hopefully make purchases and help to jumpstart our nation's faltering economy.
Illegal aliens make little enough money to start with, but further exacerbating the economic side of the equation is the fact that most illegal aliens invested hefty amounts of money to smugglers to get them into our country so that they could send money back home. Last year it has been estimated, some 45 billion dollars was wired from the United States to Latin America and the Caribbean by illegal aliens. Still more money was sent from our country to other countries covertly and Latin America and the Caribbean were not the only regions of the world to receive remittances and other sources of American dollars. This money is money that is permanently lost to our economy. This money does not circulate within the United States, spurring economic growth and growing our nation's economy.
Meanwhile, the fastest growing white collar crime is identity theft. It would be interesting to find out how many illegal aliens are responsible for committing this crime in order to secure a job or hide "in plain sight." Of those aliens it would be perhaps even more interesting to find out how many criminals and terrorists have engaged in identity theft.
The Agriprocessors case is particularly egregious. I have highlighted several key sentences to deal with the horrific conditions under which the illegal aliens worked and as you read the accounts of the injuries that the illegal employees suffered,I want you to think about the advocates for open borders who always like to raise the issue of the "dignity of the undocumented!"
What is amazing is that to quote from the article:
"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." That statement nearly takes my breath away! Of course Representative Latham is a Republican and, I suppose, is trying to be supportive of the President, however, after the abysmal track record established by the Bush Administration over the last 7 years, how could anyone possibly express any surprise that the "...enforcement system is probably not working not working as effectively as promised by the Bush administration" as is stated by Representative Latham's staffer?
The enforcement and the administration of our nation's immigration laws has been little more than a charade for the past several decades and the current administration has arguably the absolute worst track record of any administration in the history of our nation!
I have generally disagree with Frank Sharry, however I find myself agreeing with at least half of his quote in the article below:
Such raids are designed to get headlines and make it appear that the federal government is cracking down on illegal immigration, said Frank Sharry, executive director of the immigration reform group America's Voice. But he says even those who think enforcement is the answer can't seriously believe the 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. can be arrested and deported.
As for the arrest of the 12 million illegal aliens- I would suggest that by now there are probably twice as many illegal aliens in our country since each and every day thousands of illegal aliens manage to enter our country in violation of law or, violate the immigration laws since they entered our country via the lawful process. The open borders advocates have been using the 12 million number for quite some time.
While I agree that it would not be a good idea to attempt to apprehend all of the illegal aliens who are present in our country today, the solution is simple. As I stated a number of years ago when I was on Lou Dobbs Tonight and then repeated when I testified at a hearing before the Congressional Homeland Security Committee, "No one would break into an amusement park if they could not get to go on the rides and, at the end of the day when they shut down the rides and turn off the lights, everyone heads for the exits!" Mark Krikorian, the director of the Center for Immigration Studies, the Washington-based "think tank" with which I have been proud to have been affiliated for the past 5 years, has simply referred to this concept as the "attrition" way of dealing with the huge numbers of illegal aliens who are present in our country. Make it difficult if not impossible for illegal aliens to obtain a job, secure a driver's license, open a bank account or own property in our country and they will understand the futility to violating our nation's borders and immigration laws. Many will leave and many will be deterred from entering our country illegally.
I have written a couple of commentaries about this particular food processing plant. If the management of this corporation are not held accountable for the violations of law committed by the company and their employees, the message to all employers will be crystal clear. Even with the high profile field operations that have been conducted to create the appearance of a renewed interest in the enforcement of the immigration laws, employers of illegal aliens have little, if anything to fear.
I had the pleasure of participating in a conference this past weekend in Santa Barbara, California that was sponsored by the David Horowitz Freedom Center. The panel discussion in which I participated included Chris Burgard, the producer of a documentary, "Border," in which I have a very small role, Chirs Simcox of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, and Congressman Tom Tancredo.
As I am certain you must all know, Tom had mounted what would ultimately prove to be an unsuccessful bid for the Presidency. He was accused of being a "singe issue candidate."
I wish that Tom had responded to that criticism by saying, "No candidate for the Presidency of this nation, nor any candidate who seeks a seat in the House of Representatives or the United States Senate could seek such elected office without being deeply concerned about national security, criminal justice, the economy, the environment, health care or education and a number of other issues. The common thread that runs through each and every one of these highly important issues is the impact that our nation's failure to secure its borders and create a secure immigration system has on these important areas of concern."
Immigration is not a single issue but is, in reality, an issue that impacts nearly every other issue that challenges our nation today.
Between now and Election Day, We the People must except the challenge and the responsibility of communicating our concerns to each and every politician who seeks our votes. This issue transcends political party affiliations. This is not a Liberal issue nor is it a Conservative issue, it is an American issue!
Democracy is not a spectator sport!
Lead, follow or get out of the way!
-michael cutler-
Agreed. There's just no way to hire that many illegals and not have a clue at least some of them are illegals.
Where is Sinclair Lewis when you need him? You’d think that the Unions and Liberals would be up in arms about the explotation of labor like this.
If this many of the works were bouncing their SS and there were this many problems, where were the state tax people, OSHA, FDA etc? Were they all bribed?
Also..there were hundreds of these illegals driving without licenses. How many hundreds of illegals in the schools..and nobody noticed?
You bet. The greedy employers that hire their cheap illegal labor should be the first ones prosecuted fined and jailed.
Second offense, seize their business assets.
That would send the message and end all this lawlessness and chaos.
But since the fat cats owns the corrupt politicians, it won't happen.
You hit the nail on the head. Company executives aren’t arrested because congress is corrupt. Prosecute these guys and the bribed gov’t officials that protect them and that will convince me that actual progress is being made.
Until then this is all a dog and pony show.
Agriprocessors Inc. has some interesting political contributions....they really like Arlen Specter.
http://projectusa.org/library/postville/agri-processors_political_contributions.html
Iowa Republicans Took The Rubashkin’s Slave Labor-Tainted Money
http://state29.blogspot.com/2008/05/iowa-republicans-took-rubashkins-slave.html
http://www.protestletters.com/protest_letters/agriprocessors_judge.html
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/workplace/85569/
Agriprocessors’ management needs to be frog-marched out of their headquarters in a nice televised perp walk, and given several years of jail time. These people are no more than modern-day slavers, and they and their ilk bear a huge responsibility for attracting the tsunami of low-skilled illegals that we’re currently drowning in.
I’ll guarantee you that ICE could go to any of the big hog processors in down-east NC and do the exact same thing they did at the Postville raid. They’re everywhere, and while it’s important to get the illegals out of the country, it’s also important to crack down on those big businesses (largely in agribusiness) that hire them by the hundreds and thousands.
}:-)4
ping
“These people are no more than modern-day slavers, and they and their ilk bear a huge responsibility for attracting the tsunami of low-skilled illegals that we’re currently drowning in.”
Yes. These companies have a bigger scam going than the slavers ever had. Slave masters of old had to house, feed, care for the sick. Now the modern day ones have you and I to pay for their subsidization! What a country!
The problem is that the rules the employers have to follow are so full of loopholes all they have to do is say, “His/her documents LOOKED legitimate to me” and they are off the hook.
A federal law with severe penalties requiring employers to verify SS numbers and an automatic alert if a SS number is used multiple times or far from the address of the rightful owner or is from a dead person or from a child would stop a lot of employers from hiring them.
Ya think?
We could cure this illegal alien problem in 30 days if we just could figure out how to get each Congressman to learn about the Will to Win. Without it, America is lost.
http://state29.blogspot.com/2008/05/iowa-republicans-took-rubashkins-slave.html
Kosher slaughterhouses investigated by feds
07/2/06 EXCERPT
MELVILLE, N.Y. — AP--The federal government is investigating kosher slaughterhouses and suppliers for possible antitrust practices, according to a lawyer for one of the firms. AgriProcessors Inc., the world's largest kosher slaughterhouse, received a grand jury subpoena requesting documents and was cooperating with the investigation, attorney Nathan Lewin said Friday. "It has been told that neither the corporation, nor any corporate officer or employee is presently a target of the investigation," Lewin said in a statement.
It was not immediately clear exactly how many slaughterhouses and suppliers were involved in the probe. The U.S. Department of Justice did not immediately return a phone call for comment from The Associated Press late Friday.
A telephone number listed for AgriProcessors Inc. was out of service Saturday. Based in Postville, Iowa, AgriProcessors employs about 700 people. Trained rabbis at the plant slaughter cows at a rate of about one every three minutes. The meat is sold under the brands Iowa's Best Beef, Rubashkin's and Aaron's Best.
BACKSTORY Federal authorities charged that Rabbi Yehoshua (Milton) Balkany, one of the more prominent figures in the Orthodox Jewish educational world, conned the system. He harassed the Agency for Int'l Development and got millions to train Russian Jews IN RUSSIA on computers. He then pocketed $700,000 from a federal grant that was supposed to be used for a “sectarian” addition to his synagogue but he actually used the monies for his personal expenses.
At the time of Rabbi Balkany`s arrest, The Village Voice referred to him as "Rabbi Bunco." New York Post headlines read "Thou Shall Not Steal: Feds Charge Rabbi With Scamming 700G" and "Rogue Rabbi Boosted Pols As Heat Was On." The Jewish Week headline read: "Brooklyn Bundler" Arrested on Fraud Charges."
Rabbi Balkany was an inveterate campaign fund-raiser and was known as the Brooklyn Bundler. He was a contributor to Rudy Giuliani. Balkany avoided prosecution by agreeing to return the $700,000 money to the Dept of Housing & Urban Development. It is not known if he actually did so.
Balkany’s large extended family has continued to write large campaign checks. Two members of a family related to Balkany by marriage contributing $9,000 to a local pol’s war chest. Records show Menachem and Tzippa Rubashkin each wrote checks for $4,500 on July 11, 2004 to Cong Anthony Weiner's campaign.
List of Rubashkin political donations here
http://state29.blogspot.com/2008/05/iowa-republicans-took-rubashkins-slave.html
Reached at the Krasna Yeshiva in Brooklyn, where Balkany serves as principal, Menachim Balkany told a reporter he'd be available on his cell phone in two hours. But when the reporter called back, there was no answer.
================================================
The PBS DOCUMENTARY "HASIDIM IN AMERICA" can be found on PBS' web site.
EXCERPT: Designated a "disadvantaged minority" under Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society," Orthodox became beneficiaries of federal community development funds. Federal and city assistance received over the years include CETA (Comprehensive Employment Training Act) monies, Section 8 housing assistance, school meal funds, Headstart, HUD grants and low interest loans.
In 1984, federal aid was expanded when the federal government included Orthodox in a priority group of six disadvantaged minorities recognized by all federal agencies. These are some of the factors that have contributed to charges of favoritism by African American and Hispanic neighbors of Brooklyn Orthodox, PBS reported in its documentary.
The Will to Win ends once most congress critter secure their seats in congress. After that its defeatism, day and night. Most of them should be arrested for dereliction of duty and various violations of the Constituton.
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