A year later, Iowa raid still marks a flashpoint
By MIKE McGRAW
The Kansas City Star
POSTVILLE, Iowa | If there is an epicenter in the shifting, emotionally charged debate over U.S. immigration policy, it is here, amid some of the richest soil on Earth.
That alluvial black dirt nurtures corn, beef cattle, chickens and turkeys, which require massive slaughterhouses. And that in turn nurtures a lively trade in the illegal immigrants willing to work in them.
All that ended in Postville a year ago today, when two government helicopters and some 900 immigration agents descended on this town of 2,200 and rounded up nearly 400 illegal immigrants working at a nearby meatpacking plant.
Believed to be the second-largest workplace immigration raid in U.S. history, it cost taxpayers $5.2 million, according to one estimate; it terrified workers and their families; and it left economic devastation in its wake.
"I am not angry at the people who do not want us here," said a weeping Nohemi Hurtado, who is from Mexico and earned $7.50 an hour cleaning the hair from beef carcasses at nearby Agriprocessors. "It is their country, but I just ask God that I can stay." [story continued]
On this anniversary of that dreadful event, I have difficulty wrapping my mind around its many implications.
To the extent anyone was taking advantage of these people, I am glad that ended. In no position to bargain, I expect the temptation to take advantage of them was intense. But then, that extends to the American consumer... okay, that extends to ME. Nohemi accepted $7.50 an hour to clean hair from beef carcasses. If I insist on cheap beef without care for how it was grown, processed and shipped, then I am part of the apparatus that exploited these workers.
I am confused and a little disturbed by the amount of resources put into this raid. Much like I am confused and disturbed at the anger often poured out on illegal immigrants from people who are only on this side of the border thanks to the DNA lottery and mere fate.
I am distressed at Nohemi's "it is their country..." If unquenchable love is the value, borders seem to be arbitrary divisions created by unquenchable pride or selfishness. Things that were stolen from others we now refuse to share.
The law is the law, and millions of hard-working people are here illegally. But perhaps the law is the problem this time and needs changing, to end the emotional, financial and sometimes physical devastation of my brothers and sisters who simply seek a fraction of the opportunity I have.
1 comment:
I have a real problem with forced relocations. I have worked with many immigrants over the winding path that is my "career." I have to say that I found them all to be wonderful human beings. They have the same thoughts, feelings and aspirations that all humans have. It pains me greatly that just because someone was born in one place and not another they are denied the ability to pursue their human endeavors. They are denied the basic human desire for security, comfort and health because they don't look or talk like me. They are made to feel worth less than me and that is wrong. They are no less human than I am, and from Nohemi's comment they are a hell of alot more gracious than we as a people are.
The truth of the matter is that had the company they were working for paid a living wage, there would be no openings for them to come and fill. These are jobs "that american's won't do" because the corporate task master knows that he can squeeze a profit from his cheap labor. But when times are tough, the govt needs a scapegoat. America, meet your scapegoat. It is Nohemi and xochipa and Fernando and the many others I worked with.
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