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Third of Postville Iowa disappears - anti-immigration swoop.

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A third of the population of Postville, Iowa were deported, or are awaiting deportation, for working illegally without the proper papers.

The men were quickly sent back to places like Nicaragua, while the wives and children are still waiting to be prosecuted. Many wives have completely lost touch with their husbands.

One man said as he was escorted to the bus: "Take care - we may never meet again".

Those who remain are not allowed to work, so they rely on the church for their rent and food.

The local packing plant workforce was decimated, and they tried to obtain replacement workers from the homeless of Texas. Now, though, they've gone bankrupt.

Main Street is now made up of largely boarded-up shops, and the local car repair shop is up for sale as it lost $27000 from the immigrant's cars that were in for repair.

Patriots, however, are pleased that the place has resorted to it's old sleepy self.

Hear the audio from this webpage:
Americana BBC Radio 4

Wikipedia:
Postville Raid - Wikipedia

Washington Post report:
Immigration Raid Jars a Small Town

The book "Postville" highlights more deep-seated divisions in the local community, as the first review of the book indicates on Amazon:
See first book review on Amazon

One resident said: "We all know that most of the food on our tables was picked by illegals - look how towns collapse when we can't benefit from their labour".

Ordinary Americans didn't flock to Postville to do the work that was now available - instead the packing plant just went bust. Can we really say they're taking our jobs?

KC

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Comment by KC on June 15, 2009 at 2:44pm: Thanks T & J for details of how things are on the Border. I know drug disputes can make life very difficult for ordinary folk.

Dealing with the "immigration issue" generally can have implications for investments and for reaching our "Number".

What troubles me is the rich people who own the orange and almond groves know full well that their business would crumble if they didn't employ illegals, so they're not really interested in properly resolving the issue, so things remain unresolved, and the hard-working agricultural workers end up often being the victims when they're just trying to feed their family, and the orange grove owner is very happy to have them do the work.

But if buses from the anti-immigration department went into California like they did into Postville, then it would be a good time to buy orange juice futures, for the crop would rot on the trees.

I fully take your point that there are two sides to the story - its just unfortunate in the Postville case that some other way to deal with the problem could have been found, given the economic decline that immediately followed. Or maybe economic decline doesn't matter, as long as we enforce the immigration rules.

I can see that people on the poorer side of any border may seek to use underhand ways to improve their situation. I can't see anyway around that, except to build the wealth on the poorer side.

However, wouldn't Californian agricultural magnates be in a mess if the Mexico side of the border was as prosperous as the US side ? Then the Mexicans wouldn't be motivated to assist the growers on the US side.

That's quite a spooky thought - turns my world-view on its head - imagine that some time in the future that Mexico was richer than the US, and it was Americans who tried to get across the border to obtain work, and rich Mexicans turned "a blind eye" to the US illegals picking the Mexican oranges. Spooky, or what?

KC

Comment by Trey & Juliana on June 15, 2009 at 12:12pm: While that may be true in Iowa, in California it a whole 'nother ballgame. On the first of the month, a line forms in Tijuana, a line of people waiting to cross the border to pick up their welfare checks, paid for by our tax money. My child's classes at her last school were taught half in Spanish and half in English and all parent meetings were conducted in Spanish. Luckily I was given a sheet of paper with the agenda in English so I could follow along. In this same California state, I see American men standing outside of Home Depot trying to get day labor jobs to feed their families. The hospital my aunt works in delivers 5-10 babies every weekend to Illegal immigrant mothers who have had babies on purpose so that they a. cannot be asked top leave the country and b. so they can collect welfare and food stamps.
There are farmers living along the border who are terrorized by the drug gangs that come through invade homes and property.

There might be problems in an Iowan town, however, I see many more serious problems every day.

There are two sides to every coin