The 1986 illegal alien amnesty was supposed to be one prong of a two part compromise strategy: amnesty illegal aliens already here, but enforce workplace hiring to prevent more from coming. The amnesty went off on a massive scale, but enforcement seldom happened: big employers tended to have politician friends who warned off federal enforcement agencies. It's the kind of corruption that the press hasn't shown much interest in, because That's Racist!
Now, Tom Leys writes in the Des Moines Register about Postville, Iowa, one of the more notorious examples in the country because of a journalist with the Joycean name of Stephen Bloom's 2003 book Postville: A Clash of Cultures in Heartland America.
Leys writes:
Federal authorities could have spared Postville a great deal of upheaval if they had gone ahead with a planned 2000 immigration raid there instead of waiting nearly eight years to deal with a blatant case of illegal hiring, a retired federal agent says.
Estela Biesemeyer said last week that she and other immigration agents were poised to raid the Agriprocessors meatpacking plant in late summer 2000, but their bosses canceled the action because of fears it might affect the presidential election.
Agency administrators were concerned about political blow-back from the raid, because they had heard the plant's owners were friends with U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, she said. Lieberman was the Democrats' vice presidential candidate that year.
The result of the cancellation, she said, was that the kosher meatpacking plant was allowed to expand dramatically, hiring hundreds more illegal immigrants. By the time authorities launched a huge raid there in 2008, the plant was Postville's dominant economic support, and its ensuing bankruptcy threw the town into a tailspin.
Rumors have long swirled that immigration officials knew about the plant's illegal work force but put off action for years. Confirmation came this summer in "Train to Nowhere," a book about immigration written by former Des Moines Register reporter Colleen Krantz.
Biesemeyer's former boss told Krantz about the 2000 raid being canceled abruptly, though his recollection of the exact timing and motive differs from Biesemeyer's.
Biesemeyer was the supervising agent in Des Moines for the Immigration and Naturalization Service and its successor, Immigration and Customs Enforcement. She retired in 2008, a few months after scores of federal agents charged into the Agriprocessors meatpacking plant and arrested nearly 400 workers in what was then the largest such raid in U.S. history.
Most of the arrested workers were Guatemalans or Mexicans, who served five months in prison before being deported. Hundreds more workers who avoided the raid fled town. The incident made national waves, and local leaders said it devastated the area's economy.
Biesemeyer, who lives in Indianola, said she was in charge of organizing the 2000 raid. Agents had gathered from around the country and search warrants were ready to go when the action was canceled the day before it was to happen, she said. "I was shocked that at the last minute they scrubbed it."
If the raid had gone through as planned, it probably would have caused much less disruption than the 2008 raid, because Agriprocessors was a much smaller operation than it would become, Biesemeyer said. She said agents in 2000 expected to arrest about 100 Agriprocessors workers, most of whom were from eastern Europe. ...
She saw no indication that Lieberman asked anyone to scrub the raid. But she said her supervisors were concerned that the raid could affect the election, and they didn't want the agency to get involved in a political mess. She said she never understood why they didn't resume the plan after the election was over.
Immigration agencies were reorganized in 2003, with most of the workplace enforcement duties transferred to the new Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
Shawn Neudauer, a spokesman for ICE, said last week that he couldn't comment on "outrageous statements" Biesemeyer might make as a private citizen. He said he doubted any records from the 2000 incident still existed, because they involved the defunct INS. "When federal agencies go away, they really go away," he said.
A spokeswoman for Lieberman said the senator never intervened in the matter, and she said his staff doubts he ever had contact with the Rubashkin family, which owned Agriprocessors.
This kind of thing is hardly unique to putative friends of Joe Lieberman. It's especially common in rural states with politicians who are friends of big growers; and most big farmers are not Lubavitchers.
But, this kind of corruption just hasn't been a big story with the press.
But, this kind of corruption just hasn't been a big story with the press.
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he doubted any records from the 2000 incident still existed, because they involved the defunct INS. "When federal agencies go away, they really go away," he said.
This sounds like a lie to me. But if it is true then this is another indication of how poorly our government performs. Not keeping records? What a great idea.
In a different vein, this seems a recurring subject: a large kosher operation hiring almost exclusively illegals. What gives?
The solution to the problem of illegal immigration is very straightforward (and it does not involve a wall): start jailing employers who knowingly hire illegals. Do it methodically and mercilessly. A hundred of well-advertised trials and a couple (or a dozen) of jailed Capitol insiders is all that it would take. After that, the problem will solve itself in no time.
I wonder why the owners of the Postville plant were friends with Joe and Hannah Libermann? I can't figure it out...its just too mysterious.
The meatpacking plant should move to Arkansas.
They manage to act pretty damn quick if you're some dead hockey player's brother or streaming movies illegally. "When federal agencies go away, they really go away"--what an impudent punk.
When even the lowliest spokesman for a sclerotic soft-on-crime agency is auditioning to be deputy spin doctor, just hand everything over to the non-profits and trial lawyer fronts. They could hardly do a worse job of it.
I've heard Patrick Leahy has applied pressure to ICE to lay off Vermont farmers hiring illegals. I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of Congressman and Senators have intervened on behalf of employers of illegal aliens.
Georgia is a very conservative state and the voters are strongly opposed to illegal immigration. But both of Georgia's Senators (conservative Republicans) initially supported Bush's amnesty bill. It was only when the huge talk-radio-driven backlash developed that they had to flip-flop on the issue. They hardly tried to hide the reason for their support for the illegals: big agriculture in south Georgia, which is closely tied the state's political structure.
I have to laugh when I think of the progressives I know that righteously assert that it is not only legal but the highest moral order to use social security numbers and federal tax ID numbers to hunt down rich white people to pay their fair share of federal income tax while at the same time screaming bloody murder when it is suggested we use those same numbers to make sure that that person can actually work here legally in the first place.
I have a brother who is an accountant on a farm in California. 85% of the 100 or so people working there are illegals. Every couple of years he gets what is called a "no match" letter mailed to him asking to clear up why 50 of the 100 names at his company do not match the social security numbers. He simply throws out the letter knowing full well it is simply a request and unenforcible. The only time someone investigated was when the unemployment office showed up. One of the illegals was out on disability collecting a gov check. The problem was that he used his uncle's name and social security number to get the job so the state DI records showed the same guy collecting DI while still working. They did nothing. Of course the Uncle's social security income will be higher than it should be and the illegal will have nothing (of course la raza wants to "regularize" social secuitry) so someday this guy will be a ward of the state. Pretty disgusting.
Federal authorities could have spared Postville a great deal of upheaval if they had gone ahead with a planned 2000 immigration raid there instead of waiting nearly eight years
The writer assumes that upheaval of the Iowans was an unfortunate side-effect. On a national level, my reading of the immigration advocates leads me to believe that upheaval of the existing society is the goal.
"When federal agencies go away, they really go away,"
Look we're going all the way back to the dark recesses of 2000 on this one, guys. They didn't even have social media back then. It's like nothing ever really happened; weird.
But seriously, how in the hell is this statement not challenged?
On one hand, we have the disdain of the urban elite for "flyover country", and on the other hand, we have cases such as this where the "powers that be" are anxious to help out said flyover country with subsidies and lax statute enforcement. Maybe part of the disdain is pumping a new demographic into flyover country.
Agriculture is pretty relentless about mechanizing and reducing labor input. It is one of the bigger fallacies of our time to allow the import of low skilled workers into a sector that is madly intent on eliminating those jobs.
'Shawn Neudauer, a spokesman for ICE, said [...] he doubted any records from the 2000 incident still existed, because they involved the defunct INS. "When federal agencies go away, they really go away," he said.'
That's rich coming from the spokesman for one of the agencies that proceeded directly from the breakup of the INS. The truth as demonstrated by his employer and its precursor would be more like, "When Federal agencies go away, they don't go away: they metastasize." A consummate ironist, this Mr. Neudauer.
I remember reading an article from National Geographic about postville, it pretty much blamed everything on north european christians (too friendly not understanding hasdics) but then said everything was hunky dory.
National Geographic used to be fair, but then it made the mistake of publishing an article saying syrian jews were well treated and liked it in syria... pretty soon there was government pressure, a few board changes (from names like Johnson to names like Lieberman) and volia...
"On one hand, we have the disdain of the urban elite for "flyover country", and on the other hand, we have cases such as this where the "powers that be" are anxious to help out said flyover country with subsidies and lax statute enforcement. Maybe part of the disdain is pumping a new demographic into flyover country.
No "maybe" about it.
And the disdain the elites not only express but advertise toward the flyover states is returned a thousandfold. The big cities in flyover country are leftist, of course, but they are also decaying and their urban revitalization projects have faltered.
Meanwhile, out here in the sticks, the more resistant factions are digging in their heels, biding their time and making their preparations--not preparations for any unlawful activity, but for the time when the government their taxes fund openly turns on them.
Agency administrators were concerned about political blow-back from the raid, because they had heard the plant's owners were friends with U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, she said.
What? This is the USA where the rule of law prevails, not some communist shithole where an agency administrator “heard that the plant’s owners were friends with Comrade Stalin.”
Right?
The overlooked part of the Postville story is that the slaughterhouse owners were getting Chinese into the country on valid work visas; the Chinese were paying the owners a $30-40K kickback, spending one day in Postville and then heading off to LA or San Francisco.
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