As I have said from the beginning, Agriprocessors employers sought, recruited, hired and exploited numerous illegal immigrants, primarily from Guatemala, into their meatpacking plant in Postville. Even the initial Arrest Warrant contained documents proving the Human Resources department was involved. As I reported on Sept 9, the Iowa Attorney General filed charges against the employer and managers for hiring underage children.
Now the Feds are indicting two Human Resources employees for harboring, aiding and abetting document fraud and identity theft. These are significant charges which should have been implemented with the intial warrant. Hopefully soon, the Employer were also be indicted for these charges.
Agriprocessors human resources employees indicted
The Gazette CEDAR RAPIDS — The two Agriprocessors, Inc. human resources employees charged last week were indicted Wednesday by a grand jury in U.S. District Court.Laura Althouse, 38 of Postville, was charged with aiding and abetting document fraud and aiding and abetting aggravated identity theft. Laura Freund, 29, of Fayette, was charged with harboring and aiding and abetting the harboring of undocumented aliens. Both will be arraigned Sept. 24. Althouse works in the human resources department and has payroll duties, and Freund also works in human resources at the kosher meatpacking plant in Postville. The complaint alleges a plant supervisor was in the human resources department assisting employees with the completion of new applications, in new names and using newly acquired false identification documents on May 11, a day before a immigration raid. Althouse was assisting in the process and knew some of the applicants were current employees. Freund was implicated in helping undocumented alien employees obtain false identification documents, according to the complaint.If convicted, Althouse faces up to 12 years in federal prison and Freund faces up to five years.
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5 comments:
The initial warrant was only a 'search warrant', it did not allow for the arrest or charging of Agriprocessors employees. The other warrant, how they arrested the "Illegal Immigrants", was an arrest warrant only for the 900+ names they had which where found to have been working illegally. Those, they could arrest on the spot.
You really need to learn how the law is written and how it works.
I have always maintained that both the employers and the employees should be subject an escalating schedule of penalties. The best penalty for employers is a few nights in jail and a stiff enough fine to makes it unprofitable to hire illegals and a mandatory requirement to provide health insurance for all its employees and to check the work status of all employees via E-verfication.
Liquid,
Regardless of the warrant types, the verbiage of the false documents in the HR department was there and the informant X said the HR dept assisted the workers in completing them.
Ultima,
I agree.
Whenever these sweeps happen, the employers should spend time in jail regardless of their excuses.
Yes Dee, and now they are indicted due to the evidence ascertained during the 'search'. Witness testimony is helpful, but hard evidence is what convicts people, not word of mouth.
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