ICE Raids, the Band-Aids meant to soothe the anger of the ANTI Immigration Reform zealots and to fill the crony owned Detention Centers. Supporters of the ICE raids believe these raids help create jobs for American Citizens. They believe the small towns will return to their visions of Mayberry, a lily-white fairy tale that was not real to begin with. Instead, these raids create devastation for the workers and for the towns. A primary example: The Town of Postville, Iowa:The citizens of Postville are angry at ICE and the mess they made when ICE raided their town in May, 2008. According to Mayor Bob Penrod, the town has been turned "topsy turvy" since hundreds of heavily armed federal immigration agents storm-swooped in a few months ago and raided its main employer, Agriprocessors, the nation's largest kosher meatpacking plant. "It makes a person feel kind of angry," Penrod says. "It's been nothing but a freaky nightmare since May."
At the time, the Postville raid was the largest workforce raid in U.S. history -- the start of a series of large raids across the country. Helicopters buzzed the town, an airplane circled it and agents canvassed the area. Another 300 undocumented workers who weren't at the plant at the time of the raid soon split town with their spouses and children, officials say. In essence, the town lost nearly a third of its residents in a matter of days. "When you have a raid like that, it's just beyond your recognition," Penrod says. "It was nothing like you ever dream of. Believe me. To me, they took a problem that needed a 22-caliber bullet and they dropped a nuclear bomb on us," says Aaron Goldsmith, a Hasidic Jew and former Postville city councilman. "They made a poster child out of Postville." Goldsmith says he believes immigration policy should be dealt with. But if federal officials wanted to correct the immigration situation in Postville, he says, they should've done it step-by-step, not with brute force. "They turned people into cattle," he says. "If they wanted to stop this problem, if they wanted to scare everybody away, all they had to do is go into Los Angeles, California and they could've taken out 1 million people in a day. But they don't because there's too much political clout. "So they go to a place where there's no political backbone. They go to a place where the government's willing to throw us to the dogs."
Down a picturesque tree-lined street off Lawler Street sits St. Bridget's Catholic Church whose pastor, Father Lloyd Paul Ouderkirk, is both soft-spoken and outspoken. It is his church that became a refuge for the town's immigrants the day of the raid and the weeks afterward. "They had attacked this town with a military-style raid -- brought in 900 immigration police to arrest 389 people. I mean, what is that other than a military raid on this town?" he says. Ouderkirk scans his church now, the sun beaming through stained-glass windows. "Can you just imagine all these pews here full of people, sleeping 300-400 people a night?"
Postville residents who spoke say those at Agriprocessors need to be punished if the allegations they face are true. But residents also say the debate over illegal immigration is far more complex than the rhetoric often heard over AM radio or cable TV. They say the Latino residents were productive members of the community who paid taxes, even if under false pretenses, and had been here for years, and that Agriprocessors is key to the survival of the town and region.
"If I had to say anything to anybody about the whole deal: Don't let it go so long that it becomes a huge problem," says Brian Gravel, the principal of Postville High School. But he adds, "Picking on a town of 2,500 people in northeast Iowa is not my idea of a naturalization or immigration policy. You can corner this one plant with federal agents and deport people. That's one way to do it, but that's a good way to ruin towns -- ruin a small northeast Iowa place."
Since that day in May, the Latino population has dwindled, replaced with the homeless, legal immigrants, refugees and legal visitors from countries including Somalia, the Pacific Islands, Russia, and many middle Eastern, non-Christian countries.
The vice president of Palau has journeyed thousands of miles to Postville and offered about 160 of his countrymen for the open jobs at Agriprocessors. Residents of the island nation can legally live and work indefinitely in the United States under a special arrangement with the U.S. government. Some from the Pacific island, where the average temperature year-round is 82 degrees, have already begun arriving. The rest will be coming soon, just in time for the frigid Iowa winter where temperatures dip below zero. Another 125 Somali Muslims, legally classified as refugees, have already moved in. Many have come via the Minneapolis area, as well as Illinois and Texas.
"All of the Somalis came here to work at the plant," says Abdi Hasan, who came to the United States from Somalia five months ago. "I came to look for a job here." He says they've been welcomed by the locals -- "no problems, no mistreatment, no nothing." Hasan gets paid $10 an hour at the "kill house" at Agriprocessors, he says. His only complaint: Not being allowed to say Muslim prayers while at work. "They don't allow it," he says. "That's a problem at times."
Mayor Penrod stands on the sidewalk outside his office. He looks out over Lawler Street, where big rigs rumble and cars freely move about. "What do I love about my city? I love the progress we've made," he says. But now, he says, "Everything is tension based. You can just sense the friction," he says. "I hope I'm wrong."
PART 2: "NOBODY CAN TELL ME TO SHUT UP!
"Nobody can tell me to shut up," says Rev. Lloyd Paul Ouderkirk, the pastor of St. Bridget's Catholic Church in the tiny town of Postville, Iowa. Ouderkirk is outraged at the way federal agents swooped into town and rounded up nearly 400 illegal immigrants on May 12 in a raid on the nation's largest kosher meatpacking plant, Agriprocessors. He's angry at the bosses of the plant who are accused of mistreating workers, including children, and using a workforce that the government contends was 75 percent illegal immigrants. And he's upset that Iowa Gov. Chet Culver and other top state officials haven't set foot in Postville since the raid left the town of 2,400 "bleeding to death." "I think every elected politician -- no exceptions -- should bow their heads in shame," Ouderkirk says. "Upset?! Yeah, I'm upset. I mean give me a break ... If the elected politicians couldn't do any better than this to come up with a good, just immigration law, they should hang their heads in shame."
Ouderkirk isn't the only one complaining. Mayor Bob Penrod said his town has been turned "topsy turvy" since the raid. He too wondered why he hasn't heard from the governor. "Basically all we wanted was some advice on how to deal with some of the situations that keep arising," Penrod says.
"This is no way as a democracy to treat people. I don't care if they are legal or illegal. You don't tear families apart like this," Ouderkirk says. "The women and children we're taking care of right now are no more criminal than people driving down the street breaking the speed limit"...Ouderkirk says he'll keep speaking his mind. He invites vocal opponents of illegal immigration to come to his church and "walk in the shoes" of the immigrants he's helping. He says he's "gotten hate letters like you wouldn't believe. If people have a right to spout off like that, then I have a right to speak in defense of these poor people," he says. "This is a free country. I have a right to speak what I believe in, and I have a right to speak up for poor people whose voice is being denied."
Reference:
In May, 2008, ICE raided the Agriprocessor´s plant in Postville, IA. At the time, it was the biggest ICE raid in U.S. History. The city of Postville was in an uproar. They did not ask for the raid. 
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