270 Illegal Immigrants Sent To Prison In Unprecedented Crackdown

May 24, 2008

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270 Illegal Immigrants Sent To Prison In Unprecedented Crackdown In temporary courtrooms at a fairgrounds here, 270 illegal immigrants were sentenced this week to five months in prison for working at a meatpacking plant in Iowa with false documents. The prosecutions, which ended Friday, signal a sharp escalation in the Bush administration's crackdown on illegal workers, with prosecutors bringing tough federal criminal charges against most of the immigrants arrested in a May 12 raid.

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Cassandra57 4 years 51 weeks

I agree that the company executives should be facing jail time. Mere fines are not sufficient deterrent. I believe I remarked a while back about the conditions many of these people are working in. Anytime you have an unseen subculture, they're prone to victimization. By stopping illegal immigration, we could eliminate these sad stories. Also, every one of those $7 an hour jobs should be a $15 an hour professional unionized American job. UnDave: Great comment! Those people should be given physicals and any needed treatment at the company's expense before they are deported.

Kimpossible 4 years 51 weeks

I'm sure this would be a difficult task to accomplish but it sure would be nice if we could do something about the blackmarket paperwork that the illegals are getting, and the people supplying it to them.

stephley 4 years 51 weeks

The Washington Post noted, "federal immigration authorities arrested nearly four times as many people at workplaces in 2007 as they did in 2005 ... only 92 owners, supervisors or hiring officials were arrested in an economy that includes 6 million companies that employ more than 7 million unauthorized workers. Only 17 firms faced criminal fines or other forfeitures." Raids are little more than an inconvenience to employers, who have little incentive to improve working conditions when they can always hire a new, equally exploitable, work force.

flutterpie 4 years 51 weeks

they strenghtened and enforced the laws for businesses who hire illegal immigrants, threatening them with fines and with loss of their business license, which caused many businesses to stop hiring them. arizona has seen a significant reduction in their immigrant population.

UnDave35 4 years 51 weeks

What is Arizona doing?

flutterpie 4 years 51 weeks

it irritates me that this administration is "cracking down" on the people who want a decent life for themselves and not the people exploiting them. i love the way arizona is dealing with the problem and why we are not nationalizing that solution is beyond me.

stephley 4 years 51 weeks

And some of it's kosher.

raciccarone 4 years 51 weeks

We must also check to see if they are hiding any meat on their persons when we deport them. That is our meat!

UnDave35 4 years 51 weeks

I agree Kim, with one addition. We need to make sure the illegals that they found are in good health before we return them. Let's make sure any health problems that their working caused are taken care of.

Kimpossible 4 years 51 weeks

I really don't see why the illegals should be imprisoned. Send them back to their country or let them try to become legal citizens. The company should be the one facing charges imo.

stephley 4 years 51 weeks

No, it doesn't. It's just incredibly sad to me.

CitizenSugar 4 years 51 weeks

Thanks for the info Stephley! Yikes. It doesn't sound too far from a modern-day The Jungle does it?

stephley 4 years 51 weeks

The company hasn't been charged yet, but look - over two years ago, they knew they had hired questionable workers From Wikipedia "In September 2005, the company’s employees voted to join the United Food and Commercial Workers union. When the company refused to bargain, the union filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board. The company claimed that most of those who voted are undocumented aliens, arguing that undocumented aliens are prohibited from unionizing because they do not qualify as “employees” protected by the National Labor Relations Act." No union and undocumented aliens meant savings for the company: Philadelphia Jewish Voice (it was originally a kosher business) "But a tour of the mobile homes and cramped apartments just outside town, where AgriProcessors' immigrant workers live, quickly shifts a visitor's attention to a more striking concern: the impoverished humans who do the factory's dirty work. One of those workers - a woman who agreed to be identified by the pseudonym Juana - came to this rural corner of Iowa a year ago from Guatemala. Since then, she has worked 10-to-12-hour night shifts, six nights a week. Her cutting hand is swollen and deformed, but she has no health insurance to have it checked. She works for wages, starting at $6.25 an hour and stopping at $7, that several industry experts described as the lowest of any slaughterhouse in the nation."

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