Wednesday was a difficult day for The American Independent News Network, which is the larger entity that operates The Iowa Independent. Our chief executive and founder announced two of our sister sites would close and their content would be moved to The American Independent.
A recently introduced bill could have far-reaching impact on the U.S. sugar industry, including American Crystal Sugar, a farmer-owned cooperative that locked out 1,300 Midwest workers on Aug. 1.
The chairman for Herman Cain’s Iowa effort says the campaign “relied more on the word of farmers than Washington regulators” in deciding to run an ad containing claims the Environmental Protection Agency says are false.
The Iowa Senate will remain under the control of a slim 26-25 Democratic majority when it reconvenes in January 2012.
Postville Mayor Bob Penrod is speaking out to the national media about what the May 12 immigration enforcement action at Agriprocessors meant to his community, and what it didn’t.
“It makes a person feel kinda angry,” Penrod told Wayne Drash of CNN. “It’s been nothing but a freaky nightmare since May.”
It’s a sentiment with which Aaron Goldsmith, a Jewish resident of Postville and former city councilman, agrees.
“They turned people into cattle,” he said. “If they wanted to stop this problem, if they wanted to scare everybody away, all they had to do is go into Los Angeles and they could’ve taken out 1 million people in a day. But they don’t because there’s too much political clout.”
Goldsmith’s words echo the feelings of several who believe the location was chosen not because it was a huge blight, but because federal authorities saw an opportunity to “test drive” a new immigration enforcement technique — one that saw most of those detained quickly facing and then convicted of criminal charges. Such beliefs have been whispered in and around Postville in the months following the raid, but have become louder in the wake of an essay by one of the translators brought into Iowa to help with the criminal court proceedings.
“They would not have been able to do this — at least would not have been able to do this without massive public outcry — in other parts of the United States,” said Amelia Steiner, as she prepared to walk the streets of Postville in protest of the immigration action. “I came here today from Chicago. I would have came immediately after the raid, but by the time I learned about what was going on, it was too late. Postville was not ever intended to be an example. It was considered a safe haven for an experiment that will now go foward.”
Tim Counts, a spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, told Iowa Independent such beliefs are not reality.
“Why Postville?” Counts echoed the question in a telephone interview. “I can answer that for you right now. We go where the evidence leads. We go where there is a problem.”
In an earlier interview with Iowa Independent, Penrod was asked the same question, “Why Postville?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “To be honest, we’ve had so much on our plates that I really haven’t had time to think about it.”
The report from CNN highlights much of what Iowa Independent and other local media outlets have been reporting for the past six months. The Postville economy has been altered. Crime rates have increased. Tensions have escalated as new workers are brought into the kosher plant to fill the void.
What remains unknown — and will forever remain unknown — is if the investigations into conditions at Agriprocessors by other federal authorities had been allowed to continue without interruption, if the problems at the plant could have been resolved without such a devastating impact on the community.
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