New hires bring new problems to Postville
"Ten weeks after the largest workplace immigration raid in U.S. history, this is the new Postville: Drunken brawls. A food pantry that is almost bare. Women afraid to walk alone at night.
Postville is now home to hundreds of men and women from tough towns and tough lives, brought to this northeast Iowa community by recruiters who entered homeless shelters in dusty Texas border towns offering $15 and a one-way bus ticket.
The impact is evident: New laborers are changing Postville. The Agriprocessors Inc. meatpacking plant, the site of the immigration raid, once employed men and women with families. Now, its workers are mostly young, single people with no stake in the community and nothing to lose."
NIGEL DUARA in the Des Moines Register.