A Tale of Two Villages
"By the time Willian Toj reached El Rosario, news of his arrival had spread and most of the Guatemalan village had gathered to welcome him back in gloomy silence.
Friends and relatives comforted him as he returned to his shack with his family in tow. Like Toj, others from El Rosario had left the village to find work in the United States. Many were supporting entire families by wiring money home from one small town in the American Midwest. They too would soon be deported, penniless and laden with debt.
On May 12, 2008 U.S. Federal agents arrested nearly 400 undocumented workers in a raid on Agriprocessors Inc., the country's largest kosher meatpacking plant in Postville, a small farming town in northeastern Iowa.
It was one of the largest single roundups in U.S. immigration history and dramatic images flashed across the nation as workers were led out in chains. The plant's management was jailed on charges ranging from harboring illegal workers to bank fraud.
Meanwhile, up a winding dirt road in Guatemala, an economic disaster was unfolding."
GREG BROSNAN and JENNIFER SZYMASZEK for PBS Frontline World - Rough Cut.