At least 300 people were arrested Monday on immigration and identity theft charges at Agriprocessors, one of the USA’s largest packing plants for kosher meats.
Agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement entered the Agriprocessors complex in this northeast Iowa community of 2,500 during morning work hours, executing warrants for fraudulent use of others’ Social Security numbers in connection with their employment at the plant. The packing plant has attracted workers from Mexico, Russia, Ukraine and elsewhere.
Nathaniel Popper, a journalist who has written about Agriprocessors for The Jewish Daily Forward, based in New York, said the raid could disrupt the supply of kosher meat.
“This could have a big impact on the supply of kosher meat in America,” Popper said in an interview. “Over the next several days, that’s going to be the big question for people in the Jewish community who keep kosher.”
Those arrested were being held at a fairgrounds in Waterloo, Iowa, and in local jails. A total of 16 local, state and federal agencies, led by ICE, joined the investigation that began last October. They include the U.S. Marshals Service, the Iowa Department of Public Safety, the FBI, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the federal Drug Enforcement Agency.
According to an affidavit, “approximately 76% of the 968 employees of Agriprocessors were using false or fraudulent Social Security numbers in connection with their employment.”
Chuck Larson, a truck driver for Agriprocessors, was in the plant when the agents arrived. “There had to be 100 of them,” he said of the agents.
Larson said the agents told workers to stay in place, then separated them by asking those with identification to stand to the right and those with other papers to stand to the left.
“There was plenty of hollering,” Larson said. “You couldn’t go anywhere.”
When asked who was separated, Larson said those standing in the group with other papers were all Hispanic.