Big immigration raid in 2008 pushed the issue and made Iowa reporters do much more with it

Fermin Loyes was deported in the raid, but has reunited with
family in Postville. (Photo: Kaitlyn Bernauer, The Gazette)

A federal raid of a meatpacking plant in the small town of Postville, Iowa, in 2008 may have been the catalyst for putting the need for immigration reform back in the national spotlight, and for creating a new breed of journalists who became experts at covering the immigration debate, especially from the human-interest point of view, Deron Lee reports for Columbia Journalism Review.

The raid led to the arrest of 400 workers, who were the victims of deplorable working conditions, and ended up getting caught in the justice system, where they were separated from their families, imprisoned, and deported. The raid decimated the town’s immigrant-heavy population, and its economy, Lee reports.

The raid also changed the way journalists covered immigration, reports Lee. "In a state with a small (though exponentially growing) immigrant population, reporters may not have felt the need to engage with immigration on a local level had Postville not lifted the veil on the shadow world of migrant laborers in the heartland." Jens Manuel Krogstad, who reported on the raid for the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier, and still covers Postville for The Des Moines Register, said “I think that was a springboard to a lot of immigration coverage.”

Apdullahi Hassan, in his Postville convenience
store, is one of many Somalis who have moved
to the area since the raid. (Bernauer photo)

Trish Mehaffey, who covered the fifth anniversary of the raid last month for The Gazette in Cedar Rapids, told Lee: “I think the Postville raid brought to light the fact that there needed to be changes, because it kind of ruined that town. It really opens your eyes to see how something like that can affect a whole community."

Journalists covering the scene also did something unusual, by interviewing the immigrants, Lee . What the reporters came away with was stories that turned stats and figures into real people with real stories. "The inherent difficulty in reporting on unauthorized immigrants is that most don’t want to be seen," Lee wrotes. "But when opportunities have arisen to talk to undocumented workers . . . Iowa reporters have taken the initiative." (Read more)