BY DICK McBRIDE
DES MOINES, Iowa - On February 7 agents of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) arrested 22 Latino workers on second shift at the Swift pork packinghouse in Marshalltown, Iowa, alleging they were working without visas. The agents were accompanied by Swift management. The Des Moines Register reported that Swift spokeswoman K.T. Miller said the company had been collaborating with the INS in fingering the workers who were arrested. The arrested workers were taken to Nebraska, where they were held pending hearings and deportation.

This raid followed a larger one of day shift Swift workers in Marshalltown last August, when the INS arrested 147 workers, and a raid of a Sioux City, Iowa, packing plant in January.

The Des Moines Register quoted Jerry Heinauer, the district INS director in Omaha, Nebraska, as saying that the immigration cops organized the more recent Swift raid because the August raid had only affected first shift workers. "Our policy," Heinauer stated, "after we target a plant for whatever reason, is to remove all illegals at that plant so whenever we're through, we can say it's free of illegal aliens and has a legal work force.... We're going back until we're confident there are no more illegal aliens."

The Marshalltown raid, reported on several television stations in the area, as well as local papers, evoked anger among many workers. Juan Sebastián Villago, a Swift worker since 1993, said that when the latest raid took place, around 150 workers hurriedly left work to avoid harassment, thereby losing their jobs. "Some of them jumped over the fence, leaving their equipment and uniforms behind them," Villago said. "So many people left that the company needed the first shift to stay over and work overtime."

Bonnie Sebastian, a teacher in Marshalltown who works with Mid-Iowa Community Action, told the Militant that when the August raid took place, workers who were arrested were not allowed to contact their baby-sitters, and had to abandon their children. She said that in Charles City, Iowa, when there was a rumor of an impending INS raid recently, some people pulled their children out of school, fearing they would be taken by government agents. "If people knew what they could do, I think a lot of people would protest," Sebastian said.

Dick McBride is a member of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1149 in Perry, Iowa.  
 
 
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