Trump speaking at 2008 immigration raid detention site in Waterloo Saturday
National Cattle Congress fairgrounds were used to hold detainees from Postville packinghouse raid; Trump commuted manager's fraud sentence with bipartisan support.
WATERLOO —Former President Donald Trump coincidentally will hold a rally Saturday afternoon at a former detention site of one of the largest workplace immigration raids in U.S. history.
He will be speaking at 1:30 p.m. at the National Cattle Congress fairgrounds, which were used as a detention and adjudication area for most of 389 undocumented immigrant workers taken into custody during the May 2008 immigration raid at Agriprocessors, a kosher meatpacking plant in Postville.
Immigration remains an issue in the current 2024 election campaign. Former President Trump remains a staunch advocate of secure borders.
The 2008 Postville raid was conducted during President George W. Bush's administration by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. It was the largest workplace immigration raid in U.S. history up to that time.
Exhibition buildings, including the Hippodrome, formerly known as McElroy Auditorium, were used to house male detainees; women were housed in local jails and the NCC’s Electric Park Ballroom was set up as a federal courtroom by the U.S. District Court for the northern district of Iowa.
Federal officials rented the fairgrounds for the month of May 2008 but were actually there about 2 1/2 weeks. While it was closed to the public during most of that time, an annual car show went on as previously scheduled while federal officials were still on site.
Many of those who were detained received prison sentences, typically of five months, and were deported. The plant manager and CEO of Agriprocessors, Sholom Rubashkin, was charged with 93 counts of immigration violations; those were dropped, and he was also acquitted of 67 child labor violations, He was eventually convicted on 86 counts of separate financial fraud charges resulting from the overall investigation and sentenced to 27 years in prison.
Rubashkin’s prison sentence was commuted to time served -- about eight years --- by President Trump in 2017, following bipartisan pleas from numerous officials and lawmakers, ranging from Republican U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch to House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, that the sentence was too harsh.
Trump administration officials emphasized that neither Rubashkin’s criminal convictions nor a $26 million restitution obligation were vacated.
A former prosecutor in the case said the administration and leniency advocates were misinformed, while Rubashkin’s attorney said justice had been served by the commutation. The Postville plant was sold in 2009 and is now Agri-Star Meat and Poultry
Protests of the 2008 raid on humanitarian grounds were held at that time outside the NCC fairgrounds, at the plant in Postville and a prayer service for the detainees and their families was held at Queen of Peace Catholic Church in Waterloo, which serves a large part of the Cedar Valley’s Latino population.
The NCC fairgrounds have been used for several political rallies since the Postville raid. Another former president, Bill Clinton, appeared there in 2016 on behalf of his wife and Trump’s 2016 election opponent, Democratic nominee and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, a candidate for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, also held an event there in 2019 prior to the Feb. 3, 2020 Iowa caucuses.
Pat Kinney is a freelance writer and former longtime news staffer with the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier and, prior to that, several years at the Ames Tribune. He is currently an oral historian with the Grout Museum District in Waterloo. His “View from the Cedar Valley” column is part of “Iowa Writers Collaborative,” a collection of news and opinion writers from around the state who previously and currently work with a host of Iowa newspapers, news organizations and other publications. They are listed below. Clink on the links to check them out, subscribe for free - and, if you believe in the value of quality journalism, support this column and/or any of theirs with a paid subscription .
The Iowa Writers’ Collaborative
Pat, good catch on this story. The former president’s speech today at the NCC facilities gave you the opportunity to reflect on a moment of important and dubious Iowa history -- the Postville immigration raid. The biggest lesson from that raid probably is that reasonable people should ALWAYS question the actions of US Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE). It is an agency that has been horribly politicized & militarized.