ICE takes 300 to National Cattle Congress Fairgrounds

Photo by Jeff Raasch, Cedar Rapids Gazette


The name of the new detention center in Iowa is symbolic of how undocumented people are being treated these days. Weren't cattle cars used to transport people to concentration camps in Germany during WWII?


The Gazette has a number of articles on the raid, including one on how the local fairgrounds were turned into a detention center:

"A sign on a chain-link fence near one entrance reads, "Consulate and Interpreter Entrance." A Federal Protective Service command center truck with satellites attached to the roof is parked on the site. The raid comes after immigration rights activists said they feared the National Cattle Congress fairgrounds in Waterloo may have been converted into a detention center. Those concerns were prompted by an announcement last week that federal officials have leased the fairgrounds through May 25."

The government said earlier this month that it leased the fairgrounds for a training exercise."

for complete article on the National Cattle Congress fairgrounds turned ICE detention center click here.

---

Postville raid is 'the largest of its kind in Iowa'

The Gazette

POSTVILLE - More than 300 people here have already been arrested in what is being called the largest operation of its kind in Iowa, federal officials said this afternoon.

At 10 a.m., Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents entered Agriprocessors, Inc., as part of an ongoing investigation and to execute criminal search warrants for aggravated identify theft, fraudulent use of Social Security numbers and other crimes, as well as a civil search warrant to find people living illegally in the United States.

At a 2 p.m. news conference in Cedar Rapids, ICE spokesman Tim Counts said most of the arrests so far are for administrative immigration violations, although more information about the identities and jobs of those arrests are not being released at this time.

Those arrested are being held in Estel Hall at the National Cattle Congress grounds in Waterloo, until at least Wednesday night, he said. Estel Hall, also known as Cedar Valley Expo, serves as the grounds’ merchant showroom...

for complete Gazette article, click here