by Jens Krogstad Sun Jul 27, 2008

POSTVILLE, Iowa, (AFP) - Led by 43 women with electronic tracking bracelets on their ankles, hundreds of people from around the country marched down main street here Sunday to protest the biggest immigration raid in US history at a kosher meat plant that has split this tiny Iowa town asunder.

Released from jail so they can take care of their families, the 43 women out front were among 390 mainly Guatemalan and Mexican workers arrested by federal agents May 12 at the Agriprocessors meat factory and charged with identity theft.

It was the biggest raid on a workplace in US history, as part of the government's crackdown on illegal immigration, a hot-button issue nationally three months ahead of the US presidential election.

The demonstrators marched through Postville's tree-lined streets past Jewish stores and Mexican restaurants, drowning out the shouts of about 100 anti-immigration protesters with chants of "No more raids!"

The arrests have torn families apart, devastated local businesses, especially those serving Hispanics, and left what was before the raid the country's largest kosher meat processing plant operating at only 50 percent capacity.

Maria Laura Gomez, a former plant worker, has looked after her nephew for months while her mother sits in prison.

"My prayer is the words here today will be heard in the halls of power," she said. "I see the pain in my nephew's eyes when he visits his mother in jail."

The protest is not only directed against the anti-immigration movement, but also the meat plant itself, which over the years has left a long trail of workplace safety and environmental violations, including amputations and spilling 40,000 gallons of turkey blood into a nearby stream.

Hundreds from the Jewish communities of Chicago and Minneapolis drove for hours to Postville to publicly decry the plant's owners, who are accused of abusing the workers.

Before the march, which snaked its way to the main entrance of the plant, religious leaders held a prayer vigil in English, Spanish and Hebrew.

Listening to the service on loudspeakers with an overflow crowd on the lawn of Postville's Catholic church, Abbey Romanek, from Chicago, said the plant is a black eye on her Jewish faith.

"I'm embarrassed and ashamed at the way Agriprocessors has treated its workers," she said. "I don't think its kosher meat. I think they're pulling a farce on the Jews of this country."

Two supervisors at the meat plant have been arrested, and the plant's owners remain under investigation.

An estimated 12 million illegal immigrants inside the United States has become a key issue for Democratic and Republican White House contenders Barack Obama and John McCain.

Both are wooing the vote of the legal Hispanic community of about 45 million people, or 15 percent of the US population.

In this small but extraordinarily diverse town of 2,300, the crackdown has less to do with votes than with the fragile social fabric.

Although illegal, the workers and their families were an important segment of the community.

School officials anticipate many empty seats when classes resume in the fall, with students' mothers and fathers now in jail.

Town leaders said that legal workers have meanwhile taken over the vacant jobs, but many are single men with no ties to the community.

And the Postville police said the town's relatively quiet evenings are a thing of the past. Now, they regularly respond to calls of public intoxication and drunken brawls on Friday nights.

"The Hispanic families are the ones who make our community and our schools," said Postville Mayor Robert Penrod.