Led by 43 women with electronic tracking bracelets on their ankles, hundreds of people from around the country marched down main street in Postville, Iowa, yesterday to protest the biggest immigration raid in US history at Agriprocessors, the largest kosher meat plant in the US. 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 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.

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.

In the 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.

(Source: Associated Press)