Somalis in Postville

A recent De Moines Register article reported that scores of people from Somalia have arrived in Postville, Iowa to work at the Agriprocessors plant that was recently raided. Most are young men who are filling the jobs vacated by hundreds of Guatemalan and Mexican workers seized May 12 in the largest single-site immigration raid in U.S. history.

However, this new development is not a new story in America's history books—we’ve seen one wave of immigrants brought in to replace another wave repeatedly throughout America's story. What’s also not new is that employers seem to think that if they have been able to abuse one group of workers, they can continue to abuse another group. The Des Moines Register reported that many Somalis felt they were lured to Postville with the promise of jobs, only to find that the company wasn’t paying what they said they would.

Posted by Pramila Jayapal on August 12th, 2008.