Pork for Postville: Tom Harkin helped Agriprocessors stay in business

Four years ago, senator Tom Harkin - Democrat of Iowa - helped get an exemption for the Agriprocessors plant in Postville, without which they might have gone out of business. This year, that company was the subject of a major immigration raid and has subsequently been charged with over 9000 child labor law violations. And, it's not like that was much of a surprise to those in the area.

The money, nearly $8 million, came from an environmental program from which Agriprocessors normally would have been disqualified. The grant and loan were used to build a sewage-treatment plant that serves only the meatpacker.

The environmental program, run by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is designed to help small towns improve their sewage systems. The new sewage-treatment plant is technically owned by Postville, but it doesn't serve the town's residents. Department administrators say that fact usually would have prevented it from receiving money from the program. But Harkin, an Iowa Democrat, used his influence to exempt the project from those rules in 2004.

"It was a sleight of hand on this deal," said Jerry Anderson, a Drake University law professor and Agriprocessors critic. "We thought it was a misuse of the law."

Comments

9000 child labor law violations and only 8 million? so what was this guy doing? eating the kids? or just working the kids day and night until one falls into the oven? or cooking pot? We need a new government that will follow laws and do the job, but that is only a dream i had last night. Under Obama all laws will just disappear and the owners can make money and be happy.

In the case of Postville, I certainly support it. Was it a huge expense? Sure. But it was a company and town that cooperated in using illegal labor to gain monetary profit. The owners of the company are known criminals, and the town benefited from money spent by the illegals. It's fair and reasonable that both the town and the company suffer. It's not like the folks in that town weren't aware of what was going on. The thing is, the immigrants aren't really at fault here. You can't blame someone for taking a risk to better his life. On the other hand, we do need a bar to entry set at a level such that only the brightest and most enterprising individuals are able to successfully penetrate of borders. That's pretty much what we have now. As for demonizing Tom Harkin for promoting the use of government funds for the sewage plant - tough call. It's understandable that he would be aggressive in trying to avoid the town's largest employer from going under. A lot depends on what he knew about the company. Even if he were fully aware of the misconduct of the company officers, that doesn't necessarily preclude government intervention. Immigration reform/enforcement/whatever isn't really a conservative/liberal conflict as much as it is a difference in how people view immigration as a whole. Some people just don't like the idea of anyone being able to get into the US. Others want to drop the borders entirely. The first is shortsighted at best - the latter is naive. Oh, and Fred Dawes - what are you thinking? "all laws will just disappear and the owners can make money and be happy" That's the neocon mantra - their goal. You don't even make sense.