Justice Department's Conduct at Postville, IA, Challenged

The Justice Department's swift prosecution of undocumented workers at Postville, IA, has been challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union as a denial of basic rights of the immigrants. It seems the department prepared and distributed a manual that scripted a process for quick prosecution -- even to how the judge would respond to questions. (See LA Times article.)

. . . A KOSHER JUNGLE
The New Times editorially raised another unfairness in the Postville incident -- that the Bush administration had dragged its feet on workers' complaints of safety and labor violations at the raided plant while swiftly moving against the undocumented workers. Some Jewish activists that joined the protest at Postville (See posting for July 28, 2006.) have come to call the plant "a kosher Jungle" after Upton Sinclair's description of the Chicago stock yards a hundred years ago.