Small towns worry that they could be the next in a string of immigration raids in the US

Recent immigration raids across the United States are leaving some towns in fear that they could be next.  A recent raid in Postville, Iowa led to the arrest of nearly 400 illegal immigrants working at a local meatpacking plant.  200 miles away another small town called Perry is waiting for their turn.

The small town of Perry has a population that is made up of about 25 per cent Hispanics.    The increased immigration to the town was brought on by a meatpacking plant which employs about 1200 workers from Perry. 

Today Tyson Foods owns the meatpacking plant today.  The Spokesman for Tyson Foods, Gary Mickelson, said "We have zero tolerance for employing people who are not authorized to work in the U.S. and use all available tools provided by the U.S. government to verify the documents of the people we hire."  This has some of the fears of the town's people worrying that they might lose a large percentage of their population which could cripple the town economically. 

Resident of Perry, Angelica Cardenas, said "We are more vulnerable now.  There is always fear of something like this, but with these raids, we know now it's real."

Rosa Gonzalez with the group Hispanics United for Perry spoke about how the Hispanic population was dealing with the threat of immigration raids.  "You can see that people are more scared in general.  Some of them, they don't even tell you directly but people don't go outside like they used to and things like that," she said.

www.ice.gov