July 27, 2008
FAIR
American citizens and legal immigrants will be in Postville, Iowa, this Sunday, July 27, to demonstrate their support for recent efforts to crackdown on employers who hire illegal aliens. Postville was the site of largest enforcement action to-date by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) at a meat processing plant that employed hundreds of illegal aliens and was engaging in other criminal activities, including document fraud.
The rally in support of ICE's stepped-up enforcement activities will counter demonstrations planned by supporters of illegal immigration. In addition to Iowans, supporters of immigration enforcement will travel to Postville from Illinois, Minnesota Michigan, Wisconsin and New Jersey.
"We will be there on Sunday to show that millions of Americans who work hard and play by the rules applaud efforts to finally enforce our nation's immigration laws," said Susan Tully, national field director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). FAIR is the nation's largest immigration reform organization, with some 250,000 members nationwide.
"It has been the long-term failure of the government to enforce laws against employing illegal aliens that has led wanton disregard for our laws. More importantly, mass illegal immigration has undermined the ability of many American families to find jobs at wages that allow them to support their own families, and has forced millions more Americans to subsidize illegal workers and their employers with their tax dollars," stated Tully. "The American public has waited far too long for ICE to finally begin taking worksite enforcement seriously and, by our presence in Postville, we hope to demonstrate that we want to see such efforts increased, not ended."
Those who will be protesting against immigration enforcement complain falsely that ICE actions, such as the one in Postville, are targeted only at the illegal immigrants themselves, and not the unscrupulous businesses that employ them. "Our aim is to demonstrate public support for vigorous prosecution of employers who, in addition to violating laws against hiring illegal aliens, engage in other sorts of reprehensible and criminal activities," Tully noted. "Those who were here illegally need to return home and build their own communities, and those who exploit illegal labor and impose burdens on American taxpayers should be sent to prison."
The demonstration in favor of ICE enforcement is scheduled to get underway at 1 pm at the Postville City Hall at 145 S. Lawler Street. Susan Tully will be in Postville on Sunday to coordinate the demonstration in support of the ICE enforcement efforts. She will be available to speak to the media to present the pro-enforcement viewpoint.
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The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) is a national, nonprofit, public-interest, membership organization of concerned citizens who share a common belief that our nation's immigration policies must be reformed to serve the national interest. FAIR seeks to improve border security, to stop illegal immigration, and to promote immigration levels consistent with the national interestmore traditional rates of about 300,000 a year.
