Boy recounts experience of raid in Iowa

Boy recounts experience of raid in Iowa
The Associated Press
Thursday, November 20th 2008

CHICAGO — Pedro Arturo Lopez was in social studies class when the 13-year-old undocumented boy from Mexico heard the unusual thudding of a helicopter above his small Iowa town.

Moments later Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents stormed the Agriprocessors Inc. meat processing plant where his mother worked up to 16-hour shifts cutting beef.

With tears running down his cheeks, Lopez said Tuesday at a Chicago immigration symposium that he was anxious and worried because he did not know what would happen to his mother.

"That day, I sometimes dream it and it's horrible," Lopez said. "It's one of those things that's gonna haunt me."

The effects of the May 12 raid in Postville, Iowa, one of the largest in U.S. history, was the main topic of discussion at the symposium at DePaul University's College of Law.

Experts and activists said the negative effects of immigration raids ripple in communities across the country and pointed to recent examples in Chicago's predominantly Mexican Little Village neighborhood.

Raids are "inhumane and immoral," said Julie Santos, a Midwest spokeswoman for the League of United Latin American Citizens. "This is the impact of broken laws."

http://www.nydailynews.com/latino/2008/11/20/2008-11-20_boy_recounts_experience_of_raid_in_iowa_.html