‘Immigration’

Government asserts that Rubashkin aided flight of Agriprocessors co-worker to Israel
U.S. District Court Chief Judge Linda R. Reade has ordered that the Iowa meatpacking manager found guilty on 86 counts of fraud and money laundering will remain behind bars.

Sholom Rubashkin won’t be heading back to court to face 72 counts of immigration-related charges after all.

Critics of the massive immigration raid in Postville and the subsequent judicial fast-tracking of detained immigrants on criminal charges have been widely expressing their concerns about Stephanie Rose, the U.S. Attorney nominee for the Northern District of Iowa who took part in the legal proceedings. While U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin has already labeled such criticism [...]

The Iowa Independent has been tracking the nomination of Stephanie Rose for U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Iowa for months, but now national media outlets have jumped into the act.

A jury in Sioux Falls, S.D., returned to the courtroom late Thursday afternoon and delivered judgment on former Agriprocessors manager Sholom M. Rubashkin: Guilty on 86 of 91 possible counts.

Rubashkin, who is the 50-year-old son of company founder and president A. Aaron Rubashkin, was convicted of all possible money laundering and mail, wire and bank fraud charges. He was also convicted on 15 out of 20 counts of failing to provide timely pay to livestock auctions and providers.

Speaking to members of an anti-immigration group over the weekend, GOP gubernatorial candidate Christian Fong made efforts to compare the actions of Chinese communists in the mid-20th Century to those of President Barack Obama.

Although the net loss figures presented to U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley by Iowa dairy families last Friday were shocking, the fact that the families wanted to discuss their non-existent revenues with an elected official was expected. The same couldn’t be said, however, for the subsequent discussion about comprehensive immigration reform.

According to a spokeswoman in the advertising department of The Sioux Falls Argus-Leader, the newspaper has not run or yet been requested to run any ad copy paid for by “Friends of Sholom Rubashkin.”
Rubashkin, the former day-to-day executive at the Agriprocessors meatpacking plant in Postville, recently had his federal trial moved from Iowa to Sioux [...]

The Senate finance panel just shot down an amendment to the committee’s health reform bill that would have required beneficiaries of Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program to show a photo ID in order to enroll. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the senior Republican on the Finance Committee and sponsor of the proposal, said the [...]

A video featuring Rosa Weiss, daughter of Sholom Rubashkin, is circulating throughout the Jewish community in an effort to raise funds to offset legal fees associated with the case that stemmed from the May 2008 Agriprocessors immigration raid.