Nathaniel Popper
By Nathaniel Popper
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News After Jail, Agriprocessors Workers Face a Difficult Journey
Postville, Iowa — When Gabriel Calicio was released from prison, five months after being arrested on immigration charges at the nation’s largest kosher slaughterhouse, his only possession was the prison-issued blue jumpsuit he was wearing. Calicio, 23, was one of 389 people arrested during an immigration raid at the Agriprocessors slaughterhouse here six months ago….
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News Fresh Out of Prison With No Means of Support, Agriprocessors Workers Tell Their Stories
See an updated version of this story here. Postville, Iowa — When Gabriel Calicio was released from prison, five months after being arrested on immigration charges at the nation’s largest kosher slaughterhouse, his only possession was the prison-issued blue jumpsuit he was wearing. Calicio, 21, was one of 389 people arrested during an immigration raid…
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Fast Forward Nobel Laureate Rigoberta Menchu To Visit Postville
On the edge of Postville visitors are greeted by a sign advertising the Iowa town as the birthplace of 1946 Nobel Peace Prize winner John Mott. This weekend, the town will play host to a more recent winner of the prize, the Guatemalan indigenous leader Rigoberta Menchu. Menchu is coming to the rural corner of…
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News Shelves Empty as Three Plants Stop Beef Production
Postville, Iowa — In developments that are already crippling the availability of kosher beef in large parts of America, three of the nation’s five largest slaughterhouses producing kosher beef halted production in the first week of November. All eyes have been on the nation’s largest kosher slaughterhouse, here in Iowa, which stopped producing beef last…
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News Agriprocessors’ Bankruptcy Leaves Iowa Town Flailing
Postville, Iowa — In the days before the nation’s largest kosher meat company filed for bankruptcy, the company’s slaughterhouse here in northeast Iowa gradually shut down its operations, leaving angry workers without salaries or places to live, and animals caged and dying. Around town, men and women who had come to work at the Agriprocessors…
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News Agriprocessors Files for Bankruptcy
The kosher meat company Agriprocessors filed for bankruptcy on Tuesday after a week in which the company was hit with massive fines, lawsuits and arrests. Agriprocessors, which had its primary slaughterhouse in Postville, Iowa, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in federal bankruptcy court in New York claiming that it was unable to pay millions…
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News Third Kosher Slaughterhouse Halts Production, Heightening Worries About Meat Shortage
POSTVILLE, Iowa — In developments that are likely to cripple the availability of kosher beef in large parts of America, three of the five largest slaughterhouses producing kosher beef have halted production this week. All eyes have been on the nation’s largest kosher slaughterhouse, in Postville, Iowa, which stopped producing beef last week due to…
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News Slaughterhouse’s Woes Leave Plant’s Diverse Workforce Idle
Postville, Iowa — This past weekend, everywhere you went in this normally industrious Iowa city, there were groups of men sitting around with nothing to do, plotting how to skip town. A group of Somali refugees who, until this week, had worked for the kosher meat producer Agriprocessors, were eating a meal at Postville’s Mexican…
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