WATERLOO --- A Guatemalan immigrant said he started working at a kosher meatpacking plant without having to show any documents or even fill out an application.
Candido Alredo Marroquin Argueta said he was 17 when he got his job at Agriprocessors in Postville in 2007.
Former Agriprocessors executive Sholom Rubashkin is on trial for 83 counts of misdemeanor child labor violations in Black Hawk County District Court. He already has been convicted of federal fraud charges in connection with loans to the company and is awaiting sentencing.
Marroquin told jurors Thursday that he had been working at Agriprocessors' chicken and turkey kill for about three months before he was told he needed documents.
He said he worked 3 p.m. to 3 a.m. and part of his assignment was to work next to a rabbi who slaughtered the birds.
"They would kill them and then they would send them to me," Marroquin said through an interpreter. He said he hung the birds on overhead clips.
He said his father later learned he was working at the plant and tried to get him to quit.
His testimony about the hiring procedure was contrasted by statements from a another immigrant who said officials at the plant first turned him down.
Noe Castillo Ordonez said he showed company officials his forged documents, but they could see he was too young and rejected his application. He said he tried again to get a job at the plant.
"I tried many times," Castillo said. He told jurors he couldn't remember how many times he tried and was turned away.
He said plant officials told him they would hire him if he could prove the date of birth on his immigration documents was real. He said he put his mother in charge of obtaining a bogus Guatemalan birth certificate.
"I asked my mother to obtain the false federal document," Castillo said. He said it came about a month later.
He said he submitted it and was hired.
Also on Thursday, another worker, Yukary Hernandez Gonzalez, said she was 15 when she started working in 2005 after coming to the U.S. from Mexico. She said she left for about two weeks because of illness but returned when she was 17 and was hired again. Both time she submitted fake ID cards.
Hernandez said she worked in a protective smock that was too big for her, and she recounted how the smock's sleeve once became stuck in the conveyor belt she was working.
She said a co-worker cut off the sleeve as her hand started turning purple.
The trial is continuing short one juror. The juror was excused after the court said a conflict arose. Court records show Waterloo police arrested the juror Tuesday night for misdemeanor marijuana charges.
EARLIER STORY:
WATERLOO --- Henry Lopez Calel said he was the hope of his family.
Born in Guatemala, he followed his father to the United States to find work and support relatives back in his home village of San Jose Calderas.
Lopez took the stand Thursday morning as the state continued its against former Argriprocessors executive Sholom Rubashkin. Rubashkin is charged with 83 counts of child labor violations in connection with the Postville plant.
Rubashkin is currently awaiting sentencing on federal fraud charges that were levied after immigration officials raided the plant in May 2008.
Lopez, who found work at Agriprocessors at the age of 14, described his village of about 100 homes in Central America.
"They are very poor people working with machetes, hoes, working the fields," Lopez said.
His father was the first member of his family to leave for the states, paying a "coyote" guide about $5,000, he told jurors. After some time, the father would come back to Guatemala to spend time with the family, returning to the U.S. when the money ran out.
On his father's third trip, in 2004, Lopez decided to go with because the family was "living so poorly."
Lopez was apprehended in Mexico and returned to Guatemala. Even though he failed to reach the U.S., the $5,000 debt to the coyote still stood.
Lopez told jurors the fee covered up to three attempts at the border, so he tried again and made it the second time. He said it cost another $500 to get from Texas to Postville.
When he arrived, it was $150 for forged work papers --- a resident alien card and a Social Security card. He said the ID claimed he was 18, just old enough to work at Agriprocessors.
Lopez described hauling 100-pound barrels of rejected turkey carcasses through the plant to throw them out. He was go from a hot area where he was sweating to a old area in his wet clothing.
"My clothes would freeze, and little by little my lungs would be damaged," he told jurors.
He missed work and was fired when he didn't return. That is when he went to school in Postville, finishing the eighth and ninth grade before dropping out a month into this sophomore year.
Please Wait…
Do you know, that on the application forms for medicad and food stamp in NY is states clearly in bold letters the the applicant should not be afraid to fill out the info, as the agency's are prohibited from shearing any of the info with ICE.
It's ok for them, but not for Rubashkin....
We live in a very fair country..
- is this in exchange for useful testimony? Isn't this come close to 'buying' a witness?
2:34 Jeff Reinitz: NOE CASTILLO ORDONEZ: when I applied at Agripros the first time, I didn't get the job bc they could see I was underage.
2:36 Jeff Reinitz: NOE CASTILLO ORDONEZ: (document said he was old enough) ... I applied the first time and they rejected and they said if I could prove I was that age I could work, so I got a falsified document from Guatemala. I asked my mom to take charge of that and she did. And then I got the job.
So the company policy was NOT to hire underage, they were just duped by all these false documents....