Former Iowa slaughterhouse supervisor: Workers given resident cards before immigration raid

Supervisor: Plant workers given immigration cards

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — A former kosher slaughterhouse supervisor has testified the plant scrambled to get workers new identification documents the night before a massive immigration raid.

Former Agriprocessor’s supervisor Carlos Guerrero-Espinoza says managers provided new permanent resident cards to 20 employees and had them fill out new applications the night before the May 2008 raid at the Iowa plant in which nearly 400 workers were arrested. Guerrero-Espinoza says the cards were fraudulent and manufactured in Minneapolis a week before the raid.

His testimony came Thursday in the third week of former manager Sholom Rubashkin’s federal trial on 91 financial fraud charges.

Prosecutors have been introducing alleged immigration violations into evidence over the protests of the defense team.